Women, Writing and Modernity, 1770-1830

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• compare the development of certain themes from different moments within the historical scope of the course
• define key terms in the texts and trace their evolution across the period
• discuss the issues raised by the course in relation not only to the material specific to it but to the wider cultural issues it raised
• write with clarity and sensitivity about the historical differences between the period of the course and our own
• distinguish between different approaches to gender and writing in this period
• research a problem, focus on its most salient issues, find the most relevant sources and discuss the problem in depth.
• discuss these differences in sophisticated and thoughtful ways with others who may not have studied gendered writing in this early period.
• analyse a variety of written texts critically and with attention to their historical context

Teaching methods include

• lectures
• tutor-led seminar discussion

Learning activities include

• individual and collaborative student seminar presentation
• internet, database and library research
• email list discussion

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Office hours for individual feedback on essays

Learning activities include

• Office hours for individual feedback on essays
• Introducing a seminar through oral presentations
• Small group work focusing on close readings of theoretical material

Innovative or special features of this module

• Its emphasis on showing students how to apply complex theoretical material to read literary texts

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus, ed (1997). Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations, and Responsibilities. London and New York: Longman.

Anne K. Mellor (2000). Mothers of the Nation: Women’s Political Writing in England, 1780-1830 (ch. 1). Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Anna Letitia Barbauld (1792). Epistle to William Wilberforce.

Mary Wollstonecraft (2007). Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman’ in ‘Mary’ and ‘ The Wrongs of Woman, ed. Gary Kelly. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics.

Charlotte Smith (1807). Beachy Head.

Amanda Vickery (1998). The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Elizabeth Eger, et al, ed. (2001). Women, Writing and the Public Sphere 1700-1830 (Especially the Introduction and chapters 4, 5, 6, and 10). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Marilyn Butler (1975). Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Vivien Jones, ed (1990). Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity. London: Routledge.

Barbara Taylor and Sarah Knott, ed. (2007). Women, Gender and Enlightenment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Anna Letitia Barbauld (1812). Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, A Poem.

Jane Austen (1998). Mansfield Park, ed. Claudia L. Johnson. New York: W.W. Norton.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1995). A Vindication of the Rights of Man and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomeselli. Cambridge University Press.

Charlotte Smith (1793). The Emigrants.

Harriet Guest (2000). Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750-1810. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External