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A Woman's Life: 20th- (and 21st-) Century Memoirs by Women (English and FEMGEN 287G) English 287G Professor Terry Castle Winter Quarter 2018 Bldg. 20, room 21G Tu Th 9:30-11:20 [email protected] Office hours: to be announced and by apptmt. 1

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Page 1: A Woman's Life: 20th- (and 21st-) Century Memoirs … · Web viewA Woman's Life: 20th- (and 21st-) Century Memoirs by Women (English and FEMGEN 287G) English 287G Professor Terry

A Woman's Life: 20th- (and 21st-) Century Memoirs by Women (English and FEMGEN

287G) English 287G Professor Terry Castle Winter Quarter 2018 Bldg. 20, room 21G Tu Th 9:30-11:20 [email protected] Office hours: to be announced and by apptmt.

Course Description:

Why do so many women write memoirs? Why has the memoir form become such a popular genre for American women authors, in particular, especially since the turn of the millennium? What do such books reveal, more broadly, about the condition of women in contemporary society? Do we embrace or resist the 'voice' we hear in any given memoir? Can we judge the artistic value of a piece of female "life writing" without also judging the life or the choices the author has made? We will examine these and other timely questions by reading a range of now- (or soon to be) classic autobiographical works by Gertrude Stein, Audre Lorde, Patti Smith, Jeannette Walls, Sally Mann, Roxane Gay, and Alison Bechdel.

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Books:

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas—(Vintage Paperback)   By Gertrude Stein

Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs——(Paperback) by Sally Mann

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Paperback)

Zami; or, A New Spelling of My Name, a Bio-Mythography--by Audre Lorde (Paperback)

Just Kids by Patti Smith  (Paperback)

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel (Paperback)

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Paperback)

An advisory on course readings:

A few of the books that we will read this quarter touch on controversial and for some students possibly disturbing themes: child abuse, sexual abuse, suicide, mental health issues, racial conflict, lesbianism, pornography, eating disorders, and the like. If you feel that you won’t be able to engage--intellectually or emotionally--with certain books on the syllabus because of the sensitive topics addressed, I recommend that you speak to me first about your concerns. If your doubts persist, I suggest—upfront—that you consider not enrolling in the class. Needless to say, despite any difficult themes we may confront, the atmosphere in my class, I assure you, will be one in which every class member is treated with the utmost respect, and any differences of opinion will be entertained with good humor, kindness, and intellectual openness.

Requirements:

Undergraduates may take this course for 3 or 5 units. The requirements listed below are for students taking the course for 5 units. For 3 units of credit students will complete all of the same requirements with the exception of the Final Paper. Writing requirements will consist of blog posts solely. If you are taking the course for 3 units, I will ask you to provide revised copies of all your blog posts at the end of the course as a kind of Writing Portfolio. There is no final exam for this course.

1) Reading, Attendance, and Class Participation:

Students will complete all readings for the course according to the schedule below. 100% attendance is required; casual absences are not acceptable!

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(Students absent for any reason are expected to notify the instructor in advance.) More than one absence will affect your grade adversely! All students should be prepared to participate fully in every class discussion. Classroom participation will account for 20% of your final grade. (***Note: no incompletes will be given in this course except in authentic cases of illness or emergency***)

And, yes, it's a thing: As a courtesy to me and to your fellow students: may I also ask 1) that you not arrive late; and 2) that you turn off and put away all laptops and cellphones, etc. at the beginning of class?

2) Written Assignments:

a) We will have a Course Blog, to which each student will be asked to contribute 5-7 short 'glosses' or blog entries depending on the quarter schedule--i.e., one well- honed paragraph of writing on the reading assigned each week. ("Short" here means no more than 400 words.) The format for each entry will be this: the student will select and reproduce a paragraph or short section from the assigned reading that he or she finds particularly striking or puzzling or in some way illuminating. He or she will then ‘gloss’ it: that is, describe as succinctly and compellingly as possible why you thinks it's there, for starters, and how it works or what it does within the autobiographical narrative. Does it clarify or obscure something about the writer's experience? Why we should find it especially interesting or important? What kinds of critical questions and challenges does it pose, and indeed, how one might generate from it some more extended critical discussion or even essay topic? Issues highlighted can be thematic, stylistic, linguistic, formal, reception-oriented, or indeed anything else you find relevant and intriguing.

