If You Were Teaching...

[intertext]

a one semester 2nd year college course in "Women's Lit," what novel would you teach???

I'm thinking about Jane Eyre, but would welcome other suggestions, just NOT The Handmaid's Tale, please.

ETA and not Mrs Dalloway, much as I love it, because I teach it in my 20th century lit course that some of my students in this upcoming course might have taken. And lidocafe teaches it in hers, so the same argument applies.

Comments

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Yes - it or Middlemarch would have to be high on my list. It's so hard to choose!

[lidocafe.livejournal.com]

I really think you can do two, just like in most second-year courses. Orlando might be fun because it asks all those questions about gender (I found it a bit of a slog, but I might not have been smart enough for it when I read it), but it might also be worthwhile to have something pre-twentieth century so as not to promote the notion that women's literature is a new thing (many students have a sketchy notion of "those days"). For that reason, Burney, Austen, Eliot, or Bronte might be worthwhile. I would still fall back on Jane Eyre because it would allow you to talk about the gothic, about romance, about realism, about religion, about class, about race, and about any number of things.

In the end, reading something with a view to teaching it is always a bit different, and Jane Eyre is on your to read list anyway, so maybe you should just read it and see . . . sometimes, our homework is pretty damn great!