Modern Language Association

Approaches to teaching H.D.'s poetry and prose.

H.D. (1886-1961) is a major figure in modernist English literature, her five-decade career encompassing some of the earliest free verse in English, early imagist lyrics, experiments in prose, late modernistic epic poems, and Greek translations. Her work is taught to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. Here instructors describe approaches they use. Among them are modernism; myth, religion, psychoanalysis; sexuality, feminism, race; war and trauma; and intertextual and interdisciplinary approaches. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Approaches to teaching the works of Francois Rabelais.

Instructors report from the trenches on teaching the work of French Renaissance satirist Rabelais (1490-1533). They cover literary and textual approaches, cultural contexts, teaching gender and sexuality, specific episodes, classroom contexts, and comparative approaches. The topics include Rabelais on reading and writing, utopian dimensions of Pantagruel, masculinity and the question of gender, the predicament of peace in Gargantua, using Internet resources, and Rabelais in a survey course on monsters. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Contemporary Galician cultural studies; between the local and the global.

This collection of fifteen essays on Galician cultural studies highlights current scholarship in the analysis of regional writings with an emphasis on the placement of these works in the wider discourse of heritage, identity creation and cultural conservation in world literature. The volume is divided into sections covering histories, identities, and cultural practices and individual articles address such topics as interpreting Galician history and the recent construction of an unknown past, transnational migration and self-identification and modes of representation in Galician visual poetry. Contributors include academics in Spanish and Portuguese literature from universities around the world. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Teaching French women writers of the Renaissance and Reformation.

For educators involved in comparative literature studies, this collection of essays highlights French women writers of the Renaissance and Reformation periods. The essays examine current scholarship on teaching methodologies, as well as specific works that provide excellent anchor points for the study of this literature. The volume is divided into sections covering background and contexts, authors, works and genres, critical concerns, and existing teaching resources. Individual articles address such topics as the invention of female authorship in early modern France, gender and genres, men writing as women in sixteenth century France, rare books, and professional resources for teachers. Contributors include academics in French literature from universities around the world. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Teaching law and literature.

Designed as a primer for teachers interested in bringing the study of law and literature into the classroom, this collection of forty-one articles showcases current scholarship in this emerging area of comparative language studies. The text provides an outline of the foundational theories and principles that define the field. The material is divided into sections covering the history and theory of the law and literature movement, model courses, and analysis of important texts. Individual essays address key topics such as the state of the discipline and effective teaching strategies for the promotion of legal history and literature studies. Contributors include academics from language and comparative studies disciplines from a variety of American universities. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Teaching seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French women writers.

American instructors of French literature suggest a variety of approaches to teaching French women writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, the study of which may be more male dominated than the period itself was. Their topics include the landscapes of early modern women writers, memoirs and the myths of history with a case study of Marie-Antoinette, convent writing in 18th-century France, Mme d'Aulnoy as historian and travel writer, teaching early modern pseudo-autobiographies such as those by Villedieu and Manley, and early modern women writers in a history of ideas survey course. Quotations are in French with English translation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)