Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module students should be able to:- recognize the place of the novels studied in the broad historical and cultural context of Italy, as well as in the specific context of Italian women's history and culture; - develop an awareness of the complexities surrounding definitions of women's writing;- present ideas orally and engage in discussion in tutorials;analyse the texts in terms of both form and content through providing a detailed commentary on individual texts; write a critical essay appropriate to a third-year student of Italian literature, taking due account of critical sources.

Indicative Module Content:

INDICATIVE OUTLINE OF LECTURES

1. Introduction to the course. Initial approaches: the canon.
2. How do women write? Theoretical approaches
3. Aleramo: Contexts; women in Italy at the turn of the century.
4. Una donna: The novel's structure and Autobiographical Fiction.
5. Una donna: Themes and Issues.
BREAK
7. Maraini: Intellectual Backdrop and Intertextual Reference.
8. Maraini: Setting and Significance: Women in Italy in the 1700s.
9. Maraini: Themes and Issues; Structure and Perspective.
10. Further considerations on Feminist theory
11. Conclusion/overview

Tutorials (weekly) will involve detailed consideration of Italian Feminist Theory, close textual readings and commentary practice as well as discussion of essay-writing skills.

Student Effort Type	Hours
Lectures	10
Tutorial	10
Specified Learning Activities	45
Autonomous Student Learning	45
Total	110

Learning Recommendations:

Students should have completed Italian Language IIb (ITAL20080) or have an equivalent competency in the language. Texts will be read in Italian. It would be useful if core texts were read in advance of commencement of the module.

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy  

Description	Timing		Component Scale		% of Final Grade
Essay: Comparative essay of at least 2,500 words. Students have a wide choice of essays.	Week 12	n/a	Graded	No	50
Assignment: Detailed essay plan/abstract, including bibliographical references	Week 6	n/a	Graded	No	10
Class Test: Commentary on one of the core texts. Students have a choice of text.	Week 9	n/a	Graded	No	40

 

Resit In	Terminal Exam
Spring	No

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

The (low-stakes) essay plan submitted in week 6 will receive individual feedback normally within 10-15 working days, in order to allow students to better structure the (high-stakes) essay due in week 12. The (class test) commentary (due in week 9) will normally be returned with 20 working days, with individual feedback.

Core texts:
S. Aleramo, Una donna (1906)
D. Maraini, La lunga vita di Marianna Ucría (1990)

Reading list:
E. Abel (ed.), Writing and Sexual Difference (Brighton, Harvester, 1982) 809 &SLC809
M. Angelone, L’apprendistato letterario di Sibilla Aleramo (Naples, Liguori, 1987) GEN853ALE/A
S.L. Aricò, Contemporary Women Writers in Italy: A Modern Renaissance (University of Massachussets Press, 1990) 850.9ARI
Z.G. Baranski & S.W. Vinall (eds.), Women and Italy: essays on gender, culture and history (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1991) GEN305.40945BAR
C. Belsey, “Critical Approaches” in Bloomsbury Guide (see below)
______ & J. Moore (eds.), The Feminist Reader (Basingstoke, MacMillan, 1989) 809BEL SLC
P. Bono & S. Kemp (eds.), Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1991) 305.42BON
L. Caldwell, Italian Family Matters: Women, Politics and Legal Reform (Basingstoke, MacMillan, 1991) 305.40945
M. Cicioni & N. Prunster, Visions and Revisions: Women in Italian Culture (Oxford, Berg, 1993) GEN305.40945CIC
C. Cretella, Architetture interiori: immagini domestiche nella letteratura femminile del novecento italiano: Sibilla Aleramo, Natalia Ginzburg, Dolores Prato, Joyce Lussu (Franco Cesati Editore, 2008) 850.9CRE
U. Fanning, “Italy” in Bloomsbury Guide to Women’s Literature ed. C. Buck (& 220 Italian entries) (London, Bloomsbury, 1992) R809BLO
_______, “Sibilla Aleramo’s Una donna: A case study in women’s autobiographical fiction”, The italianist, 19, 1999
_______, “Some fragments of Daughterly Discourse: The Return to the Mother in Dacia Maraini’s La lunga vita di Marianna Ucría and La nave per Kobe” in Recent Italian Fiction, ed. Roberto Bertoni, TCD and Trauben Editori, 2005) [will be on Brightspace]
______, “Generation through Generations: Maternal and Paternal Paradigms in Sibilla Aleramo and Dacia Maraini” in Women’s Writing in Western Europe: Gender, Generation and Legacy (Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007) GEN809.894/GIO
________, Italian Women’s Autobiographical Writings in the Twentieth Century: Constructing Subjects (Madison, New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017) GEN859/FAN
M. Federzoni et. al., Sibilla Aleramo (Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1980) GEN853/ALE/F
N. de Giovanni, Carta di donna: narratrici italiane del novecento (Turin, Sei, 1996) 853.08DEG
A. Giorgio, Writing Mothers and Daughters: Renegotiating the Mother in Western European Narratives by Women (Berghahn, 2002) 809.3GIO
C. Heilbrun, Reinventing Womanhood (Gollancz, 1979) 305.4HEI
C. Lazzaro-Weis, From Margins to Mainstream: Feminism and Fictional Modes in Italian Women’s Writing 1968-1990 (Philadelphia, University of Penn Press, 1993) 853.09LAZ
M.O. Marotti, Italian Women Writers from the Renaissance to the Present (Philadelphia, Penn State University Press, 1996) 850.9
K. Mitchell & H. Sanson, Women and Gender in Post-Unification Italy: between private and public spheres (Peter Lang, 2013) 305.40945MIT
P. Morris, Literature and Feminism (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993) 801.95MOR
Penelope Morris, Women and Italy: An interdisciplinary Study (Palgrave MacMillan, 2006) 305.40945MOR
M. Olivieri, Tra libertà e solitudine: saggi su letteratura e giornalismo femminile (Rome, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1990) GEN850.9OLI
L. Panizza & S. Wood, A History of Women’s Writing in Italy (Cambridge U.P., 2000) GEN850.9PAN
V. Picchetti, Relational Spaces: Daughterhood, Motherhood and Sisterhood in Dacia Maraini’s Writings (Madison, Fairleigh Dickinson U.P., 2002) GEN852/MAR/P
P. Sambuco, Italian Women Writers, 1800-2000: Boundaries, Borders and Transgression (Madison, Fairleigh Dickinson U.P., 2015) 850.9SAM
A. Testaferri, Donna: Women in Italian Culture (Toronto U.P., 1989) 850.09TES
S. Wood, Italian Women’s Writing 1860-1994 (London, Athlone Press, 1995) 850.09WOO

Name	Role
Professor Ursula Fanning	Lecturer / Co-Lecturer