The course will examine the historical and cultural contexts as well as issues of gender, class, race, disguise, etc. Some attention to the battle of the sexes in the visual arts. This course will examine how African women playwrights use drama to confront the realities of women's lives in contemporary Africa. Not open to first-year students. In this course we will inquire into the representations of women in Korean Society from the earliest times through the 19th Century.
All readings are in English translations.
Close readings of women's narratives of desire, courtship, sexuality, prostitution and rape will explore how belief in inevitability mystifies the gender-based oppression of social practices and institutions. Works by Simone de Beauvoir, Andr Chedid, Hayashi Fumiko, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Wang Anyi and Zhang Jie. All readings in English translation. The seminar will begin with a reading and study of The Tale of the Genji, one of the greatest works of Japanese literature. We will look at the cultural and societal milieu of the author, as well as the textual features that mark it as an icon of Japanese culture today.