Frann
Michel
Eaton 204, x6389
fmichel@willamette.edu
MWF 10:20-11:20, 1:50-2:50, and other times by appointment
Your participation is vital to this course. I will expect you to come to each class having read the assigned material, having thought about it, and having questions or ideas about it. For each class, you will write down a discussion question. In addition to writing daily discussion questions and participating actively in class, students will write three essays. Two of these will be brief response papers addressing individual texts; one will be a final essay analyzing a relationship between a literary and a theoretical text. See below for more information.
Required texts available at WU Bookstore:
Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: An
Introduction
Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Hall, The Well of Loneliness
Hwang, M. Butterfly
Kessler & McKenna, Gender: An Ethnomethodological
Approach
Woolf, Orlando
Required texts
online
or
reserve:
Butler, "Against Proper Objects"
Davis, "Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist"
Ellis, selections from Studies in the Psychology of Sex
Gamez, "From the Gloria Stories"
Rubin, "The Traffic in Women"; "Thinking Sex"
Wright, "Man of All Work"
Tentative Schedule
W Sep 1 Introductions
F Sep 3 Butler, "Against Proper Objects" Available through
Academic
Search Premier: Butler, Judith. Differences: A Journal of
Feminist Cultural Studies, Summer94, Vol. 6 Issue 2/3, p1, 26p;
(AN 5431345)
M Sep 6 Labor day; no class meeting
W Sep 8 Gamez, "From the Gloria Stories"
F Sep 10 Kessler & McKenna, Gender, Chapters 1 & 2
M Sep13 Gender, 3 & 4
W Sep 15 Gender, 5 & 6
F Sep 17 Hwang, M. Butterfly (focus on Act 1)
M Sep 20 M Butterfly
W Sep 22 Davis, "Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist"
F Sep 24 Wright, "Man of All Work"
M Sep 27 Ellis, Selections
W Sep 29 Hall, Well, Book I
F Oct 1 Well, Book II
M Oct 4 Well, Book III
W Oct 6 Well, Book IV
F Oct 8 Well, Book V
M Oct 11 Rubin, "The Traffic in Women"
W Oct 13 Freud, I: "The Sexual Aberrations"
F Oct 15 Freud, II: "Infantile Sexuality"
M Oct 18 Freud, III: "The Transformations of Puberty"
W Oct 20 Freud, "Summary"
F Oct 22 Midsemester Day; no class meeting
M Oct 25 Woolf, Orlando, Chapter 1
W Oct 27 Orlando, Chapter 2
F Oct 29 Orlando, Chapter 3
M Nov 1 Orlando, Chapter 4
W Nov 3 Orlando, Chapter 5
F Nov 5 Orlando, Chapter 6
M Nov 8 Foucault, Part One, "We 'Other Victorians'"
W Nov 10 Foucault, Part Two, "The Repressive Hypothesis"
F Nov 12 Foucault, Part Three, "Scientia Sexualis"
M Nov 15 Foucault, Part Four, "The Deployment of Sexuality,"
Chapters 1& 2: "Objective" and "Method"
W Nov 17 Part Four, Chapters 3 & 4, "Domain" and
"Periodization"
F Nov 19 Part Five, "Right of Death and Power Over Life"
M Nov 22 Continued discussion
W Nov 24 Continued discussion
F Nov 26 Thanksgiving Holiday; no class meeting
M Nov 29 Baldwin, Giovanni's Room Part One, Chapters
1-2
W Dec 1 Baldwin, Giovanni's Room Chapter 3
F Dec 3 Baldwin, Giovanni's Room Part Two, Chapters 1-3
M Dec 6 Baldwin, Giovanni's Room Chapters 4-5
W Dec 8 Rubin, "Thinking Sex"
F Dec 10 last day of class
Sat Dec 18 11am Final essay due, Eaton 204
Writing Assignments
Response Papers
Students will be responsible for writing two brief response papers of 3-5 pages (750-1250 words) each, addressing individual texts. One response paper must be based on a theoretical text, and one on a literary text. Response papers are due on the Monday following the last day of scheduled discussion of the work addressed in the paper. Response papers may address any aspect of the text they respond to; they may extend or critique a theoretical point, or analyze a literary structure (e.g., image, metaphor, parallels, setting, narrative stance). Response papers may be based on discussion questions.
Final Essay
In addition to the two response papers, students will write a final essay of 10-12 pages (2500-3000 words) analyzing a relationship between a literary and a theoretical text, on which you have not previously written a response paper.
Of the four works on which you write papers this term, at least one of the literary texts must be a book-length work (Hwang, Hall, Woolf, Baldwin) and at least one of the theoretical texts must be a book-length work (Kessler & McKenna, Freud, Foucault)
Final essays are due on or before Saturday, December 18, 11am.
Discussion Questions
For each class meeting, you will be asked to write down a discussion question. Discussion questions have multiple aims: they should demonstrate to me that you are doing the reading (so we don't need exams or quizzes), and they should provide you with an opportunity to reflect upon the assignment.
A discussion question is one that cannot be answered simply by looking the answer up somewhere, one that does not have an obvious answer, but that must be explored and argued. It is not completely open-ended, but specifically grounded in the text. It arises from careful consideration of the reading assignment: what the text says, and how it says it. In about half a page (150 words), explain what prompted the question, what thinking went into arriving at the question, what possible answers (if any) have been considered, and why those answers are unsatisfactory. Try to frame the question itself in one brief interrogative sentence.
Discussion questions must be typed, and will not be accepted late.
Discussion groups will have about four members; membership will rotate. Group process will be as follows:
1. Group members sit in a circle.
2. Each group member in turn shares her or his question. Those listening may wish to take notes.
3. When each question has been presented, group members begin responding to the questions that have been presented. This may entail brainstorming, finding and examining relevant passages in the text.
4. Discussion continues on whichever questions seem most fruitful; that is, whichever group members have the most to say about or disagree most about.
5. The group decides on one question to share with the rest of the class.
6. The group decides on a speaker for the group. The role of speaker should rotate.
7. The speaker will report the question and summarize the gist of the group's discussion of it.
Some Links of Interest
Judith Butler
http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm
David Henry Hwang
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/authors_depth/hwang.htm
Angela Davis
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/newsite/authors/DAVISangela.htm
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id91/pg1/
Richard Wright
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/wright_richard/
Havelock Ellis
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/havelock.htm
http://www.gayhistory.com/rev2/factfiles/ffellis.htm
Gayle Rubin
study questions for "The Traffic in Women"
http://www.mit.edu/~shaslang/IntroWS/rubinhwk.html
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/theory/ws305rub.htm
notes on "The Traffic in Women"
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/boards/owl/f03-5538/messages/39.html
http://www.csun.edu/CommunicationStudies/class/632/97s/rept/970414.scheuble.html
notes on "Thinking Sex"
http://transmet.org/~aj/words/gay_and_lesbian_class/thinking_sex.htm
Sigmund Freud
http://www.gayhistory.com/rev2/factfiles/fffreud.htm
3 essays
http://www.gayhistory.com/rev2/factfiles/ff1905.htm
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/freud02a.html
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/orlando.html
http://www.tetterton.net/orlando/orlando95_talk.html
Michel Foucault
http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-fouc.htm
James Baldwin
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/baldwin.htm
see especially the article at
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_n2_v32/ai_21059954