AMST 310
"A language to hear myself": Advanced Studies in Feminist Poetry and Poetics Spring 2023
Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed ENGL 302 / WGSS 330
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

The title of this course comes from Adrienne Rich’s 1969 poem “Tear Gas,” grounding our study in 1960s, 70s, and 80s feminist activist poetry but also in our current moment to answer a fundamental question: what can poetry do for us? In this period, feminist activist poets were at the center of a revolutionary social justice movement that changed the world. Feminist presses published much of the new poetry. This course focuses on the theory and practice of feminist poetry and print culture during this period, and how feminist experiments in language changed how we understand American poetry. We focus on the theoretical writings and poetry chapbooks of a diverse group of poets who powered the movement, including Audre Lorde, Mitsuye Yamada, Nelly Wong, Robin Morgan, June Jordan, Joy Harjo, Gloria AnzaldĂșa, Sonia Sanchez, Adrienne Rich, Judy Grahn, and Pat Parker. We also read the work of some later feminist theorists, such as Sara Ahmed. We spend time in the archives, analyzing documents from the period, including feminist magazines and original publications of poetry chapbooks often published by the period’s many feminist presses and consider how such attention allows us to construct alternative narratives for feminism and American poetry. Writing at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and of multiple social justice movements (Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam War, LGBTQ activism, and Black Power), these poets gave us a new language to “hear,” not only ourselves, but the experience and pain of others, and, in so doing, they moved personal experience into public discourse around issues of inequality and human flourishing in a democratic society.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 25
Expected: 25
Class#: 3814
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: short analysis papers (4-5 pages), creative (1-2 pages), Perusall annotations, longer final researched paper (10-12 pages) or alternative digital project, curated exhibition of archival materials in Special Collections
Prerequisites: a 100-level ENGL course, or a score of 5 on the AP English Literature exam, or a score of 6 or 7 on the Higher Level IB English exam, or permission of instructor
Enrollment Preferences: English, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, American Studies majors
Distributions: Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENGL 302 Division I WGSS 330 Division II AMST 310 Division II
DPE Notes: The course examines the effects of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality on both poetry and the feminist movement and how women negotiated their differences within the movement, as well as in response to the dominant patriarchal culture. This course employs critical tools (feminist theory, archival research, poetics, close reading, comparative approaches) to help students question and articulate the social injustices that led to the poetry and poetics of the period.
Attributes: AMST Critical and Cultural Theory Electives
ENGL Criticism Courses
ENGL Literary Histories C
WGSS Racial Sexual + Cultural Diversity Courses
WGSS Theory Courses

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