ENGL 5510 Contemporary American Women Writers

This course will explore the depiction of irresolvable tensions and mixed emotions in literature by current American women writers. As we focus on the tensions between love and fear, intimacy and violence, presence and absence, desire and disgust, we will think about how literature succeeds in conveying the intangible dynamics of feeling through language, imagery and form. Although we will acknowledge the significance of gender conventions and the way they influence romantic and familial relationships, our goal will be to interrogate rather than essentialize what it means to be a woman or a woman writer. In that regard, we will consider how bodies and identities are shaped by family dynamics, race and ethnicity, sickness and health, age, sexuality, space and trauma, as well as gender. This is a class designed to explore connections between literature and contemporary lived experience. We will read stories, poems, memoirs and novels that address real-world issues, including Transcendent Kingdom, Housekeeping, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Fun Home and Shadow Tag. Community, creativity and original thinking will be highly valued.