19C Europe: Women syllabus

Nineteenth Century Europe: Women

Some people find metaphors useful and helpful in finding ways to make intangible ideas more understandable. Perhaps you have a way of making your interests, your major or your passion understandable to others. For example, for me, history is a weaving, complex and meaningful. The evidence comes in many colors and textures; historians use that evidence to weave a story of the past for the use, entertainment or guidance of present and future generations. Each weaver has a favorite pattern, method, loom, material, color; some weavers can move into another creative space, use and combine methods, patterns, materials, colors. Any critical appreciation of the weaving moves beyond the complexity and beauty of the overall pattern to something that illuminates the intricacy of the micro-patterns, methods and fibers. Do you have a metaphor for your passion? Your life?

Course Description and Rationale
This class will work to develop skills that are needed across fields and majors: those of investigation, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The class will focus on texts (evidence) that illuminate the lives of women in 19th century Europe. This period is particularly interesting to historians and scholars of women’s history in particular, as it was a time of tremendous political, social, cultural and economic change. Many of the attitudes, values and socio-cultural structures that we all live with have their roots in European society of this era.

Learning Objectives
As we explore the lives, issues, events and challenges of women in the long nineteenth century students will, in written and oral forms, demonstrate their abilities to:
• Analyze, synthesize and evaluate (AS&E) social, cultural and political developments that shaped women’s lives in the 19th century;
• AS&E the impact of industrial development on women and their family lives and obligations,
• AS&E the assess the impact of the ideology of domesticity on the women of the working, middle and privileged classes
• AS&E traditional analyses and their own of the forces and ideas that shaped the changes in women’s experiences within western Europe from 1789-1914.

Course Format and Approach
The class will be seminar in format. This means that students will assume the duties of leading and directing discussions. Students are required to actively engage the materials and issues, demonstrated by leading and contributing to discussions, debates and intellectual exchanges as they examine, analyze and discuss various texts. Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice is a brilliant satire of the relatively new ideology of domesticity of her period and the early 19th century; Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House ends of our study with a look into a middle class family and household at the end of the century. Between these two classic texts, students will encounter a range of other views, from the transcriptions of labor commissions to popular fiction, which give voice to the issues and lives of women long ignored in ‘traditional’ history.

Prerequisites and Assumptions
There are no prerequisites for this class. The instructor does, however, hold certain assumptions:
• It is my job to guide students in their exploration of specific issues/subjects as they develop critical thinking and communications skills.
• Students are here to learn how to learn. Research shows that most undergraduate students will change their major field of study more than once during their undergraduate career. Other studies demonstrate that people tend to change their careers multiple times over their lifetimes. Thus, learning to learn is essential; it facilitates life at a very practical level.
• Students will come to class prepared. Lower-level learning (knowledge, comprehension and application; what I have called investigation) will occur from reading and preparing the materials before class; upper level (analysis and up) will be worked on in class.
• By every measure active, participatory learning is more meaningful than passive learning. Like any and every other activity, proficiency comes with practice.
• Most students in lower division history classes (and some in upper division classes) regard historical knowledge as something static and to be acquired. It is not.
• An unquestioning approach to history (frequently manifest as ‘a bump on a log’ approach) is counter-productive to all the goals of higher education.
• History is constructed by people for specific purposes. It is incumbent upon all to approach the study of history and the evidence on which it is based critically. Students must question the purpose, viewpoint and end use of any history. What the author intends may be completely different than how the text, evidence or argument is used by consumers (intent does not always match consequence).
• Communications skills are vitally important. Speaking and writing clearly are the skills most prized by employers. In history, the primary and most valued method of communication is the written word. Thus, the three (history, reading and writing) cannot be de-linked. Like any and every other activity, proficiency comes with practice.
• Critical thinking is a valuable skill no matter what the subject studied; developing CT skills is the primary task of higher education. This differs significantly from the purpose of primary and secondary education, which is to produce law-abiding citizens.

Assignments and Grading: All assignments are intended to provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their abilities to critically evaluate evidence, to clearly and concisely communicate those findings in a variety of formats. Reading, writing and historical analysis/synthesis and evaluation are emphasized in these assessment measures. Students should use the appropriate rubrics to ensure compliance with standards and to ensure their work is of the highest caliber. All rubrics are available off the class webpage. Non-written submissions may be done in pairs or triads, with each member of the working group submitting a written evaluation of the group/individuals involved. Grades will be calculated as follows.

• Pride & Prejudice project: 20% (due 10/2/06)
o The project may take one of two forms: student may write a short paper/essay (5 pages) assessing Austin’s critique of the ideology of domesticity OR create an artifact (poster, painting, sculpture, poem, etc.) that illustrates the same. The artifact will be presented to the class as a whole, with the creator(s) explaining it.
• Working Women project: 20% (due 11/13/06)
o Students will submit an editorial letter of no more than 2 pages, based on the readings, that argues for or against labor practices brought to light in the hearings. Students will write this letter in the voice/character of a bourgeois woman of the period.
•Fiction project: 20% (due 11/27/06)
o An analytical essay (of at least 5 pages but not more than 8) which assesses the value of the work(s) in illuminating the issues of women’s lives of the period of our study. Students must include an assessment of the historical accuracy of the work.
• Doll’s House project: 20% (due no later than 9 AM day of scheduled final exam)
o Students again have two options: present a live enactment of a single scene of the play with the addition of a voice of the period (a critic or an audience member, for example) reacting to the scene OR submit a story (approximately 3-5 pages) which provides the reader with the story of Nora after the end of the play. In the first, students will submit a written copy of the additional voice/text after the performance.

Participation: 20%
o Leadership
♣ Formal, informal
o Contributions to class discussions
♣ Originality, risk taking
♣ Appropriateness, relevance
♣ Inclusion, development
♣ Quality of analyses, both written and oral
♣ Peer reviews of group/pair work