|
Plenary IV: Pedagogies Workshop 35. Teaching the Writing Woman (and Her Representations of Gendered Violence): Mary Wroth's Urania (1621) and Françoise De Graffigny's Letters from a Peruvian Woman (1747) Organizers: Barbara Zimbalist (English), Stephanie O'Hara (French) Abstract: This workshop will explore the possibilities and challenges of teaching two texts, one written by a seventeenth-century Englishwoman and the other by an eighteenth-century Frenchwoman, and what the implications of this juxtaposition might be. Our focus on the pedagogical challenges of teaching women writers falls under the "Pedagogies" plenary topic, while our attention to the depictions of violence and masculinity within these texts touches on the "Theorizing Early Modern Masculinity and Maleness" and the "Violence" plenary topics. The workshop is interdisciplinary in its focus on two different cultures (England and France) and two different literary periods- Wroth wrote and published in Jacobean England, while Graffigny wrote and published in Enlightenment France. In order to narrow our focus, and in keeping with the themes of the plenaries, we will focus on passages from these texts that represent women writing, and how they approach violence and masculinity. Readings: A. Wroth [view PDF]
B. Graffigny [view PDF]
Additional Information: Wroth and Graffigny, separated by language, an ocean, and a century of literary activity, share an interest in the representation of gendered violence. As women, each laboriously navigated the turbulent (and often violent) worlds of marriage, publication, and literary representation. As authors, they shared an interest in representing female protagonists and communities in dialogue with violent masculine forces. This workshop is structured around two related themes common to both texts: the concept of the writing woman and the embedded concept of the woman writing about masculinity and violence. We will ask questions about how these two women writers represent gendered violence, and how we teach women's texts including these often disturbing images and concepts. Some framing questions are: Do we look at representations of men, women, and violence differently when introduced under the auspices of gendered authorship? Is this helpful or harmful? How do questions such as these connect to the larger issues and challenges of how and why we teach early modern women writers? We envision the workshop in a tripartite structure: We will begin with a brief introductory presentation (no more than 10 minutes) by each facilitator, highlighting relevant aspects of each woman's life and the socio-historical context in which she wrote. We will then split the remaining time into two related group discussions. The first discussion will explore the two primary texts and their common images of writing women and gendered violence, as well as the challenges and possibilities of teaching these texts together. We will invite each workshop participant to share their questions, thoughts, and connections as they read through each of these texts. Some framing questions for beginning this discussion are: How does each author define and/or depict violence, especially the violence of men directed against women? What are the expectations for female autonomy within the text, and can we relate this to the image of the writing woman? How does the writing woman represent gendered violence, and by extension, the men who present challenges and threats in the text? We hope this section of the discussion will address the rich possibilities of teaching the layers of gendered writing throughout each of these texts- the first layer being the women authors themselves representing women and men in violent contact with each other, the second layer being the female characters writing about women and men in violent contact. In the second discussion, we want to widen our field of questioning to the larger pedagogical concerns of teaching women's texts. We hope to ask broad questions, from a (seemingly) simple attempt to define what a woman's text is, to larger and provocative questions about why we teach women writers in the first place. Some framing questions here might be: How do written representations of men and women, and of men by women, differ between cultures and time periods? How do they stay the same? How can and should we compare writing women and their literary output? Can/Should we read them in dialogue with their authors/creators? Why might early examples of narratives by women highlight violence in the ways we have discussed? Is there an element of authorial self-representation and involvement in a woman's text addressing violence that is different from or absent in a male-authored text? Should we read and/or teach these texts as prescriptive? As cautionary? As recorded history? We want to conclude the workshop by revisiting the framing questions of the 2006 conference, especially the last: "What are the consequences for the study of early modern society and of current scholarly assumptions about gender?" Has an examination of these two texts, contextually different yet thematically linked, given rise to ideas and insights about teaching the writing woman in early modern Europe? Further Reading: A. Wroth
B. Graffigny
|