Course: ENGL 576: Unconventional Heroines of Short Fiction (Special Topics in American Literature)
Professor: Dr. Licia Hendricks
Location: The Citadel
Dates & Time: Summer I–May 5-June 22
Monday and Wednesday, 5:30-8:15 pm (capacity 20)
Please note that these dates appear differently when registering through CofC. Dates posted here are the correct Citadel Summer II dates.
Room and Modality: Hi-Flex Synchronous–course can be accessed either online or in person at the designated course time. Please contact instructor for questions about modality. Room TBA
This course takes as its point of departure the intrinsically problematic rhetorical question ascribed to Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I a Woman?” A powerful speaker despite being illiterate, Truth used the recurring refrain to interrogate the irreconcilable contradiction between the prevailing sociocultural construct of demure and delicate women, and her own physically imposing size and strength, along with the associated labor she was consequently tasked to perform. Truth’s challenge to the self-serving sexism of the men who categorically diminished women’s capabilities in order to maintain their gender privilege then became complicated by the way in which her articulation was preserved in a Southern dialect that she would never have spoken in her native New York: misogyny compounded by misogynoir. The stories and novellas featured in this course center female characters who, in the spirit of Sojourner Truth, defy expectation, resist convention, and denounce patriarchal structures. Authors covered include Kate Chopin, Gertrude Stein, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker.
Comments are closed.