Contemporary American Women's Fiction--Spring 1995

Required Texts:

Carol Bly, The Tomcat's Wife and Other Stories (HarperPerennial, 1992)

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams (HarperPerennial, 1990)

Lorrie Moore, Like Life (Plume/Penguin, 1991)

E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News (Touchstone/Simon &Schuster, 1993)

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (Bantam, 1982)

Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (Penguin, 1986)

Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres (Fawcett Columbine/Ballantine, 1991)

Several short stories available on library reserve or perhaps via coursepack.

Course Description:

We will explore the ways these award-winning novels and short fiction represent, contest, and reconstruct perspectives for women, men, and children, with particular emphasis upon locating these varied voices (tragic, critical, witty, compassionate, hopeful), in relation to their geographic places, regional communities, and their cultural and gender-inflected positions. Several works connect immediate family strife, love, and responsibilities with intimate ties and commitments to the land, to one's familial and cultural heritage, and with larger communities and institutions that shape contemporary society.


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