Gender 300: Gender and Aesthetic Expression

Albert Durer: "Adam" and "Eve" (1507)

 

Spring 2007; Tue: 3:30-5:00; Fri: 3:00-4:30 (Miller 103)

Prof. Osipovich (tatiana@lclark.edu)

office: Miller 325; telephone x7442)

Office hours: Wed: 11:30-12:30pm; Thu: 1:00-2:00

and by appointment

Content of the course (Lewis & Clark Catalog): Forms of female and male expression in the arts and humanities. Questions such as the existence of feminine and masculine forms, voices, symbolic systems; the possibility of a feminist aesthetic; theories of representation. Ways women and men have used the same forms, such as poetry, fiction, visual art, cinema.

Materials are mostly drawn from Russian literature, visual arts, cinema.

 

How has gender affected forms of self-expression in the arts and humanities? How have writers, poets, artists, and film directors imagined differences between the sexes? Does gender matter in our perception of arts and literature? Is there a feminist aesthetic?

This seminar introduces students to gender studies via analysis of the most representative verbal and visual texts of modern culture in Russia and Western Europe. We begin by tracing the construction of femininity and masculinity at the end of the 19th century. This era was critical for rethinking sexual identity: borders between the sexes destabilized, homosexuality became a topic of heated debate, and feminism emerged as a significant movement. Our survey examines gendered forms, voices, and symbolic systems in literature and avant-garde art, and concludes with an investigation of how gender has been reconceived in post-modern culture.

Vera Mukhina: Factory Worker and Collective Farmer (1937)

Course objectives:

Through readings, viewings, discussions and writing, students will:

1. become aware of differences in the representation of males and females, and masculinity and femininity, in such major art forms as literature, visual art and cinema;
2. examine differences in the way society assigns value to artistic works created by men and women;
3. learn about some feminist critical approaches to the arts and humanities;
4. consider the possibility of a feminist aesthetics;
5. adopt a critical perspective (along gender lines) in regard to literature and visual arts;
6. learn about some Russian writers and artists, both male and female.

 

Course requirements and grading:

 

Course requirements include regular attendance and active participation in class discussions, completion of all readings or viewings assigned for each class meeting, submissions of one short (6-page) paper and one long (12-page) paper, a class report (10 minutes) based on a longer paper, and a final, which students have the choice to substitute for five short analytical essays (2-3 pages each). These short essays have to analyze the assigned material (text/s, film/s, or painting/s), and they have to be submitted at the end of the class during which this assigned material is discussed. 

 

Students will be evaluated on the quality of their active contribution to class discussions (25%), their papers -- short (15%) and long (25%), class report (10%) and a final or short analytical essays (25%). See some examples of such essays here:

 

Students unfamiliar with the MLA Handbook are advised to acquaint themselves with it, for it clearly sets out the acceptable format for paper writing and defines the appropriate means of documenting use of other people’s ideas and materials. It is students’ responsibility to familiarize themselves with rules and regulations as spelled out in the Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures at Lewis & Clark College and to strictly observe them. Any infraction will be penalized according to these rules. Read more about writing assignments here: Gender 300: writing

 

Reading list (contact your professor, if you have questions: tatiana@lclark.edu.

 

Since some of the course texts are out of print or in overly expensive editions, the readings for the course consist of three different categories:

(1)        Electronic reserve (http://library.lclark.edu/reserves/index.htm). Please always bring a printed copy of your assigned electronic material to class discussion. The same materials are also available through the regular reserve service (in a hard copy form). These copies can be checked out for two hours per day.

(2)        Xeroxed materials distributed by the instructor

(3)        Books to be purchased in the college bookstore:

1.     L. Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata & Other Stories, Dover, NY, 1993    

2.     E. Nagrodskaia, The Wrath of Dionysus, Indiana Univ. Press, 1997

 

Some important terms we will use in our class. Please click here.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Some entries on this web-site are subjected to frequent edits that do not respect a neutral point of view. You, therefore, have to be aware that some information in the encyclopedia's entries might be incorrect or biased.

 

 Schedule:

January 19 (Fri)

Introduction to the course: syllabus, readings, writing assignments, terminology, etc. Discussion of T. Moi's Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (electronic reserve)

January 23 (Tue)

Introduction to critical approaches in cultural/literary studies. Discussion of T. Moi's Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory & the article "Infection in the Sentence: the Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship" by S. Gilbert and S. Gubar.