All blog entries will be shared with one’s classmates, and students asked to keep up with and even comment on one another’s entries. In class we will use these glosses as our discussion ‘prompts.’ Not only will they help us identify key themes and topics in the works under discussion, we’ll consider each gloss itself as a piece of concise critical rhetoric to be analyzed. I consider suggesting improve-ments for students' writing and style an essential part of my job as an English professor. (I also love it!) So don't be surprised if some of our discussions are occasionally technical: How well has the author conveyed the passages’s significance? What’s the author’s main point and how successfully does he or she get it across? Where, if any, are there weak points rhetorically speaking? Blog entries will make up 40% of your final grade.

b.) Final essay. Undergraduate students will write a final critical essay, 6-8 pp. in length on a topic of their own devising. Co-term and Ph.D. students will write a final critical essay 9-12 pp. in length, due date tk. Final paper will represent the remaining 40% of your grade.

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[N.B. My policy on late papers: for every day your draft or revised essay is late, the final grade will be reduced by a half-step (i.e., B to B-). Policy kicks in immediately, so papers will be due IN CLASS. If essays come in later that same day, the grade will automatically be reduced a half-step.]

And one last reminder/clarification: all students taking the class recognize that they will be obliged to share their short writing assignments (blog posts) with other students in the class, as well as the instructor. However, none of your writing will be shared without your permission with anyone other than your classmates and me. We will have a course blog, but it will be private.

Reading Schedule: See next page [exact daily page assignments to follow]

Week 1 Tues Jan 9 Introduction--Autobiography, confession, "memoirs," memoir, "life writing"

Thurs Jan 11 Stein, Autobiography of ABT

Week 2 Tues Jan 16 Stein, Autobiography First blog note due today!

Thurs Jan 18 Stein, Autobiography

Week 3 Tues Jan 23 Sally Mann, Hold Still 2nd blog note dueThurs Jan 25 Sally Mann, Hold Still

Week 4 Tues Jan 30 Sally Mann, Hold StillThurs Feb 1 Jeannette Walls, The

Glass Castle 3rd blog note due

Reading Schedule [exact daily page

assignments tk]

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Week 5 Tues Feb 6 Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

Thurs Feb 8 Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

4th blog note due

Week 6 Tues Feb 13 Audre Lorde, Zami

Thurs Feb 15 Patti Smith, Just Kids, begin reading

No Class! Professor Castle away

Week 7 Tues Feb 20 Patti Smith, Just Kids, 5th blog note dueThurs Feb 22 Patti Smith, Just Kids,

Week 8 Tues Feb 27 Bechdel, Are You My Mother?

6th blognote due

Thurs March 1 Bechdel, Are You My Mother?

Week 9 Tues March 6 Roxane Gay, Hunger 7th blog note

Thurs March 8 Roxane Gay, Hunger

Week 10 Tues March 13 Discussion of final papers

Thurs March 15th(Last class)

Conclusion FINAL ESSAY DUE TODAY!

Further information regarding this course and University policies and requirements--

Learning Outcomes:

This course may be used to fulfill one of the two following Ways of Thinking/Ways of Doing undergraduate requirements (though not both):

1) "Aesthetic and Interpretive Inquiry" requirement. With dedication and effort, students should expect to improve and extend their skills in several broad areas. In particular, students should be better able to.

1. appreciate the nature of human responses to meaningful cultural objects, and

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distinguish among the different methods to interpret those responses;

2 acquire and assess techniques of interpretation (including close reading techniques), criticism, and analysis of cultural texts, artifacts, and practices;

3. demonstrate facility with the analysis of arguments for and against different theories and interpretations;

4. recognize the frameworks for thought and action implicit in human practices, and analyze the different assumptions underpinning those frameworks;

5. understand diverse artistic, literary, and theoretical traditions, their characteristic forms of production, and/or their development across historical time;

6. understand how expressive works articulate responses to fundamental human problems

and convey important values.

2) The second is the "Creative Expression" requirement. (I make no distinction, obviously, between the creativity, vision, problem-solving, and verbal elegance needed to write a great critical essay or powerful blog note and what one finds in any other form of 'creative expression.') A good essay is indeed a work of art. Herewith the official 'learning outcomes' associated with this qrequirement. Students will

o explore their own potential to produce original creative projects;

o engage in artistic collaboration and the creative reinterpretation of art made by others;

o take creative risks beyond their comfort zones;

o experience what it is to make the unimagined possible and real;

o appreciate how experimentation, failure, and revision can play a valuable role in the creation of successful and innovative works;

o consider multiple and possibly divergent solutions to a problem;

o explore the role of artistic expression in addressing issues that face society.

THE FINE PRINT:

Relevant University Coursework Policies:

Students with Documented DisabilitiesStudents who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE).  Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as

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possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations.  The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066, URL:http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae). Honor CodeThe Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates University expectations of students and faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work:

The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively:

1.      that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading;

2.      that they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor Code.

3. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable, academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.

4.      While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establish optimal conditions for honorable academic work.

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