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Talking back to Shakespeare: 20th and 21st-century anglophone novels penned by women
(ENL703) - Βασιλική Μαρκίδου
Περιγραφή Μαθήματος
THE NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
Department of English Language and Literature
MA in English Studies: Literature and Culture (2025-2027)
“Nineteenth- & Twentieth-Century Anglophone Literature and Culture”
Thematic Focus: “Representations of Marginality and Exclusion”
“Talking back to Shakespeare”: 20th and 21st-century anglophone novels penned by women
Spring Semester 2025-26
Friday, 9:00-12:00, Room 823
Instructor: Dr. Vassiliki Markidou, Associate Professor
e-class: https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/course_home/editdesc.php?course=ENL703
Email: vmarkidou@enl.uoa.gr
Office Hours: Wednesdays and Fridays, 12:00-13:00
Office: 903
Office phone number: 210 7277468
Course Synopsis
The course focuses on representative anglophone novels of the twentieth and twenty-first-century penned by women that “talk back to Shakespeare.” By engaging in a critical analysis of the allocated primary and secondary texts, both literary and theoretical, the course unravels the means and ways through which these novels engage critically with the politics of inclusion and exclusion to address gaps and silences in Shakespearean drama; place marginal Shakespearean characters “center-stage”; turn motifs from Shakespearean drama into icons of gender and cultural empowerment; distance Shakespearean plays from the English tradition and align them with local or transnational interests; advance anticolonial and antiracist values through their function as adaptations or appropriations of Shakespearean drama; and de-historicize and de-contextualize Shakespeare’s drama to promote radical critiques of its cultural capital and its frequent association with anglo-cultural hegemony.
Content Advice
Please note that the content of this module relates to topics which some may find sensitive, such as questions of identity, religion, politics, ideology, the nation, gender, sexuality, etc. While all students are required to engage with the primary and secondary material as well as the seminar discussions critically and respectfully, they are not expected to be in agreement with the ideas or ideological perspectives studied. Similarly, the instructor should not be assumed to be in agreement with all political or other positions expressed in the theoretical or literary texts studied. If you have any concerns related to this issue, please get in touch with the instructor as soon as possible.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Analyse contemporary women’s anglophone novelistic adaptations/appropriations of Shakespearean drama in the respective social, political, and cultural context of their production.
- Articulate the elective affinities and reciprocities as well as ruptures between Shakespearean drama and relevant 20th and 21st century novelistic adaptations/appropriations penned by women.
- Demonstrate critical understanding of adaptation/appropriation theories as well as of contemporary novels that adapt/appropriate Shakespearean drama.
- Present information to their colleagues in a well-organized, coherent, and lucid manner.
- Organize a research proposal with a coherent and theoretically informed methodology.
- Engage with scholarly debates and intervene in them through structured argumentation.
- Practice reflexive, ethical research in literary and cultural studies.
Attendance
Students are required to arrive on time to ensure class begins promptly at 9:00. Timely attendance is essential for maintaining an effective and respectful learning environment. A scheduled 15- minute break will be held, and class will conclude at 12:00.
Please be advised that students who arrive after 9:00 may not be permitted to enter and will need to wait until the break. Repeated late arrivals will lead to a substantial deduction from the final grade.
Grading System
Both oral presentations and the written assignment will be graded on a 100-point scale. To successfully pass the course, students must achieve a minimum average score of 60/100 across all graded components.
At the end of the course, the average of all assessment scores (on the 100-point scale) will be converted to a final grade on a 1-10 scale, using the following equivalency:
100-point scale 1-10 scale Descriptor
90-100 10 Excellent
80-89 9 Very Good
70-79 8 Good
65-69 7 Satisfactory
60-64 6 Sufficient
Below 60 5 or below Fail (Unsatisfactory)
Course ECTS: 10 | Language: English
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Activity |
Hours |
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In-class seminars (13 weeks × 3 hrs) |
39 hrs |
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Required reading (theory + literature) |
90 hrs |
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Independent study and note-taking |
40 hrs |
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Two oral presentations |
41 hrs |
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Final research essay |
30 hrs |
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Peer feedback, revision, meetings |
10 hrs |
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Total |
250 hrs |
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Component |
Weight |
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Participation & preparatory work |
20% |
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2 Oral presentations (1 on an allocated theoretical text & 1 on an allocated text of literary criticism) |
40% (20%+ 20%)
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Final research essay (4,000 words) |
40% |
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Assessment · Class Participation (20%)
· Two (2) in-class presentations (40%, that is, 20% + 20%) a) an individual presentation on one of the allocated theoretical texts on adaptations/appropriations to be delivered between Weeks 2 and 6 (10 minutes maximum) b) an individual or paired presentation on one (if delivered on an individual basis) or two (if delivered on a paired one) of the allocated texts of literary criticism (10 minutes if delivered on an individual basis, 20 minutes if on a paired one).This presentation will be delivered between Weeks 7 and 12. Please note that for each presentation, you will need to prepare a ppt (up to 15 slides). All notes for the two presentations will have to be submitted to your instructor.
