19th-Century British Fiction (357-0-20)
Topic
Madwomen in the Attic - Insanity, Gender, and Auth
Instructors
Clay Ross Cogswell
Meeting Info
University Hall 118: Tues, Thurs 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
The climax of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre hinges on a shocking revelation that other writers have been rereading and even rewriting ever since. Brontë's iconic Gothic tale of "madness," and that concept's inflection by gender, race, and nationality, has become central to our ideas about difference and power. Tracing the afterlives of Brontë's confined madwoman through twentieth-century reimaginations of the trope, including Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, and recent films such as Hereditary, this course will examine how "insanity" has been seen as a category useful for regaining (and sometimes blocking) political and literary agency. Putting these texts and films in dialogue with critical responses by Michel Foucault, Gayatri Spivak, and others, we will explore the knotty question of how madness shapes our culture's narratives about gender and authority.
Teaching Method
Seminar discussion.
Evaluation Method
Essays and class participation.
Class Materials (Required)
Brontë, Jane Eyre; Larsen, Quicksand; Jackson, Haunting of Hill House; Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea.
Texts will be available at: Norris.
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
SDG Reduced Inequality
SDG Gender Equality