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Crossing temporal, ethnic and national boundaries, we will look at the maligned mother in writings by nineteenth- and twentieth-century women of color. What are the economies of motherhood and how is maternity aligned with the pathological? What are the intersections between motherhood, slavery, colonialism, immigration and assimilation? This course begins by examining how the institution of slavery affects the private terrain of motherhood in the nineteenth-century poetry of Frances E.W. Harper and Toni Morrison's BELOVED (1987). We will continue looking at the image of the murdering mother and her relation to the borderlands in Chicana literature beginning with nineteenth-century La Llorona cuentos (stories). The class will then explore the relation between the tyrannical mother, appetite and memory in works by Latinas and the unnameable mother in narratives by nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants and Maxine Hong Kingston's THE WOMAN WARRIOR (1976). Our final focus will center on the loss of the mother and one's mother tongue in nineteenth-century Native American autobiographies and Louisa Erdrich's TRACKS (1988).
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-18-2003
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459