Unit information: Readings in Gender and Sexuality in 2019/20

Unit name	Readings in Gender and Sexuality
Unit code	ENGL10053
Credit points	20
Level of study	C/4
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Emily Coit
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of English
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit considers women writers in transhistorical context. The sequence of authors will be determined by the tutors, but it will necessarily take into account the cultural, historical, political and theoretical forces that affected women’s lives as authors, subjects and citizens in any given period. Students will also be encouraged to think about modes of publication and distribution that influenced the ways in which these texts were received in their own times. In its final weeks, the unit comes up to the contemporary moment and makes explicit links between the questions and issues raised in the previous weeks and women’s lives and work now, thereby urging students to think about the work of literary analysis in ways that are urgent and immediate.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key women writers across a wide time period and an understanding of their historical contexts;
2. apply understanding of historical, cultural and intellectual contexts to readings of literary works;
3. discriminate between different critical perspectives on the history of gender and its effects on literary form;
4. identify and present pertinent evidence to develop a cogent argument;
5. demonstrate skills in textual analysis, argumentation, and critical interpretation using evidence from primary texts and secondary sources;
6. contribute to group tasks and discussions and demonstrate skills in oral presentation.

Teaching Information

1 x one-hour Lecture.

1 x one-hour seminar weekly.

Assessment Information

• 3 x 700 words of short exercises (25% each). [ILOs 1-5].
• One group presentation (approximate duration 15 minutes; normally 4 students per group) with handout for an individual mark (25%) [ILOs 1-6].

Reading and References

Indicative list:

1 Emily Dickinson, selected poems

2 Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

3 Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women

4 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

5 Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, 'Sultana's Dream' – and other short fiction

6 Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts