Module ENGL2781: Writing Women: Gendering Literature, c.800-1600

Department: English Studies

ENGL2781: Writing Women: Gendering Literature, c.800-1600

Prerequisites

• Combined Honours and Liberal Arts students, and students taking optional modules, must have satisfactorily completed either two Level 1 core introductory modules in English, or at least one Level 1 core module with one further lecture-based module being taken in English at Level 2.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To explore the conceptualizing of gender, both within particular texts and also in terms of writers, readers, and audiences, across a range of literature across the later Middle Ages and into the first part of the early modern era
• To interrogate potential connections between gender and genre in a wide variety of texts and contexts
• To consider in detail the relationships between textual depictions of men and women and wider literary, social and historical contexts; to explore the ways in which such depictions reflect and refract ideas about masculinities as well as femininities
• To encourage students to engage with modern theoretical writings about gender, and to explore critical assumptions about the Middle Ages
• To make connections between the medieval and early modern eras, as well as to observe the differences between the two periods

Content

• Engages with a chronologically and generically diverse range of literature such as early medieval saints’ lives, biographies, romances, lyrics and letters; key texts and authors may include Abelard and Heloise, Marie de France, the Roman de Silence, the Paston letters, The Floure and the Leafe, Mary Wroth
• Considers particular medieval books that may have been compiled for and/or used by women in order to highlight and interrogate possible connections between gender and textual culture/s
• Analyses historical perspectives and assumptions about gender to enable helpful parallels to be drawn between close readings of specific texts and their contexts
• Introduces key modern writings about gender (including those by Freud, de Beauvoir, Butler, Irigaray, for example), and also encourages interrogating their usefulness in medieval/early modern contexts

Learning Outcomes

• Students will gain detailed knowledge of depictions of gender in a wide variety of medieval and early modern texts; they will develop insight into the assumptions and realities of authorship and audiences in these periods
• Students will gain familiarity with textual and material cultures in pre-modern eras
• Students will develop their knowledge and understanding of critical discourses within modern gender studies

• Students studying this module will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches, particularly those pertaining to gender studies
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• skills of effective communication and argument
• awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse critically
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• competence in the planning and execution of essays
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organisation and time-management skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions. In individual seminar modules, the essay may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessed essay allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second essay.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before the first assessed essay, students have an individual 15-minute consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a sheet of points, relevant to the essay, and to receive oral comment on these points. Students may also, if they wish, discuss their ideas for the second essay at this meeting.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University