Gender and Sexuality in Literature English 400

Elizabeth Boyle // boyle30@purdue.edu

Course Description:
In this course, we will explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, and literature. We
will focus especially on the diverse ideas about gender and sexuality expressed in these
texts, the role historical context and concerns play in shaping these texts’ discussions
of gender and sexuality, and the intersection of literary culture and social ideology
evidenced in the works we read. Our discussions will emphasize the historically
contingent values and beliefs embedded in these texts as well as how these values and
beliefs develop over time. Our discussions of these
concerns will lead us to explore a number of different
questions related to gender and sexuality in literature:
what is gender? what is sexuality? what does it mean
to write about gender and sexuality in literature?
what purpose does this literature serve? what do
these texts teach us about gender and sexuality?
what about our contemporary society can we learn
from reading these texts?

Course Objectives:
Ä Read, discuss, and analyze literary treatments
of gender and sexuality;
Ä Discuss foundational theoretical texts about
sexuality and gender;
Ä Explore how historically contingent identities
are transformed by and communicated through
this literature;
Ä Identify how various literary genres treat
gender and sexuality differently;
Ä Hone the skills of critical reading, discussion, analysis, and expository writing.

Required Texts:
Ä Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Story of Avis (9780813510996);
Ä Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (9780393285000);
Ä John Green and David Leviathan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
(97801424188475);
Ä Toni Morrison, Beloved (9781400033416);
Ä Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats (9780140280463);
Ä David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl (9780143108399);
Ä Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (9780441478125).

Evaluation:
Ä Participation (10%)
Ä Quizzes (20%): As we wrap up discussion for every text we read this semester,
students will take a brief quiz. These quizzes will ask questions about the
theories introduced along with the literary texts, the major themes and concerns
addressed in these literary works, and the connections between the theories and
literary works we’re reading.
Ä 3 Short Essays (60%):
o Note:
§ Assignment 1 includes The Story of Avis, Moby-Dick, “My
Visitation,” and Will Grayson, Will Grayson;
§ Assignment 2 includes “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” Beloved, “No
Comment,” and “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”;
§ Assignment 3 includes My Year of Meats, No Woman Born, The
Danish Girl, and The Left Hand of Darkness.
o Passage Interrogation Assignment: For this assignment, select a 250-
word passage from one of our assigned readings. Type this passage in a
word-processing (Microsoft Word or Pages) document and use the
“Footnote” feature of your word processing software and the Oxford
English Dictionary to interrogate the text. To do so, annotate the words,
phrases, references, and sentences in that passage. Your goal in this
assignment is to observe interactions between the passage’s overall
meaning (and its relationship to the broader work) and its individual parts
(words, phrases, and references). Your grade for this assignment will be
based on two parts: 1.) your annotated passage and 2.) a brief (3-page)
reflective synthesis essay where you make explicit connections between
the individual items you’ve identified/annotated in your selected passage
and the broader work.
o Community Read Assignment: This assignment asks you to work in groups
to develop and conduct a community read session for your classmates
and adult members of the community at the local public library. We will
schedule the dates and times of your community read events during the
first week of class. Your grade for this assignment will be based on three
parts: 1.) promotional materials for your event (1 flyer and 1 email
announcing your event to the campus and local community); 2.) a lesson
plan outlining how you’ll conduct your community read session, including
your introductory remarks, discussion questions, activities, and selected
passages; 3.) a study guide suggesting discussion questions and activities
for future community reads on your chosen text.
o “The End” Assignment: This assignment is comprised of two parts. The
first part is a (2-page) creative work in which you rewrite the conclusion
to one of our assigned works. The second part is a brief (3-page)
commentary in which explain why you selected this text, what choices
you made while rewriting its conclusion, and how you believe your
changes influence the story’s tone, meaning, and function.
 Ä Worksheets (10%): We will complete worksheets each time we watch a film in
class. These worksheets will ask straightforward questions about plot, character
development, and literary devices. They are intended as a way for you to
identify and reflect on major narrative moments, which you might draw on when
writing your essays. You should be able to complete these worksheets by the
time we finish watching the film in class.

