Studies in American Literature (378-0-21)
Topic
American Girlhood
Instructors
Ilana Vine Larkin
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 3-410: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
What does it mean to be an American Girl? The phrase itself has spawned a lucrative line of dolls and other merchandise, but long before the rise of American Girl dolls, authors used the figure of the ‘girl' to make claims about the imagined future of the nation. What kinds of ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and class underpin these fantasies about who the American girl is? How does literature about the ‘American girl' further white, colonial ideas of nation building or protest against these norms? In this class, we will study key texts about American girlhood from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to examine how the girl is deployed as a figure making and remaking claims about the nation. We will read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie-texts which fantasize about being universal texts of American girlhood while in reality putting forth a vision of whiteness-against contesting visions of girlhood found in texts such as Harriet Wilson's Our Nig, the first novel published by an African-American woman, and Zitkala-Ša's American Indian Stories. We will pair these texts alongside critical readings from scholars in childhood studies.
Teaching Method
Seminar discussion.
Evaluation Method
Presentation, midterm and final papers, participation.
Class Materials (Required)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (ISBN: 9780140390698), Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (ISBN: 9780064400022), Our Nig by Harriet Wilson (ISBN: 0143105760), American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Ša (ISBN: 0142437093), How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez (ISBN: 9781565129757), and Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera (ISBN: 0241433983).
Texts will be available at: Norris
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
SDG Reduced Inequality
SDG Peace & Justice
SDG Gender Equality