AMERICAN WOMEN POETS OF THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY (Winter 2022-2023) (ΛE161)
Βασίλειος Δεληογλάνης
The course explores the work of American women poets of the 20th and 21st century, investigating topics such as society and textuality, gender and cultural production, racial and ethnic identity, as well as the interaction between femininity and other dimensions of individual and collective identity. The course focuses on the woman as the subject and creator of cultural influences as well as on poetic writing as a palimpsest of texts that shape our perception of gender and identity. The selected poems are examined on the basis of modern and postmodern theories in an effort to explore the status and function of poetry in (contemporary) society.
ΛιγότεραThe course explores the work of American women poets of the 20th and 21st century, investigating topics such as society and textuality, gender and cultural production, racial and ethnic identity, as well as the interaction between femininity and other dimensions of individual and collective identity. The course focuses on the woman as the subject and creator of cultural influences as well as on poetic writing as a palimpsest of texts that shape our perception of gender and identity. The selected poems are examined on the basis of modern and postmodern theories in an effort to explore the status and function of poetry in (contemporary) society.
The course explores the work of American women poets of the 20th and 21st century, investigating topics such as society and textuality, gender and cultural production, racial and ethnic identity, as well as the interaction between femininity and other dimensions of individual and collective identity. The course focuses on the woman as the subject and creator of cultural influences as well as on poetic writing as a palimpsest of texts that shape our perception of gender and identity. The selected poems are examined on the basis of modern and postmodern theories in an effort to explore the status and function of poetry in (contemporary) society.
Περίγραμμα
Course objectives:
Upon completion of the course students should have either learned or reinforced the following objectives:
- Familiarize themselves with the close reading and analysis of various poetic styles as these are formulated by various practicing poets coming from diverse social, cultural and racial groups.
- Examine the development of female poetic writing in conjunction with various social/political/artistic developments and events.
- Familiarize themselves with the reading and interpreting of essays that the poets themselves have written.
- Get informed about the socio/cultural/artistic trends and the political context that influenced the formation of the writing style of each one of the poets under consideration.
Upon completion of the course students should have either learned or reinforced the following objectives:
- Familiarize themselves with the close reading and analysis of various poetic styles as these are formulated by various practicing poets coming from diverse social, cultural and racial groups.
- Examine the development of female poetic writing in conjunction with various social/political/artistic developments and events.
- Familiarize themselves with the reading and interpreting of essays that the poets themselves have written.
- Get informed about the socio/cultural/artistic trends and the political context that influenced the formation of the writing style of each one of the poets under consideration.
Female poetry practice in America since the 17th century: From Anne Bradstreet to Phillis Wheatley to Emily Dickinson
Primary Texts:
Gertrude Stein – “A Substance in a Cushion” from Tender Buttons (1914)
Edna St. Vincent Millay – “[I, being born a woman]” (1923)
Marianne Moore - "Nevertheless" (1944)
Secondary Reading:
Christopher Beach – “Gendered Modernism” from The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century American Poetry, pp. 72-92.
Gertrude Stein - Poetry and Grammar
Primary Texts:
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) – “Sheltered Garden” (1916)
Amy Lowell – “Patterns” (1915) AND/OR “Venus Transiens” (1919)
Secondary Reading:
Alan Shucard et al. – “The Emergence of the Modern: Amy Lowell, H.D., Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, and the Imagists,” from Modern American Poetry, pp. 65-94.
Primary Texts:
Georgia Douglas Johnson – “The Heart of a Woman” (1918)
Gwendolyn Brooks – “the mother” (1945)
Primary Texts:
Anne Sexton – “The Truth the Dead Know” (1962)
Sylvia Plath – “Lady Lazarus” (1962)
Secondary Reading:
Hoover, Paul, ed. – Introduction. Postmodern American Poetry, pp. xxix-lvii.
Sylvia Plath – “Context” (essay)
Primary Texts:
Audre Lorde – “Coal” (1968)
Adrienne Rich – “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” (1951)
Secondary Reading:
Audre Lorde – From “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” (1977)
Primary Texts:
Louise Erdrich – “Dear John Wayne” (1984)
Primary Texts:
Elizabeth Bishop – “The Moose” (1976)
Mary Oliver - "The Black Snake" (1979)
Primary Texts:
Harryette Mullen – “Any Lit” (2002)
Joy Harjo – “When the World As We Knew It Ended—” (2003)
Natasha Trethewey – “Native Guard” (2006)
Secondary Reading:
Harryette Mullen – “Imagining the Unimagined Reader” (essay)
Primary Texts:
Stephanie Strickland & Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo – “V: Vniverse” (2002)
Secondary Reading:
Timothy Yu – Introduction. The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century American Poetry, pp. 1-16.
Scott Rettberg – “Kinetic and Interactive Poetry,” from Electronic Literature, 2018.
Primary Texts:
Catherine Wagner – “This is a Fucking Poem” (2009)
Patricia Lockwood – “Rape Joke” (2013)
Deborah A. Miranda – “Love Poem to a Butch Woman” (2005)
Trace Peterson – “Exclusively on Venus” (2016)
Secondary Reading:
Ann Vickery – “Changing Topographies, New Feminisms, and Women Poets” from The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century American Poetry, pp. 71-89.
Secondary Reading:
Dorothy Wang – “The Future of Poetry Studies,” from The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century American Poetry, pp. 220-233.
