Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Department of English Studies
- Code
- BBI-ANG17-219E/G3
- Title
- Reading Literary Texts 2.: Short Stories by Contemporary Women Writers
- Usual semester
- Spring
- ECTS
- 3
- Language
- Learning outcomes
- The main aim of the course is to acquaint students with women writers from across the globe who treat women’s experiences in their given socio-cultural environments. During the course, we are going to discuss literary representations of themes such as the diaspora experience, alienation, marriage and children as well as violence against women.
- Course content
- Selected short stories by contemporary women writers as specified by the instructor (the Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Indian-American Jhumpa Lahiri, the French Annie Ernaux, the British-Jamaican Zadie Smith, the South African Zoë Wicomb and the Canadian Alice Munro). During the course we will also emphasize the cultural background of the works and the common themes that emerge independent of the cultural embeddedness of each work.
- Assessment method
- Exam mark offered in advance on the basis of in-class activity, a presentation or a shorter mid-term assignment and a home paper of cca. 5-6 pages.
- Bibliography
- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (2009). The Thing Around Your Neck. (selected short stories) Lahiri, Jhumpa (1999). Interpreter of Maladies. (selected short stories) Ernaux, Annie (2000). Happening. Munro, Alice (2001). Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. (selected short stories) Smith, Zadie (2019). Grand Union: Stories. (selected short stories) Wicomb, Zoë (1987). You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town. (selected short stories)
- Recommended bibliography
- Brada-Williams, Noelle. “Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” as a Short Story Cycle.” Melus, vol. 29, no. 3-4, 2004, pp. 451-464. Ridout, Alice. Contemporary Women Writers Look Back: From Irony to Nostalgia. Continuum, 2011. Zulfiqar, Sadia. African Women Writers and the Politics of Gender. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016.