Studies in American Literature (471-0-20)
Topic
Women on the Verge
Instructors
Julia Ann Stern
847/491-3530
University Hall Room 415
Office Hours: Mondays 1:1:50; Tuesdays 10-11; and Thursdays 12:20-1
Meeting Info
University Hall 418: Wed 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Women's fiction and films of the classical Hollywood era, 1929-1950, feature heroines on the brink of madness, suicide, and death. Melodrama, a dramatic form that flourished in the nineteenth century and featured making virtue and evil visible, structures many of the works in our course. We will explore how and why female artistic production from the beginning of modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and the heyday of the "woman's picture," 1933-1950 featured women on the brink, rejecting the 19th -century "marriage plot," for a different set of endings. We will discuss the significance of "the New Woman," the last throes of the "cult of domesticity" and the work of arguably classic Hollywood's greatest actress, Bette Davis, whose films took up those historical issues.
Evaluation Method
Two take-home close reading exams (2 pages total) and a final project on a Davis film not on the syllabus.
Class Materials (Required)
Works may include The Awakening, Ethan Fromme, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Plum Bun, Quicksand, and The Street.
Films may include Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, Dark Victory, Now, Voyager, In This Our Life, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? We will read selected theoretical works from object relations psychoanalysis, feminist film theory, star theory, genre theory, and Lauren Berlant's The Female Complaint.