ENG 497/597: International Women's Voices

Course Description

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:16:06 -0700

The question of form:

Women's writing often makes us question the boundaries and assumptions of traditional forms--the novel, autobiography, essay. The relationship between genre and gender breeds dislocations--and doubly so when the writers in question come from diverse cultures. In this course, we will look at the ways women writers have interrogated form as they struggle to express their worlds and understand those of others.

The question of gender:

In what ways might we see individual voices as linked to a collective past? How does that collective, social, gendered past shape one's individual identity? Does gender cross cultural boundaries in such a way that "gender" is a viable category--despite its ambiguous nature? The texts we will be reading juxtapose the voices of women writing from a variety of geographic and ethnic backgrounds. These authors struggle with the issue of identity for women, but in vastly different contexts; the common thread among these texts is that they were all written as responses to women's condition in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries as globalization began to dominate international relations. We will look at texts from the 1960s to the present.

Course Texts

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:22:32 -0700

Fatima Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass

Mohja Kahf, E-mails from Scheherazad

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, The Present Moment

Maxine Hong Kingston, Woman Warrior

Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of the Homelands

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargossa Sea

Husain Haddaway's translation of the "Prologue" to Arabian Nights (on Reserve in Valley Library)

Course Reserves

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:23:23 -0700

Finding Books

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:54:41 -0700

OSU Libraries Catalog Books in Valley Library and OSU branch libraries. If a book isn't available from OSU, use "Try Summit Libraries" to borrow it from another library.

Summit/WorldCat Catalog Request books not available at OSU and have them sent to Valley Library, usuall within 3-4 working days.

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Browsing by call number

Books in Valley Library are arranged by call numbers that represent subject areas.

Language & Literature: P (4th floor)

Social Sciences/Women: HQ 1101-2030.7 (5th floor)

Since a book can only be shelved in 1 place, you will miss books that may be very relevant by browsing. For example, where would you expect to find a book that examines the work of Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid, and Toni Morrison?

Subject headings

Books are assigned multiple subject headings which describe the conent. if you know the exact subject heading, you can search by subject. If you don't know the exact subject heading, search by keyword and look at the subjects assigned to books that are relevant. Show me how!

Reference Sources in Valley Library

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:45:38 -0700

General

Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English Reference PR471 .O94 1996 (Main floor) All genres, international as well as British and American literature and writers
Feminist Companion to Literature in English Reference PR111.F451 1990b (Main floor) Womem writers from the Middle Ages to the present
Feminist Writers PN451.F41 1996 (4th floor)

By region

African Writers 2 volumes. PL8010 .A453 1997 (4th floor)
Companion to African Literatures Reference PR9340 .C65 2000 (Main floor)
Exile & African Literature: a Review PL8010.A4 no.22 (4th floor)
Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers, 1st Series PR9205.A52 T88 1992 (4th floor)
Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers, 3rd series PR9025.A52 T893 1996 (4th floor)
Francophone Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean E-book
Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa EBook. See "Literature" in the index to see writers and topics included.
Scherezadde's Legacy: Arab and Arab American Women on Writing PS153.A73S34 2004 (4th floor)
South Asian Writers in English PR9570.S642 S68 2006 (4th floor)
Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India PK5416.H27 1996 (4th floor)
Columbia Guide to the Latin American Novel since 1945 PQ7082.N7W546 2007 (4th floor)
Modern Latin-American Fiction Writers 1st & 2nd series PQ7082.N7M55 (4th floor)
Asian American Writers PS153.A84A845 2005 (4th floor)

Women Writers

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:03:38 -0700

Websites

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:06:23 -0700

Voices from the Gaps: Women, Artists and Writers of Color. Biographies, critiques, and more.

African & Caribbean Literature in French (Howard University)

African Writers: Voices of Change Brief biographica information on major writers, including Ama Ata Aidoo, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head. Links to other sties on African writers.

Feminist and Womanist Criticism of African Literature: A Bibliography Created in 1997; not updated so does not include more recent criticism. MA Thesis in Comparative Literature, Indiana University.

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:07:53 -0700

Grove Art Online Online version of Grove Dictionary of Art. Includes Oxford Companion to Western Art. Online and N31.D5 1996 (Valley, 5th floor)

Oxford Reference Online Includes Oxford Companion to Western Art and Oxford Dictionary of Art. Also at N31.E53 (Valley, 5th floor)

Finding Articles

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:28:36 -0700

Research Databases

If the database doesn't include the full text of an article you need, use the "360 Link to Full Text" to find it. Show me how

MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) The major source for the study of language and literature. Includes books, journal articles, and parts of books.

Women's Studies International Interdisciplinary; articles in women's studies, sociology, arts and humanities, education and more.

Academic Search Premier A very good source for journal articles in all subject areas, but not nearly as comprehensive as MLAIB for literature or Women's Studies International for women's studies. Limit to scholarly academic journals.

Full Text Collections

Project Muse Scholarly, peer-reviwed journals in the humanities & social sciences. Search JSTOR archival collection simultaneouly by selecting "Include JSTOR back issues." Show me how.

JSTOR An archival collection of journal articles in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. It does not provide access to the most current issues.

Course Professor

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:54:42 -0700

Dr. Laura Rice

Quoting and Citing Sources: MLA Style

Stefanie.Buck@oregonstate.edu (Stefanie Buck) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:59:32 -0700

"The accuracy of quotations in research writing is extremely important. They must reproduce the original sources exactly. . . . You must construct a clear grammatically correct sentence that allows you to introduce or incorporate a quotation with complete accuracy" (Gibaldi 109).

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6^th ed. NY: Modern Language Association of America, 2003.

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Click here for examples of parenthetical citations in short and long quotations.

For more information on quoting and citing sources, see

Diana Hacker's Research and Documentation Online
Online Writing Lab: OWL at Purdue
Rutgers University Libraries: How to Avoid Plagiarism (video)

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Citation Machine : an online bibliography maker that formats citations in MLA and other styles.

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