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Academic Year 2003/2004

Multi-Ethnic Literature: The Murderous Mother and the Beloved Child
ENGL 110 FA

Crosslistings: WMST 110 AMST 110

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).

MAJOR READINGS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2004

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