CMLT 100 3 - Money Talks: Women, Literature, and Economics

1.00

Why are women poor? Was a question asked by British author Virginia Woolf in her seminal essay “A Room of One’s Own” (1929) and by Japanese feminists in the 1910s. This same question continues to be asked by women around the world, including here in the United States. So why is it important to keep women financially down? Why do phrases such as “Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen” (USA), the German Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, kitchen, church), the Japanese Ryôsai kenbo 良妻賢母 and Chinese Xián qī liáng mù 賢妻良母 (Good wife, wise mother) exist?

In this class, we will examine why various societies at different points in time have wanted to keep women poor. Whose advantage does it serve? We will examine this question through literature. Why literature? Because, as Comparative Literature’s late colleague Dr. Sally Livingston wrote in her book about women and economics, literature anticipates future trends of thinking while also serving as a memory storage house of the past.

In this course we will examine the metaphor of women and money in two ways. We will look at both the literary depictions of women’s relationships with money as well as the economic story behind women writers getting their stories, and thus their voices, published. To understand the complexities of why women have been and remain poor, we will look at various types of literature (fiction, non-fiction, essays, travel memoirs, and poetry) from around the world that represent different time periods and mindsets. While the readings for this class are by no means exhaustive or comprehensive, hopefully they will give you a sampling of the various threads to the conversation about why women have been and continue to be poor. Group III Humanities/Literature. Fulfills: Humanities requirement. Can have Honors in Course. Writing and Diversity requirement.