ENG / WST 234. “Women in Literature”
Marianne Moore with Muhammad Ali (1967)
Important Documents:
Commonplace Book Assignment | Field Report
Timeline & World Map | Women in Lit Slideshow
Final Short Paper & Conference Assignment
September 3: Course Overview | Getting Started
Lecture Notes (here)
Some Close Reading: “Poetry” (1935) by Marianne Moore | “When Muhammad Ali Wrote a Poem with Marianne Moore” by Danny Heitman
Trade Contact Info / Syllabus Review
Set up Dropboxes (accept my email invitation)
Commonplacing Assignment (here)
Letter to ENG 234 Students (here)
Homework for Sept. 10: 1. Set up your www.dropbox.com account (downloading the app if you wish) by accepting my folder invitation. You should receive it in your email. Everyone is entitled to a free Dropbox account through CUNY here. Downloading the application will make syncing seamless. Up to you!
2. Read the “Letter to ENG 234 Students” linked above. Write your Letter to the Professor (response with revisions) and submit it as a PDF in Dropbox.
3. Read or reread the 4 poems linked below. Copy down, mark up, and respond to your favorite passages in your commonplace book.
4. Read through the syllabus carefully on your own. Review the lecture slides and consider some topic choices for your final presentation and paper.
5. Go shopping for a commonplace book that will be your own special “imaginary garden with real toads in them.”
September 10: Marianne Moore and Harryette Mullen
Class notes (PDF)
“Poetry” (1935) by Marianne Moore
“When Muhammad Ali Wrote a Poem with Marianne Moore” by Danny Heitman
Homework for 9/17:
1. Reread the Commonplace Book Assignment linked above. Procure a Commonplace book to use throughout the year if you haven’t already. 2. Read the Phyllis Wheatley poems linked above. [Just the 6 bullet points under Sep 17.] Copy over choice passages into your commonplace book. Then respond to them in your commonplace book with commentary and annotations. 3. Make sure your Dropbox has the Letter to the Professor in it and that it is saved as a PDF. 4. I have linked class notes from last week above, for those who would like to review.
September 17: Close Reading Phyllis Wheatley
Lecture Notes (here)
Background on Phyllis Wheatley*
Poems by Phyllis Wheatley*:
“A Hymn to the Evening” (here)
“To S.M., A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works” (here)
“On Imagination” (here)
“On Being Brought from Africa to America” (here)
“His Excellency George Washington” (here) with Letter to George Washington (included in Norton handout below)
Norton Anthology edition with scholarly footnotes (here)
On Black erasure and the importance of historical source materials: “His Name Was Bélizaire”
Class Activity: Historical Resources & “Where do these texts live?”
The New Yorker: “How Phillis Wheatley Was Recovered Through History” (here)
1773 Poems on Various Subjects: Digital manuscript from the British Library
1834 Memoir on Archive.org (here)
USC Special Collections (here) with high resolution scan (here)
NYT Biography book review (here)
National Portrait Gallery (here)
Homework: 1. Choose one of the Historical Resources about Phyllis Wheatley we saw in class (6 bullet points above) to study more closely. Write about it in your commonplace book. Be prepared to share what you gleaned from the source. 2. Skim through the Wollstonecraft, Woolf, and hooks readings below. Choose one to read carefully. Commonplace 2 passages into your notebook and annotate/discuss. Be prepared to share your passage in class.
September 24: Feminisms Crash Course
Lecture Notes for Feminisms Crash Course
Wollstonecraft, Woolf, and hooks discussion
Class Discussion: Toni Morrison, “Cinderella’s Stepsisters”
Group Activity:
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (excerpts here / full text here)
Virginia Woolf, “Shakespeare’s Sister” from A Room of One’s Own
bell hooks, “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory” and “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression”
HW: 1) Review lecture notes from class today to digest what we learned, taking notes of key terms when helpful. 2) Reread either the Wollstonecraft, Woolf, and hooks to get a better sense of the essays we started discussing. We will continue our discussion of this in class next week. I will ask everyone to read aloud their favorite 2 lines and discuss. Make sure your commonplace book is up to date! 3) Get your copy of The Personal Librarian and start reading the first 5 chapters. Part 1 linked here and it’s also available on Google Books if you don’t want to purchase a hard copy.
October 1: FEMINISMS Part 2
Class: Wollstonecraft, Woolf, and hooks discussion continued. (Class Notes here)
Toni Morrison, “Cinderella’s Stepsisters”
HW: Read Goblin Market, linked below. I have provided 2 versions; choose the one you find most convenient.
October 15: no class (Indigenous People’s Day observed)
HW: 1. Read the rest of The Personal Librarian. (For those reading quickly, Part 2 is linked here). Copy key passages into your Commonplace Book and add commentary. 2. Read the Belle Green sources linked below under Oct. 22. Sign up for your NYT account. 3. Choose a poem to begin work on your Midterm Poetry Recitation.
Midterm Poetry Recitation assignment (here)
Recited Verse website (sign up here)
Instructions for how to upload your recording (here)
Lecture Notes (here)
Critical editions of select poems:
Dorothy Wordsworth (here)
Felicia Hemans (here)
Leititia Elizabeth Landon (here)
Anna Letitia Barbauld (here)
Charlotte Smith (here)
The midterm (recording + reflection) will be due on October 29.
October 22: Belle Da Costa Greene & The Morgan Library
Recitation Lecture Notes (here)
This week, sign up for your free New York Times account (here).
