LIT3383-0001 - Spring 2025 - Niekamp

In this section of Women in Literature, we will explore the complex portrayals of female friendships in 20th- and 21st-century poetry, prose, and media by women creators. Our texts will prompt us to explore how issues of class, race, gender, sexual identity, and dis/ability contribute to the formation—or dissolution—of women’s friendships; we’ll also consider how these friendships may evolve—or devolve—across time, especially in relation to life events like getting older, marriage, motherhood, or platonic feelings becoming romantic.

Course texts may include My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Passing by Nella Larsen, Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, Sula by Toni Morrison, and “Envelopes of Air” by Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz. We will supplement our discussions of these long-form course texts with the occasional episode of television (think Broad City, Pen15, and Insecure) as well as feminist theory by the likes of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and the Combahee River Collective.

This course meets the diversity requirement for the Literature, Media, and Culture major.