First-Year Seminars 110LD - A Landscape of One's Own

This seminar will focus on portrayals of women in;nineteenth and twentieth-century America in the;context of nature and landscape. We will explore;how women, often objectified in visual images set;in nature, appropriated established devices or;developed new images and structures to represent;womanhood in their own terms. With selected works;by Thoreau as our springboard, texts will include;essays or sketches, short stories, novels,;paintings, films, and photography. Virginia Woolf;wrote of the need for a woman to have "a room of;one's own," a quiet space for creativity and;reflection. What emerges in the works of women;writers who chose the land beyond that room for;their creative space? The course will focus on;women who told the stories of their lives in the;context of islands, forests, prairies, and;deserts of the United States.

First-year students only, by placement.