Inspired by Donald Trump’s utterance “such a nasty woman,” during the third presidential debate in 2016, and Ashley Judd’s “Nasty Woman” speech at the Women’s March, on April 13, 2017 in Addlestone 235, ENGL 336: Women Writers explored how women writers challenge, subvert, or deconstruct notions of women as “nasty,” monstrous, Medusa-like, or abject and re-appropriate the meaning of “nasty.” Over 40 people were in attendance at the event, which was sponsored by the English department. Here is a link to the video presentation of the event: https://cofc.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Femmex+Talks+2017/1_v8lpzkom/69391111
Authors discussed included:
Margaret Atwood
Helene Cixous
Lena Dunham
Louise Erdrich
Zora Neale Hurston
Nella Larsen
Sylvia Plath
Jean Rhys
Anne Sexton
Virginia Woolf
Featured student speakers:
Kaitlyn Carter:Junior English major and pop culture junkie Kaitlyn Carter will be your tour guide into the grey void of being mixed race and how female authors approach being one, both and nothing at all.
Jenna Lief: Hospitality major and current College of Charleston student, Jenna Lief studies the oppression of women based on society’s expectation of their physical appearance, the ways in which this has been apparent through literature in past centuries and in current day society, and how it often results in the development of eating disorders.
Carly Lewis: Pre-med turned Gender Studies major, future midwife and current activist, Carly Lewis will explore how women writers like Hélène Cixous and May Sarton responded to the vilifying myth of Medusa and its implications in the literary canon and overall society, where rapists are defended and victims silenced.
Sophie Naughton: Classics and English major and current College of Charleston student Sophie Naughton explores how Margaret Atwood ‘talks back’ against masculine stories and the masculine language which is often used to evaluate women by rewriting them from the female perspective.
Kate Powers: English major, aspiring editor, and current College of Charleston student Kate Power explores the importance of the female story, and the ways in which women writers and artists over time have fought oppression through sharing their truths in literature.
Cory Stegelin explores how Voice in Dialect Still Deserves to be Heard: An examination of Zora Neale Hurston’s complex relationship with dialect.
Abby Tierney: Junior English major and aspiring writer Abby Tierney will be exploring the cultural obsession with confessional poet Sylvia Plath, begging the question of whether or not societal expectation for women played a role in her suicide. Did the world do her a particular disservice that male writers would never encounter?
James Weitzel : Sophomore and English major James Weitzel will be discussing how the images and personas of Native American woman are distorted and destroyed by explotting Louise Erdrich’s poetry and her character Fleur from the novel Tracks.
**Not pictured: student Barbara Nicodemus
