Instructor: Dr. A. McCandless
Office: 327 Maybank Building
Telephone: 953-8025 or 953-5711
mccandlessa@cofc.edu
https://www.cofc.edu/~mccandla/amym.htm
Office Hours: TR 8:00 - 9:15 am or by appointment
Course Content
Students will examine the role of gender, class, race, and region in
explaining the social, economic, political, and cultural circumstances
of women in the U. S. South. Readings, films, and discussions are
designed to illustrate the myths and realities of Southern womanhood from
the colonial period to the present.
Required Readings
Clinton and Gillespie (eds.), The Devil's
Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South
Clinton (ed.), Fanny Kemble's Journals
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from
the Federal Writers Projectls
(See https://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/)
Hagood, Mothers of the South: Portraiture
of the White Tenant Farm Woman
Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
https://www.cofc.edu/~mccandla/usweb.htm
All readings should be completed by the date indicated on the syllabus.
Analytical Paper
Every student will be required to write a 10 to 15 page paper analyzing
a primary document by or about a Southern woman. The document can be a
diary or a journal, a collection of letters, an autobiography, or a series
of newspaper articles, but it must be at least 50 pages long. The document
may be published or in manuscript form. See paper
worksheet for additional information on content and style. Papers are
due on or before 15 April.
Tests, Examinations, and Quizzes
There will be two hourly tests and a comprehensive final examination.
All will include short answer and essay questions. An excuse from the Dean
of Undergraduate Studies will be required to make-up a test or the final
exam. Short answer (true-false, fill-in-the-blank, listing, matching,
questions) quizzes will be given on the discussion readings. Class
worksheets and film worksheets will also count as quiz grades. Since I
drop the two lowest quiz grades, there will be NO make-ups for quizzes.
Class Participation and Attendance
Students will take turns presenting highlights from their primary document
analyses to the class during the last three classes of the semester.
Presentations should be approximately seven minutes long. See paper
worksheet for contents and format. Everyone is expected to participate
in class discussions of the readings. Please read materials carefully and
critically; you will not get class participation credit for talking off
the top of your head! Attendance will be taken daily and seven points
will be subtracted from your attendance grade for every unexcused absence.
If you must miss a class for a college activity, please let me know beforehand.
Grading
Final grades will be based on a weighted average of the hourly tests
(30 percent or 15 percent each), the analytical paper (20 percent), class
presentation of primary document (10 percent), quizzes, class participation,
and attendance (20 percent), and the final examination (20 percent). The
following grading scale will be used: A = 90-100; B+ = 86-89; B = 80-85;
C+ = 76-79; C = 70-75; D = 60-69; F = 0-59.
Daily Assignments
Jan 09 Course Introduction;
Southern Distinctiveness
Jan 14 The First Southerners
Jan 16 Visit to South Carolina
Historical Society, 100 Meeting Street
Jan 21 Discuss: The
Devil's Lane
Jan 23 Discuss: The
Devil's Lane
Jan 28 From Innocence to
Indigo
Jan 30 African Heritage;
Film: Digging for Slaves
Feb 04 Discuss: Fanny
Kemble's Journals
Feb 06 Discuss: Fanny
Kemble's Journals
Feb 11 Mary Boykin's Civil
War
Feb 13 First Hourly Examination
Feb 18 Race, Class, and Gender
in the Post-War South
Feb 20 Discuss: Born
in Slavery
Feb 25 Film: Autobiography
of Miss Jane Pittman
Feb 27 Film: Autobiography
of Miss Jane Pittman
Spring Break
Mar 11 Progressivism: For
Whites Only
Mar 13 Women's Suffrage
Mar 18 Discuss: Mothers
of the South
Mar 20 Discuss: Mothers
of the South
Mar 25 Second Hourly Examination
Mar 27 Women in the Freedom
Movement; Film: Eyes on the Prize I: Awakenings
Apr 01 Discuss:
Coming
of Age in Mississippi
Apr 03 Discuss:
Coming
of Age in Mississippi
Apr 08 Southern Women Today;
Film: Steel Magnolias
Apr 10 Southern Women Today;
Film: Steel Magnolias
Apr 15 Class Presentations;
Papers
Due
Apr 17 Class Presentations
Apr 22 Class Presentations
May 1 Final Examination 8:00 - 11:00 am