Women Writers: "Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told?"
The syllabus is uploaded in Files, and contains links.
Course Description:
This class is discussion-based, with the occasional brief lecture, and focusses the figure of woman as she appears in (mostly) prose and (some) poems, all by female writers. I am using the terms female and woman in the most open-handed sense. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own will serve as a point of connection throughout the term’s readings, and that’s where we start.
Other authors will likely include the 2024 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, Nadia David and her story “Bridling”; British writer Rachel Cusk and her challenges to the novel (or perhaps to fiction: such a distinction is typical of a discussion we’ll pursue, with its focus on form—so if that leaves you cold, you might look elsewhere); Claire Messud’s novel The Burning Girl, with its motif of Greek myths coursing through the contemporary lives of a young writer and her best friend; the British Angela Carter, with her work’s revisions of fairy tales; and two of the few female writers working in the Italian avant-garde Futurist movement, the Anglo-Jewish avant-garde writer (and hat-maker) (and lamp-maker) (and inventor) Mina Loy; alongside Valentine de Saint-Pointe’s bombastic “Manifesto of Lust,” which we will read in translation. I want to give space to the extraordinary essayist Jenny Diski and the book that gives the title to this class, Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? in which she addresses everything from getting old, moving out, being diagnosed with cancer while continuing to write, and why fashion isn’t art. As this all suggests, there’s quite a range of topics. The point is to get some coverage in the depiction, as well as to think about the social and cultural aspects at stake in art-making, gender, sexuality, and–above all—creativity.
Grades are based on short papers and the occasional super-ego-inducing quiz. Bear in mind that this is a reading-heavy class, so time management will be essential. You may wish to start the (excellent, and over 400 pages long) Evaristo novel in advance; below is the order of approach (at the time of writing).