Seminar in Reading and Interpretation (300-0-21)

Topic

Seduced and Abandoned: Narratives and Films

Instructors

Samantha Marie English

Meeting Info

University Hall 118: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

What does Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" (2012) have in common with Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple (1791)? Though one is a Grammy nominated ballad and the other is a bestselling novel from the late eighteenth century, these texts both serve as cautionary tales about young women who lose themselves in their love for traitorous men. They also both became major cultural phenomena. Why do seduction narratives continue to seduce us some 200 years later? In this critical methods seminar, we will examine a series of seduction narratives from the past 200 years that adhere to or stretch the limits of this popular genre. As we enhance the skills necessary to conduct advanced work in the humanities, we will ask: when do private intimacies become public crises? Who is imagined to be a victim in these narratives, and who is forced to be an adulterer or seducer? How do these roles shift across a literary tradition or within a single text? What can tales about romantic possession tell us about national identity? Along the way, we will learn how to interrogate literary and cultural criticism from a range of fields, including Black studies, gender and sexuality studies, and theories of affect and embodiment. Primary texts may include Charlotte Temple, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), The Red Shoes (1948), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Toni Morrison's Paradise (1997), and The Handmaiden (2016).

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area