Course Calendar:
* All readings marked “web” are available via links on our course website.

week Topic: Course Introductions

Monday Wednesday Friday
1 Introduction to Course Butler, “Gender
Performativity” (web)
Foucault, “Discipline”
(web)

Fausto-Sterling. Wittig, from The

“Dualing Dualisms” Straight Mind (web)
(web)
Green, “Remembering
Foucault” (web)
(recommended)

week Topic: Gender and the Body-as-Battleground

Monday Wednesday Friday
2 Hale, “Whose Body Is
This Anyway?” (web)
Phelps, The Story of
Avis
Phelps, The Story of
Avis

Phelps, The Story of Kirk, “What Makes a

Avis Man” (recommended)
(web)

week Topic: Masculinity and Race

Monday Wednesday Friday
3 Phelps, The Story of
Avis
Horlacher, “Configuring
Masculinity” (web)
Melville, Moby-Dick

Wiegman, “Unmaking:
Men and Masculinity in
Feminist Theory” (web)
week Topic: Masculinity and Race, continued
Monday Wednesday Friday
4 Melville, Moby-Dick Melville, Moby-Dick Melville, Moby-Dick

week Topic: Heterosexuality Questioned

Monday Wednesday Friday
5 Ingraham,
“Heterosexuality: It’s
Edelman, “The Future is
Kid Stuff” (web)
Green and Leviathan,
Will Grayson, Will
Just Not Natural” (web) Grayson
Green and Leviathan,
Cooke, “My Visitation” Will Grayson, Will
(web) Grayson

week Topic: Heterosexuality Questioned, continued

Monday Wednesday Friday
6 Green and Leviathan,
Will Grayson, Will
Film: The Imitation
Game
Film: The Imitation Game

Grayson

Assignment #1 Due Worksheet Due

week Topic: Maternal Bodies

Monday Wednesday Friday
7 Devereux, “Hysteria,
Feminism, and Gender
Spillers, “Mama’s Baby,
Papa’s Maybe” (web)
Morrison, Beloved

Revisited” (web) Parker, “A New Hystery”

Morrison, Beloved (recommended) (web)
Gilman, “The Yellow
Wall-Paper” and “Why I
Wrote ‘The Yellow Wall-
Paper’” (web)

Topic: Maternal Bodies, continued

week Monday Wednesday Friday

8
Morrison, Beloved Film: Children of Men Film: Children of Men

Worksheet Due

week Topic: Disability, Race, and Medical Violence

Monday Wednesday Friday

9 Feinberg, “We Are All

Works in Progress”
Dennis, “Social
Darwinism, Scientific
Taylor, “Foucault,
Feminism, and Sex
(web) Racism, and the Crimes” (web)
Metaphysics of Race”
Devrin, “No Comment” (web) Ferreday, “Game of
(web) Thrones, Rape Culture,
Butler, “The Evening and Feminist Fandoms”
James and Wu, “Editors and the Morning and (web)
Introduction: Race, the Night” (web) Assignment #2 Due
Ethnicity, Disability, and
Literature”
(recommended) (web)

week Topic: Race and Sexual Violence in Popular Literature

Monday Wednesday Friday
10 Ozeki, My Year of Meats Ozeki, My Year of Meats Ozeki, My Year of Meats

week Topic: Technology and the Gendered Body

Monday Wednesday Friday
11 Haraway, from Cyborg
Manifesto (web)
Moore, No Woman Born
(web)
Moore, No Woman Born
(web)

Rich, from Of Woman

Born (web)

Topic: Trans Bodies, Trans Spaces

Monday Wednesday Friday
week Halberstam, from In a Ebershoff, The Danish Ebershoff, The Danish
Queer Place and Time Girl Girl

12 (web)

Ebershoff, The Danish

Girl

week Topic: Agender Futures

Monday Wednesday Friday
13 Ebershoff, The Danish
Girl
Film: The Danish Girl Lorber, “The World
Without Gender” (web)
Film Worksheet Due
Le Guin, The Left Hand
of Darkness

week Topic: Agender Futures, continued + Course Wrap-Up

14
Monday Wednesday Friday
Le Guin, The Left Hand Le Guin, The Left Hand Le Guin, The Left Hand
of Darkness of Darkness of Darkness
Assignment #3 Due by
today (for final group
completing the
Community Read
Assignment)

finals
Assignment #3 Due (for students completing the Passage Interrogation
week
Assignment and “The End” Assignment)