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Course Description

Summary

This literature survey is designed to engage with the figure of the wife. We’ll read 20th century writing by authors whose fame was at the time eclipsed by their husbands and partners. We will approach them as writers, thinkers, and activists in their own right, before turning to where their creative and intellectual work meets their conscription in a system of gendered labor. That is, how was these writers’ work influenced by their role as wives? We’ll consider how heteropatriarchal notions about relationship roles extended to the framing and reception of their work. Four of the texts on our reading list are memoir or autobiography: how do gender and sexual roles influence writers choice of form (or rather, what forms were palatable to audiences and publishers)? We will also be thinking about how race, language, and cultural context influence the idea of the wife. What happens when we apply a wifely optic to queer and trans relationships (e.g. such as those between Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, and Leslie Feinberg and Minnie Bruce Pratt). Readings may include excerpts from the following texts or by the following authors: Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, Nadezhda Mandelstam, translated by Max Hayward (1970, first circulated in samizdat edition in 1960s) What is Remembered, Alice B. Toklas (1963) Strange Big Moon: Japan India Journals 1960-1964, Joanne Kyger Meaning a Life: An Autobiography, Mary Oppen (1978) The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent, Suzanne Césaire Etel Adnan Simone Fattal Claude Cahun Marcel Moore Leslie Feinberg Minnie Bruce Pratt Audre Lorde Gloria Ida Joseph Cherríe L. Moraga and Celia Herrera Rodríguez