Research paper: Feminism

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Analyze a work of literature not presented in class in about 8 pages (2400-3200 words). The paper should focus on how this work of literature can be seen as part of the ongoing discourse on women and gender approached in our class discussions. At least two secondary sources are required to support your argument, aside from the class text or texts you are using as a reference point.

During the last week of class, you will briefly present your topic in around 5 minutes (3 grades are allocated to this part).

Due 15/1/2015 before class.

General writing guidelines:

Begin with an introduction that starts with a general discussion around your main topic, moving to a thesis statement that clearly defines your focus and explains how you will carry your argument. (This is generally a question you try to answer in your paper, though the thesis statement is not to be written in the form of a sentence. For example, question: What did the protagonist in The Yellow Wallpaper gain at the end of story as she blatantly acted like a mad woman? Thesis: The paper argues that the protagonist’s insanity in The Yellow Wallpaper demonstrates a conscious knowledge of what woman loses when she is married, as such, insanity becomes her escape from the suffocating constitution of marriage)

Use at least 3 paragraphs that support your argument, each focusing on one main point. Start each paragraph with a topic sentence and end with a concluding sentence. Your argument in each paragraph should be supported by evidence collected from your research. The use of direct quotations from the primary source and secondary sources is highly recommended.

End with a conclusion that summarizes your argument and moves beyond it if possible, through opening up the topic for similar or related discussions.

 

 

Material covered for midterm exam:

  • Hooks: Talking Back
  • Rich: Claiming an Education
  • Friedan: The Problem That Has No Name
  • Piercy: A Work of Artifice
  • Anzaldua: Cultural Tyranny
  • Kingston: No Name Woman
  • Amin: The Status of Women in Society
  • Wollstonecraft: Vindication of the Rights of Women
  • Truth: What Time of Night It Is, Ain’t I A Woman
  • Behn: Love Armed, A Thousand Martyrs
  • Woolf: A Room’s of One’s Own
  • Bradstreet: The Author to Her Book
  • **inson: They shut me up in prose, I Dwell in possibility
  • Cixous: Laugh of the Medusa
  • Mansfield: The Fly
  • Al-Nakib: The Diary

Material covered for final exam:

 

  • Gilbert & Gubar: Madwoman in the Attic
  • Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper
  • Glaspell: Trifles
  • Gould: X: A Fabulous Child’s Story
  • Munro: Boys and Girls
  • Butler: Gender Trouble
  • El-Saadawi: Memoirs of a Woman Doctor
  • Bordo: The Unbearable Weight
  • Walker: Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self
  • Plath: Mirror
  • Lehrer: Family and Women’s Lives
  • Yamamoto: Seventeen Syllables
  • Chopin: The Story of an Hour

Choose two or three of the previous articles and write the paper based on thus. PS. it would be great, if we could attack feminists because I just personally am fedup of them since this class. =)) So please choose a topic based on that kinda idea… maybe something along the lines of the ‘Electra complex’ working as the base of every feminist writing. just attack them. =))