This course will consider the implications, for literary studies and for literary writing, of modern traditions of feminist and gender theory. Students will encounter the work of major feminist thinkers - e.g., Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Alice Walker, Julie Kristeva, and Judith Butler - and texts by major women writers. The course will explore feminist approaches to literature, including those that borrow from post-structural, psychoanalytic, and contemporary gender, race, and queer theories.