| Description: | This course explores some of the most interesting and important women characters in 20th-century European and American fiction. Such characters will include those created by male writers such as Molly in James Joyce's Ulysses, Connie in D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Sarah in John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. However, the course also seeks to compare and contrast such creations with female characters emerging from fiction written by women, for example Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Anna in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, Christa Wolf's Cassandra, or Villanelle in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion. We will assume a gendered perspective to compare men and women writers and their different interpretations of womanhood; yet we shall also try to overcome the enclosures of critical theories and show how great literature can never be reduced to a mere system. Our position as readers will be of the utmost importance: the main focus of the course will be on reading and the pleasures it might offer. |