“The Morgan Library and Miss Greene” NYT feature (here)
Library of Congress feature (here)
NYT obituary of Belle da Costa Greene (here)
Explore The Belle da Costa Greene Professional Papers at the Morgan Library
Earliest known photograph at Amherst (here)
Codeswitch podcast with the authors of The Personal Librarian (here)
Homework: Complete all aspects of the Midterm Recitation Project. This means uploading your audio file onto Recited Verse and submitting your Midterm Reflection write-up (clearly labeled) as a PDF in your Dropbox.
October 29: No regular class.
Watch the following Special Lecture video: “What New in the Goblin Marketplace?” Prof. Margaret Stetz, University of Delaware (video linked here). Read through the assignments below before watching the video.
HW: 1. Write a short “Field Report” write-up to include in your commonplace book. Due 11/5. Please note: if you are attending the Morgan Library trip, you may choose to write your Field Report on that experience instead of the virtual lecture!
2. Upload/update your full commonplace book to Dropbox, either as photos or a video file. This includes your field report. Due 11/5.
Optional Field Trip for Extra Credit to the Morgan Library at 37th St. and Madison Ave: Sunday, November 3, 1 pm. The Morgan Library’s exhibition on Belle da Costa Greene. Meet in the Morgan Library just before 1pm. Reserve your own tickets here by selecting Nov 3: Free College Sunday. You’ll need to bring your student ID. See you in the lobby!
Nov 5. Commmonplacing
Introduction to Commonplacing (slides)
K-SAA Digital Commonplacing Website (here)
Group Activity: Descriptive analysis of one page or portion of a c-place book from the Pforzheimer Collection. (Click here for access to 300+ images!). Or choose any of the sources below.
Historical Commonplace Books:
1805 Commonplace Book (here)
1834 Mary Burdoch Bland Liverpool Commonplace Book (here)
1551 Medical Commonplace book (here)
1892 American political commonplace book (here)
1723 Commonplace book (here)
Felicia Hemans’ Commonplace Book (Part 1)
Felicia Hemans’ Commonplace Book (Part 2)
HW: 1. Read excerpts from Mary Phillips, Black Panther Woman and the article from Essence Magazine. Commonplace passages in your commonplace book. 2. Read about author Mary Phillips and listen to the podcast. (Everything is linked below). Be ready to share your 2 passages and discuss them in class!
Nov 12: Ericka Huggins
Class discussion: Group breakdown of “Sister Love”
Pick a partner. Pick your readings for next week.
Mary Phillips, introduction to the new book Black Panther Woman (2025) (here)
Essence Magazine, “Honoring the Women of the Black Panther Party” (here)
About Mary Phillips (here)
Podcast interview about the life of Ericka Huggins (here)
HW: Read the entire essay, poems, or chapters you are responsible for covering next week. Commonplace 2 entries and annotate. Be prepared to present your commonplaced passage on the board.
Nov 19: Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde, Essays from Sister Outsider:
“Poetry is not a Luxury” (Eileen & Madison)
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” (Fatima & Jayden S)
“Uses of the Erotic” (Khelly & Hannah)
“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (Mateo, Angelie & Harold)
“The Uses of Anger” (Lindsey & Weidy)
Audre Lorde, Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving (Antinella & Aissatou)
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (a biomythography)
Chapters 1-11 (Jayden M & Keyline)
Chapters 16-19 (Eloise & Jay)
Chapters 23-28 (Wafa & Jaden N.)
HW: 1. Complete the Timeline Assignment & World Map Assignment (below) 2. Bring your commonplace book to class next week to show me. (Your will get it back)
Homework: Timelines & World Map Assignment
Timeline Assignment & World Map Assignment
The authors you need to include are all the ones introduced on the first week of class, linked on the slideshow here.
Work by yourself or in the groups you’ve formed (contacts listed here). Complete both assignments by next week. Leave them in your Dropbox, clearly labeled.
Choose the figure you will work on for your Final presentation.
We will share topics and go over the parameters for your final field report in class next week.
Everything except the Final Short Paper should be uploaded into your Dropbox by Nov 26. Please bring your commonplace book to class in hard copy. I will collect them and look at them over the Thanksgiving break.
Nov 26: Loose Ends: CommoNplace Books, Proposals & Field Reports
Remember to bring your Commonplace Book to today’s class.
Proposals
Final Short Paper assigned
Run-down for next week’s conference. How to prepare for your conference.
Some Writing Resources:
The Art of Quoting, from They Say, I Say by Graff and Birkenstein
HW: 1. If you haven’t already, upload your completed Commonplace Book to Dropbox (14 entries total; it’s great if you have more.)
2. This was our last full class! You only need to come to your conference slot on Dec 3 OR Dec 10, read aloud one piece, and present your Commonplace Book + Dropbox to me.
3. Clean up and organize your Dropbox. Scroll down all the way for details. Everything except the Final Short Paper should be in the Dropbox by Nov 26.
Dec 3: Conferences I — held in my office, caRman 392
12:00. Wafa, Brenda, Michelle, Leslie
12:30. Angelie, Madison, Fatima, Harold
1:00 Nyla, Jayden Navarro, Eileen, Itzel
Dec 10: Conferences 2 — held in my office, caRman 392
12:00 Aissatou, Jayden Salmon, Antinella
12:30. Weidy, Keyline, Hannah, Jay
1:00. Khelly, Mateo, Eloise
Final papers due as a PDF in your Dropbox on December 10 by 5pm.
YOUR FINAL DROPBOX SHOULD INCLUDE:
Letter to the Professor
2. Midterm Reflection
3. Field Report
4. Timeline & World Map Assignments
5. Commonplace Book
6. Final Short Paper
Make sure your files/folders are labeled clearly.)