All the Rage: Angry Women in Early 20th-Century Literature

Class Description

Narratives of women’s fury have never felt timelier, however much they appear—or can be—double-edged. With the rising popularity of feminist rage fiction in the contemporary literary marketplace, this course considers how this subgenre emerged in the first half of the twentieth century. We will think about how the expression of anger has shifted over time and how it is bound up in discourses of class and race. Some questions we will consider in this course include in what ways can rage be a resource of resistance and power in response to racism, misogyny, and compulsory heterosexuality in a patriarchal system? How can rage be channeled into constructive ends when it so often entails loss of control and the potential for (self-turned) destructiveness? And how do we address the potential for feminist rage to become absorbed into narratives of the hysterical woman or framed (often in racialized ways) as animalistic or childish behavior?

All virtual classes are recorded and made available to participants registered in the class. These recordings are password-protected and available for up to two weeks after the class ends.

Jen Comerford recently earned her PhD in English literature and a graduate certificate in gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern University where she teaches undergraduate courses on topics including material culture, Jane Austen, triangulated desire, adaptation, and feminist rage fiction.

What to Expect

Format: Virtual

Class Capacity: 20

Class Style: Mostly discussion; participation-based

Materials List

Required

• Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca. Back Bay Books, 2023. ISBN: 9780316575201

• Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes. NYRB Classics, 1999. ISBN: 9780940322165

• Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Penguin Classics, 2016. ISBN: 9780143129547

• Instructor-Distributed Materials

First Assignment (sent by the instructor about one week before class)

• Zitkala-Sa, excerpt from American Indian Stories

• Woolf, "Professions for Women"

• Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper"

A Brief Syllabus

1. Killing the Angel in the House
2. The Dead Husband Club
3. “It is we witches who count”
4. The Madwoman in the Attic
5. Against the Reproductive Marriage Plot
6. Sisterhood and Reparative Futures

Cost and Registration

6 Sessions, $270 ($243 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.

We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($270), Community Supported ($250), and Sponsor ($290).Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.

To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.

Having trouble signing up? Take a look at our step-by-step guide to registration by clicking here.

The views and opinions expressed in this class and/or by the instructor are not necessarily representative of the Newberry. We aim to ensure that in our classes, participants can have respectful disagreement to foster critical thinking. This is a space to challenge and expand our own worldviews to work towards better understanding and appreciating humanity.

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