January 26 (Fri)
 The Emergence of the "Woman Question." Misogyny. Read Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata (1891), pp. 64-140
January 30 (Tue)
 Feminist approaches to The Kreutzer Sonata: Read B. Heldt "Tolstoy’s Path toward Feminism" from Terrible Perfection and A. Dworkin "Repulsion" from Intercourse. A. Chekhov's answer to the woman question: read his story "The Betrothed" (1903): Discussion questions.
February 2 (Fri)
 Introduction to gender approaches in visual art. Read: G. Perry  "Introduction: Gender and Art History." Russian fin-de-siecle visual art. Read: O. Matich "Gender Trouble in the Amazonian Kingdom: Turn-Of The-Century Representation of Women in Russia" from Amazons of the Avant-garde. (Google images for better viewings: http://www.google.com/).
February 6 (Fri)
 Read H. C. Andersen's "Little Mermaid" (1837) and Z. Gippius's play "Sacred Blood" (1901). You can read Tatiana's presentation here:
February 9 (Fri)
 Russian decadence and sexual difference: Read fin-de-siecle Russian poetry by A. Blok, Z. Gippius and others from Utopias. Russian Modernist Texts.
February 13 (Tue)
 "The New (Artistic) Woman" and the woman's novel. Read E. Nagrodskaya's The Wrath of Dionysus (1910), pp. 1-100.
February 16 (Fri)
 Sexuality, love, creativity: The Wrath of Dionysus, pp. 100-191 (reading "Introduction" is highly recommended)
February 20 (Tue)

Gender/class/aesthetic expression/: Read Maxim Gorky's short story "Twenty-Six Men and One Girl" (1899). View/analyze gender & class issues in realist and modernist Russian paintings. Click here to see some images.
February 23 (Fri )
 The birth of cinema. Silent films. Read Laura Mulvey's article "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (reserve) and about Eisenstein's theory of montage (click here).
February 27 (Tue)

First paper due (six-page essay): See details at: Gender 300: writing and some useful information at: http://www.lclark.edu/~writing/ If you write about visual art, click here for some images. In-class viewing of a silent Russian film "Bed and Sofa" (1927).
March 2 (Fri)
 Alexandra Kollontai and the problem of new sexual morality. Read Kollontai's story "Three generations." Be ready to discuss both the film "Bed and Sofa" (main focus) and Kollontai's story.
March 6 (Tue)
 Men Without Women: War/Revolution/Violence. Read David Morgan's article "Theater of War: Combat, the Military, and Masculinities." Read I. Babel's short story: "My First Goose" & A. Blok's poem "The Twelve. " View some war posters: here
March 9 (Fri)

No regular class. Participation in the 26th annual Gender Studies Symposium "Our Voices, Ourselves:" http://www.lclark.edu/dept/gender/symposia.html

March 13 (Tue)
 Patriotic art/military/masculinities. View "Saving Private Ryan"(1998) on the reserve shelf and some combat photography here. David Morgan's article "Theater of War: Combat, the Military, and Masculinities" (electronic reserve).
March 16 (Fri)
 The New Woman (political activist) in literature and visual art. Read A. Neverov's short story "Marya the Bolshevik," a "bad wife" fairy tale, and V. Bonnell's article "Iconography of Power: Representation of Women in Early Soviet Art." See some political posters here and here. Compare Soviet posters with American posters that also represent women (see - here)
March 20 (Tue)
 Motherhood and the Revolution. View Askoldov's film "Commissar," 1967 (two copies of this video are on the reserve shelf). Group viewing is scheduled for Monday (March 19) at 6pm in Miller 105. Be ready to discuss this film in class on Tuesday.
March 23 (Fri)

Art as Resistance: life and poetry of Anna Akhmatova. Read Akhmatova's poetry (electronic reserve). In-class viewing of a documentary "Fear and the Muse" Your final project proposal is due (see instructions here)

March 27 (Tue) - March 30 (Fri)

 SPRING BREAK (no classes)
April 3 (Tue)

Art as Resistance. Read Jo Anna Isaak, "Reflection of Resistance: Women Artists on the Other Side of the

MIR." Write a 1-2 page analysis of one of the contemporary paintings (google any image you got interested in while reading the article; use G. Perry's checklist questions as

your guide for writing your small essay (Gender and Art, p. 14). You can also view some images here and here
April 6 (Fri)

Deconstructing romantic relations. Contemporary women's fiction and fairy tales. Read: Russian Fairy Tale "The Feather of Finist The Bright Falcon" and T. Tolstaya short story "The Poet and the Muse."
April 10 (Tue)
 Crisis of Masculinity:  film "The Return" (2003) (in-class viewing). Work on your presentation/long paper. Re-submit your thesis statement if you were required to do so.
April 13 (Fri)

De/constructing masculinity. Read: K. Klimova "A Marriage of Convenience" and N. Sadur "Worm-eaten Sonny." Be ready to discuss these stories and Zvyagintsev's film "The Return."   
April 17 - April 24
students' presentations
April 27 (Fri)
 Your final paper due by 5:00pm (you have to put your paper in the folder located next to my office door in Miller 325 or forward it electronically in msword form) Read here about your final reserch paper.
May 2 (Wed)
 Final Exam (6-9pm) in Miller 205

Natalia Goncharova: Self Portrait with Yellow Lilies. 1907

Zinaida Serebryakova: Self-Portrait (Study), 1911
Vera Mukhina: "A Peasant Woman" (1927-1928)

 
Zinaida Serebryakova: "Peasants"