EGL 404 - Sr. Seminar (Fall): Hardy’s Women

Course Units: 1

(Same as GSW 495) (Fall, Kuhn) According to Thomas Hardy biographer, Claire Tomalin, Hardy’s relationship with “strong-minded and intelligent women” began with his mother, Jemima Hand Hardy. Indeed, as Tomalin argues, Jemima and both of Hardy’s grandmothers “had flouted the rules on sexual behavior laid down by the Church and gentry.” In this course we will trace the way in which Hardy’s early encounters with these fundamentally important maternal figures affected his life and work, his two marriages, and his fictional representations of women and male and female relationships. We will employ several theoretical approaches-intersectionality, masculinities studies, queer theory, and affect theory-in our readings of three of Hardy’s novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895), as well as a variety of poems Hardy wrote after the death of his first wife, Emma in 1912. We will also consider feminist approaches to film analysis, as we view scenes from various cinematic adaptations of the novels under discussion. Common Curriculum CC: WS