· Final research essay (4000 words) (40%) –submission deadline: 10 July 2026 Students are expected to write an essay of 4000 words (excluding works cited) in the MLA format. The essay should focus on one contemporary adaptation/ appropriation of Shakespearean drama either from the syllabus or of their own choice, subject to approval. The relevant abstract is due in Week 12. The chosen literary text(s) should not be the one(s) they used in their in-class presentations.
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Academic integrity
Plagiarism is a serious offense. Please check out the Students’ Study Guide (p. 11) and the link on the Departmental Policy regarding AI usage (/enl.uoa.gr/www/uploads/AI/Politiki_toy_TAGF_gia_THemata_CHrisis_Technitis_Noimosynis.pdf)
Primary texts that need to be procured by you:
Allocated Shakespearean plays · William Shakespeare, As You Like It · William Shakespeare, The Tempest · William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Allocated 20th and 21-century novels · Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928) · Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988) · Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed (2016) · Maggie O’ Farrell, Hamnet (2020)
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Weekly schedule
Week 1 Introduction
-Introduction, Part I: adaptation and appropriation; adaptation theories
-Introduction, Part II:
- Shakespeare’s works as adaptations
- “Talking back to Shakespeare”: anglophone novelistic adaptations//appropriations of Shakespearean drama by 20th and 21st century women writers
Required Reading
- Linda Hutcheon, Introduction to A Theory of Adaptation
- Julie Sanders, Introduction to Adaptation and Appropriation
- Sujata Ivengar, Introduction to Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory
- Margaret Jane Kidnie, Introduction to Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation
- Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’ Neil, Introduction to The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation
- Marianne Novy, “Shakespeare and the Novel”
- Jo Eldridge Carney, Introduction to Women Talk Back to Shakespeare: Contemporary Adaptations and Appropriations
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Emma Smith, “Shakespeare as adaptor,” in The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation, Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’ Neil
- Douglas M. Lanier, “Shakespeare and adaptation theory: unfinished business,” in The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation, Diana E. Henderson and Stephen O’ Neil
- Jean-Christophe Mayer, “The Rise of Shakespearean cultural capital: Early configurations and appropriations of Shakespeare
- Glossary, in Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory
Week 2 Gender politics and Pastoral romance: William Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Primary text
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Required Reading
- David Cressy. “Gender Trouble and Cross-Dressing in Early Modern England”
- Sue P. Starke, “The Pastoral Romance Heroine in English Renaissance Literature”
- Paula Marantz Cohen, “As You Like It: Gender”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Julie Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, Part I
Week 3 Gender politics in Woolf’s Orlando
Primary text
Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)
Required Reading
- Christy L. Burns, “Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's Orlando”
- Brenda S. Helt, “Passionate Debates on ‘Odious Subjects’: Bisexuality and Woolf's Opposition to Theories of Androgyny and Sexual Identity”
- Julia Briggs, “Virginia Woolf Reads Shakespeare: or, Her Silence on Master William”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Julie Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, Part II
Week 4 Queering the Pastoral: Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
Primary text
Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)
Required Reading
- Paul Alpers, “What is Pastoral?’”
