CODE | ENG2063 | ||||||||
TITLE | Theories of Literature 3: Gender and Power | ||||||||
UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||
MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||
ECTS CREDITS | 2 | ||||||||
DEPARTMENT | English | ||||||||
DESCRIPTION | This study-unit aims to investigate issues of difference as a systematic foundation for gender inequality. The study-unit examines the extent to which ‘difference’ is not a biological principle but a cultural construct which is embedded in language and society and reflected in literature and structures of power. It will begin with a brief history of feminism before proceeding to other considerations. Attention will be given to the construction of literary canons; to the institution of literature in universities; to the various perceptions of the relationship between literature and life; to the role of the author; and to the cultural creation of the gendered subject through language. Reading List: Cameron, Deborah, ed., The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader (London: Routledge, 1990) de Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex (1949; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983) During, Simon, Foucault and Literature: Towards a Genealogy of Writing (London: Routledge, 1992) Foucault, Michel, ‘What is an Author?’ (1979). [English translation available in many readers on literary theory and on Foucault] Millet, Kate, Sexual Politics (London: Virago, 1977) Morris, Pam, Literature and Feminism: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) NcNay, Lois, Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the Self (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992) Showalter, Elaine, A Literature of Their Own: From Charlotte Bronte to Doris Lessing, rev. edn (London: Virago, 1999) Woolf, Virginia, A Room of One’s Own (1929; London: Penguin, 2002) |
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STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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LECTURER/S | Aaron Aquilina |
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The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |