The Rhetoric of Girlhood: Fiction, Film, and Nonfiction
Independent Study with Katherine Wilcox (Senior, English)
Dr. Chidsey Dickson
Fall 2007
Description
We will study the modern representation of girlhood in several genre.
Texts
‘Girl’ Lit
Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Graphic Novel and just-released film)
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Laura Ingles Wilder, Little House on the Prairie
Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides
Monica Ali, Brick Lane
‘Girl’ Film
Siddiq Barmak, Osama
Mike Leigh, Life is Sweet
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Heathers
The Slums of Beverley Hills
Ghost World
Don’t Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrl (DVD available: http://www.urbancowgirlproductions.com/dont/index.html)
Rhetoric on or by ‘Girls’ (or Grrls)
Sarah Bilston, The Awkward Age in Women’s Popular Fiction, 1850-1900 (electronic book available thru the library)
Mary Pipher, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
Janet Carey Eldred and Peter Mortensen Imagining Rhetoric: Composing Women of the Early United States
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future
Anita Harris (ed), All About the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity
Choose 2-3 girl zines from http://www.parcellpress.com/shopfront/zineshop.htm
Schedule of Assignments
Overview: We’ll read novels in Sept, the nonfiction in October (and watch the films) and then in November talk about the two projects: research and outreach.
Set up a blog and put your journal entries there, sending me a link on Sundays.
We’ll meet Sept 24 for the first time face-to-face from 3-4pm (my office) and what you’ve read and written
Sept 7 Introduction and Skim several chapters in The Awkward Age in Women’s Popular Fiction, 1850-1900 (available online via the library). Also, selections from Harris.
Sept 14 Woman Warrior and Little House
Sept 21 Persepolis and Blue Eye
Sept 28 Virgin Suicides and Brick Lane. Also selections from Baumgardner and Richards.
Oct 5 Osama and Life is Sweet
Oct 12 Imagining Rhetoric (chapters 2, 3, and 4) and Reviving Ophelia (passem)
Oct 19 Riot Grrl DVD and 2-3 girl zines from parcell press
Oct 26 Heathers and Welcome to the Dollhouse
Nov TBA
Semester Grade
Blog Entries (600 words minimum per entry) 30%
Research Project 30%
Outreach Project* 20%
Final Reflection (letter to me) 20%
*basically, some kind of intervention in the lives of girls in Lynchburg. It could be a one day (Saturday) workshop you do on girl lit for the moms of teenage girls. We can discuss other ideas.