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Women, Sociability and Solitude COL 249 FA

Women have traditionally inhabited private space but have rarely been privileged with privacy. With difficulty have women enjoyed solitude, the experience of being unto oneself. Socialization, political pressures and women's own regard for relationships all have promoted the expression of sociability, being for others besides oneself. To gain a time and space for solitude has therefore involved women in fundamental questions about gender identity and the ethical values that gender helps define. This course seeks to understand how women have come to terms with the often conflicting values of sociability and solitude by examining the writings of women from the modern industrial era. During this period, the separation of home and workplace was ratified by the ideology of the proper bourgeois woman: the woman whose confinement to domestic "privacy" made her an agent of socialization and whose movement between private and public made her a vehicle of transgression. How women responded differently to this bourgeois ideal from within different classes and races, and different experiences of parental bonds, will receive special attention in this course about women intended for women and men.

MAJOR READINGS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UG Credit: 1.00 Gen Ed Area & Dept: HA COL

Prerequisites: None

Last Updated on MAR-22-1999