Course Description:
Virginia Woolf–writer, feminist, and anti-colonial pacifist–is among the most important figures of the twentieth century. This course takes as its focus her nonfictional works. Particular attention is paid to Woolf’s essays, auto/biography, letters, and diary entries. Students will be introduced to relevant historical and political contexts, such as debates about women’s suffrage, imperialism, World War I, the rise of fascism, and the coming of World War II. The course’s primary aim is to introduce Virginia Woolf as a rhetorician whose innovative ideas on writing, new media, identity, war, gender, and class represent lasting contributions to (feminist) rhetorical theory.
Required Texts:
Primary: A Room of One’s Own; Three Guineas; Selected Essays of Virginia Woolf edited by David Bradshaw (selections from); Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf from volumes 1-6, edited by Nigel Nicholson and Joanne Trautmann (selections from); Selected Diary Entries from Diaries of Virginia Woolf, edited by Anne Olivier Bell (selections from).
Secondary: Selections from The Value of Virginia Woolf by Madelyn Detloff (Cambridge UP, 2016) and Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions: Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich by Krista Ratcliffe (SIUP, 1996). Available via pdf.
Course Requirements:
Creative Nonfiction Essay (includes proposal, first, draft, peer review and final).
Rhetorical Analysis Essay (includes proposal, first draft, peer review, and final).
Short Reading Responses.