This course introduces students to an important area of 
academic inquiry, literary representations by and about women, 
and the academic study of gender and sexual difference.  We 
will expect students to become thoroughly acquainted with 
selected major literary works by and about women; literary and 
theoretical works about gender; to grasp basic concepts of 
feminist theory;  to engage in rational and informed 
discussions of literary texts; and to become confident writers 
about those texts. Instructors will evaluate student writing in 
a variety of ways, ranging from in-class essays to journal-
writing. Students can also expect to discuss and engage in the 
various forms of non-traditional or non-canonical genres of 
textual production historically associated with women's 
knowledge work (such as embroidered emblems during the 
sixteenth century; travel journals in the Augustan age;  
journal-writing in the Romantic era; sensation fiction in
the Gilded Age; genre fiction in the mid-twentieth-
century; "mommy-blogs" or "fashionista blogs" in the 21st 
century).

This course is taught by a number of instructors with a wide 
range of specialties within the field of British and American 
literature.  Thus, texts to be studied and organizing 
principles of the course will vary from semester to semester.  
In general, students can expect that attention will be paid to 
the following broad topics:
1) women's history
2) feminist literary theory
3) continuities and discontinuities of theme in literature by 
women
4) aesthetics of women's literature
5) the representation of women in literature
6) the representation of masculinity or "manliness" in 
literature
7) the study of gender and sexuality
8) women's textual production and knowledge-work, understood 
with regard to both history and genre

Students in this course are expected to be familiar with and adhere to the UGA
Student Honor Code.  Students may be required to participate in graded group projects
at the instructor's discretion.