Universität Wien

124344 PS Literary Studies / Proseminar Literature and Cultural Studies (2017W)

Gender Politics in Early America

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 12 - Anglistik
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Friday 13.10. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 20.10. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 27.10. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 03.11. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 17.11. 14:00 - 18:00 Raum 5 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-17
  • Friday 24.11. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 01.12. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 15.12. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 12.01. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 19.01. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A
  • Friday 26.01. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 6 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-O1-22.A

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This class explores gender and sexual difference in colonial British North America and the early United States (ca. 1600-1830). We will critically discuss basic conceptualizations of gender and sexuality in early America, and trace the cultural struggles over their meaning (e.g. the two-sex model, questions of gendered legislation and sexual ethics, or early forms of feminism). Moreover, we will examine the intersections of gender politics with a number of other cultural issues central to early America and the early modern Atlantic world: settler colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, various forms of racism, nationalism and nation building processes, militarism, as well as the questions of the political public sphere and an emerging aesthetic discourse. In the process, we will also discuss methodological/political questions concerning the archive, canon formation, and the feminist revision of early American culture that took place in the 1980s and 1990s.
In order to better understand how early Americans negotiated questions of gender and sexual difference, we will look at various exemplary historical texts, including court records, travel narratives, pamphlets, and perhaps most significantly, the early American novel.

Assessment and permitted materials

Regular attendance, active participation in class, presentation, proseminar paper

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Active class participation (20%)
Class presentation (20%)
Proseminar paper (60%)

Examination topics

n/a

Reading list

You need to buy/borrow the following books:

Leonora Sansay: Secret History; or, the Horrors of St. Domingo (1808) - please get the Broadview edition, edited by Michael Drexler (which also includes Sansay’s novel Laura), should cost around 20-25 Euros, or less as an eBook.

Hannah Webster Foster: The Coquette (1797) - please get the Penguin Classics edition (which also includes William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy), should cost around 15 Euros, or less as an eBook.

Additional readings will be provided on Moodle.

Association in the course directory

Studium: UF 344, BA 612; BEd 046 / 407
Code/Modul: UF 3.3.3-304, BA 09.1, BA10.1; BEd 08a.1, BEd 08b.2
Lehrinhalt: 12-0297

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:33