Objectives:
The main objective of the course is to analyze, through a selection of narratives by contemporary women writers, the critical function of literature and the ways in which these authors use literary space as an arena of resistance, insurgency, and engagement with the world. It also aims to investigate how these works contribute to critical reflection on contemporary society and public debate, particularly at the intersection of space and gender.
Specific objectives: a) to analyze the narrative construction of space in the selected works; b) to discuss the characterization of contemporary space and the gender relations arising from the occupation of that space; c) to examine the interaction between space and gender issues in the selected narratives from the perspective of feminist literary criticism and gender studies; d) to discuss the characterization of subjective space through theories of self-fiction and autofiction; e) to analyze how women writers address political space and the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and class.
Justification:
The course aims to analyze works by contemporary women writers that not only address the complex and multifaceted experiences of women in contemporary society but also emphasize the critical function of literature through fictional narratives as well as nonfictional, autobiographical, and autofictional works. Drawing on theories of literary and biographical space; literary theory and criticism in general and feminist literary criticism in particular; gender studies; postcolonial and decolonial theory; cultural criticism; autobiographical writing; and autofiction, the course proposes to examine contemporary narratives written by women in English-language literatures from a comparative perspective.
The course will discuss how literature can contribute to a necessary critical reflection on the various spaces inhabited by women and on gender issues within the conflicts of contemporary society, addressing topics such as the poetics of insurgency, resistance writing, and literature as a political space of confrontation and critical engagement. The selected literary texts will include works by Canadian, Irish, Caribbean, and Indian women writers, among other representatives from former British colonies.
Course Content:
- Key concepts and thinkers on literary space and gender
- Contemporary literature by women: space and gender
- Reconfiguring the domestic space
- Migration and diasporas
- Nomadism and mobilities
- Transnational and diasporic spaces
- Imagining new spaces
- Dystopias/Utopias and Heterotopias
- Intersectional spaces
- Mobility and affective spaces
- Subjective and biographical spaces
- The critical function of literature: political spaces of resistance
Note:
The course will be taught in Portuguese and English, with the bibliography in English.
Classes will be held in person on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
School of Languages and Literature – Rooms 233 and 236 (FFLCH – USP)
On September 9 and 10, classes will be held in Room 233. On September 16 and 17; October 7, 8, 28, and 29; November 18 and 19; and December 2 and 3, classes will be held in Room 236.