In this proseminar, we will examine the novels of four selected women writers from the US American South. While analyzing the works by Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, and Jesmyn Ward, we will take the four authors’ personal experiences in the South, as well as the cultural and historical contexts of their time into account. This will allow us to analyze their complex relationships to and their identities within the South.
As Southern authors they write within or against specific Southern traditions, which is why we want to explore their innovations in style and investigate in how far they adapt or subvert well known Southern tropes. A specific focus also lies on the possible thematic treatment of family, domesticity, marriage, sexual identity, religion, and coming-of-age in the South. Since the four authors write from and about the South, the depiction of the South as a place, will, of course, play a crucial role in our analysis of the four novels.
As women writers, Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, and Jesmyn Ward must find their place within the established Southern literary canon, which has been dominated by male authors for a long time. Therefore, we will also look at how these Southern women writers depict gender roles, class, and race over time.
- Dozent/in: Corin Kraft