"Odd" Women: Gender, Class, And Victorian Culture

In this course, we will analyze a number of female "types" found in Victorian fiction, poetry, and criticism -- the governess, the fallen woman, the shopgirl, and the 'new woman', to name just a few -- who figure centrally in debates over marriage, work, and the changing position of women in nineteenth-century Britain. Although our reading will range from the late 1840s to the beginning of the twentieth century, we will focus primarily on two historical periods, the 1850s-1860s and the 1890s, during which the "woman question" was hotly debated in the press and in fiction. Topics for discussion will include the convergence of gender, sexuality and politics in late-Victorian feminist and socialist reform movements; the role of class in defining female experience; and women's conflicted participation in British imperialism. Students will be encouraged to conduct primary research on nineteenth-century women's history in local archives in conjunction with course papers and divisional work. This course satisfies the Division I requirement. PRS,REA,WRI