Good Girls, Bad Girls
University of Pennsylvania, Critical Writing Program
Fall 2006 Tuesday/Thursday 3-4:15

Who doesn’t love a good girl gone bad? Ever since Eve took a bite of that “intellectual food” to “feed at once both body and mind” (Milton), authors have been obsessed with women’s transgressions, desire for knowledge, and the link between the two. In this course we will examine heroic female figures in texts by both male and female authors in order to think through issues of (self)representation. We will consider and learn to write critically about a variety of textual forms including essays, fiction, poetry, film, television, and blogs. In the first half of the semester, we will focus on issues of female authorship and authority in literary texts by women writers such as Emily Dickinson, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf and H.D.; and in the second half of the semester, we will turn our attention to representations of women in film, television, and new media. Course requirements include weekly contributions to a group blog, participation in workshops and peer-editing activities, as well as writing and revising several short critical exercises and one longer essay (3-4 pp.).

Syllabus