- Susan Bazargan, “The Uses of the Land: Vita Sackville-West’s Pastoral Writings and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando”
- Rachel Ishom, “Gazing at the View: The Prospects of Nature Poetry in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, Chapters 1 & 2
Week 5 Race and Colonialism in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Primary text
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Required Reading
- Kenji Go, “Montaigne's ‘Cannibals’ and ‘The Tempest’ Revisited”
- Meredith Anne Skura, “Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in "The Tempest"
- May Joseph, “The Scream of Sycorax”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, Chapters 3 & 4
Week 6 Rewriting white canonical texts: Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day
Primary text
Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988)
Required Reading
- Gary Storhoff, “"The Only Voice is Your Own": Gloria Naylor's Revision of The Tempest”
- Lindsey Tucker, “Recovering the Conjure Woman: Texts and Contexts in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day”
- Maxine L. Montgomery, “Finding Peace in the Middle: Authority, Resistance, and the Legend of Sapphira Wade in Gloria Naylor’s ‘Mama Day’”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
Sujata Iyengar, Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory, Chapter 1
Week 7 The primordial maternal and spatial politics in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day
Primary text
Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988)
Required Reading
- David Cowart, “Matriarchal Mythopoesis: Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day“
- Courtney Thorsson, “Mapping and Moving Nation: Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day”
- Kathryn M. Paterson, “Gloria Naylor’s North/South Dichotomy and the Reversal of the Middle Passage: Juxtaposed Migrations within Mama Day”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Douglas Lanier, “Shakespearean Rhizomatics: Adaptation, Ethics, Value”
Week 8 Reclaiming the silenced voices: Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed
Primary text
Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed (2016)
Required Reading
- Wolfgang Klooß, “Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed: The Aesthetics of Retelling Shakespeare’s The Tempest”
- “Sofía Muñoz-Valdivieso, “Shakespeare our contemporary in 2016: Margaret Atwood’s Rewriting of The Tempest in Hag-Seed”
- Jo Eldridge Carney, “Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed and William Shakespeare’s The Tempest,” in Women Talk Back to Shakespeare: Contemporary Adaptations and Appropriations, pp. 57-79
- https://www.folger.edu/blogs/folger-spotlight/make-not-your-thoughts-your-prisons-prison-shakespeare-in-the-real-world/
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Christy Desmet, “Recognizing Shakespeare, Rethinking Fidelity: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Appropriation,” in Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation, ed. Alexa Huang & Elizabeth Rivlin
Week 9 Interrogating adaptation: Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed
Primary text
Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed (2016)
Required Reading
- Melissa Caldwell, “‘The Isle if Full of Noises’: The Many Tempests of Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed”
- Cathy Caruth, “From Trauma and Experience”
- Paul Joseph Zajac, “Prisoners of Shakespeare: Trauma and Adaptation in Atwood’s Hag-Seed”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Margaret Jane Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation, Chapter 1
Week 10
Primary text
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Required Reading
- Eric Rasmussen, “Fathers and Sons in Hamlet”
- Richard Fly, “Accommodating Death: The Ending of Hamlet”
- Marianne Novy, “Shakespeare and Emotional Distance in the Elizabethan Family”
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Margaret Jane Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation, Chapter 2
Week 11 Filling in historical gaps, telling stories: Maggie O’ Farrell’s Hamnet
Primary text
Maggie O’ Farrell, Hamnet (2020)
Required Reading
- Renee Hulan, “Margaret Atwood’s Historical Lives in Context: Notes on a Postcolonial Pedagogy for Historical Fiction”
- Jo Eldridge Carney, “Maggie O’ Farrell’s Hamnet and Shakespeare’s Family in Fact and Fiction,” in Women Talk Back to Shakespeare: Contemporary Adaptations and Appropriations, pp. 158-79
https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/maggie-ofarrell-on-hamnet/id1082457631?i=1000487110670
https://scriptmag.com/adapting-hamnet-with-author-and-co-screenwriter-maggie-ofarrell
Strongly suggested (supplementary) reading
- Sujata Iyengar, Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory, Chapter 4
Week 12 Countering Bardolatry, “hijack[ing] the text”: Maggie O’ Farrell’s Hamnet (Deadline for abstract submission)
Primary text
Maggie O’ Farrell, Hamnet (2020)
Required Reading
- Paul Franssen, “Shakespeare’s Afterlives Raising and Laying the Ghost of Authority”
- Fernando Galvan, “The Role of Female Agency in Biofiction: The Case of Maggie O’ Farrell’s Hamnet”
- Dana Stephens, “Who was Shakespeare? What Hamnet does -and does not- get right”
- https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/biofiction-perspectives-shakespeare/
Week 13 Discussion of essay abstracts
Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας
Παρασκευή 6 Μαρτίου 2026
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