SPAN 6170 - Gender/Genre

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Conducted in Spanish. This is the mandatory graduate seminar for 1st year Spanish graduate students.

J. Chang.

In this seminar, we will examine the relationship between gender and the modern novel-a genre dominated almost exclusively by male authors and their obsession with troubled female protagonists. Coupling critical approaches to narrative fiction with theoretical treatments of gender subjectivity and sexual desire, we will examine the ways in which genre, gender, and sexuality are inextricably intertwined. Some of our guiding questions include: How do gender and sexuality inflect the structure of narrative fiction? What role does desire play in the relationship between author, narrator, protagonist, and reader? Throughout the semester we will also consider how gender is represented, regulated, and performed in relation to class, race, the nation, and empire.