Studies in Literature and Film (386-0-21)
Topic
Devastating Beauty: Reading Gender and Genre acros
Instructors
Clay Ross Cogswell
Meeting Info
Locy Hall 109: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
Topic: Devastating Beauty: Reading Gender and Genre across Poetry, Novels, and Film Adaptations
This course tracks some of the best—and most heart-rending—writing by novelist-poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. Analyzing the operation of sentiment in such works, we start with Thomas Hardy's shattering novel The Woodlanders, a harbinger of contemporary forms of tragedy, before turning to James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Sylvia Plath's stunning The Bell Jar. In conjunction with our interest in affect, students will consider the range of masculinities and femininities that emerge from these texts, reading a selection of each author's poems alongside their novels to examine the bending of gender across genres. Readings will be supplemented with film and TV adaptations, including The Handmaid's Tale. We conclude with On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, the fictional debut of twenty-first-century poet Ocean Vuong. Across these varied works, we will analyze the mutual refraction of tragic affect and gender in some of the most brilliant fiction of the last century.
Teaching Method
Seminar discussion.
Evaluation Method
Essays and class participation.
Class Materials (Required)
Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale;
Baldwin, Giovanni's Room;
Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous;
Hardy, The Woodlanders;
Plath, The Bell Jar
Books will be available at Norris Bookstore.
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area