Novels About Women and Education

A query regarding "novels about college/educational experiences,...especially
for women," gave rise to the following discussion on WMST-L in April 1996.  
It includes many suggested works, some focusing on students, others on faculty.  
For additional WMST-L files on the Web, see the WMST-L File List.

 
Hi colleagues -
 
I've recently been given a course designed by another instructor; the
title is "the college romance," a title the designer intended to mean
"novels about college/educational experiences."
 
My query:  can you suggest novels - in English - that handle the theme of
education, especially for women?  I'd like to include some that portray
the problematics of sexual relationships between faculty and students
(many seem to focus on this) and seek a diversity of perspectives and
time periods.
 
Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Lisa
 
**************************************************************************
 
Lisa Jadwin                               e-mail:  jadwin  @  sjfc.edu
English Department                        office:  716/385-8192 (+ voicemail)
St. John Fisher College                   fax:     716/385-7311
3690 East Avenue                                   716/385-8129
Rochester, NY  14618

 
Paule Marshall has written a short story, I believe in (Soul Clap Hands
and Sing) about a struggling young Black female student and her elderly
professor, a  Holocaust survivor, his inviting her to his home, and what
ensues.  pkafka  @  turbo.kean.edu

 
One of the Brontes wrote a novel which detailed her passionate crush on
her married employer at the school in which she taught.  Bernard Malamud
also wrote on this topic, I believe his final two works. (Seeking Mr.
Goodbar)--I don't remember the author, became a popular film--horrifying
ending.  I believe it was based on the real-life murder of a
 student of mine.  pkafka  @  turbo.kean.edu

 
These titles come immediately to mind:  Other Men's Daughters by Richard
Stern, A Very Small Room by May Sarton, Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym,The
Professor by Charlotte Bronte, and Professor Romeo by Anne Bernays. I think
Iris Murdoch has written about this, too, but can't think of any titles.
 
I may teach a course like this myself, so I'd really like to know the other
titles you receive privately.  Thanks.
--Susan Hubbard (shubbard  @  pegasus.cc.ucf.edu)
 

Comments:     Originally-From: TAMLIT  @  guvax.acc.georgetown.edu

 
More academic novels. [Reprinted from the T-AMLIT list]
 
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
***T/Q: TEXT/QUERY***
 
Here are about eight additional responses to the query about
academic novels.
RB
***********************************************************
(1)

Subj:    a new academic novel
 
Sender: Joan Korenman <korenman  @  umbc.edu>

 
    I just looked through the very interesting replies to the
query regarding academic fiction and didn't see Norman Holland's
_Death in a Delphi Seminar: A Postmodern Mystery_ (SUNY Press, 1995).
The novel involves the death of a student in a graduate seminar in
literary criticism at SUNY Buffalo, where Holland taught for a number
of years.  In good postmodern fashion, Holland is not only the novel's
author but also one of its main characters.
 
    Joan Korenman
 
*****************************************************************************
*       Joan Korenman                 Internet: korenman  @  umbc.edu           *
*       U. of Md. Baltimore County                    or                    *
*       Baltimore, MD 21228-5398                korenman  @  umbc2.umbc.edu     *
*                                                                           *
*    The only person to have everything done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe  *
*****************************************************************************
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(2)

Subj:    RE: T/Q: Academic fiction (replies)
 
Here's one more for the academic fiction list--Carol Shields' Swann.
It's a satire of the making of an academic industry out of the discovery
of an obscure woman poet.  Somewhat uneven as a novel, but completely on
target as a satire.
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(3)

Subj:    RE: T/Q: Academic fiction (replies)
 
I don't believe anyone in the first set of replies mentioned Malcolm
Bradbury, several of whose titles would do nicely.  I particularly like
_Rates of Exchange_.  And Molly Hite's _Class Porn_ deserves lots
more readers.
 
jmk
 
John M. Krafft, English                  | Miami University--Hamilton
Voice:  (513) 785-3142 or (513) 868-2330 | 1601 Peck Boulevard
Fax:    (513) 785-3145                   | Hamilton, OH  45011-3399
E-mail: krafftjm  @  muohio.edu
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(4)

Subj:    RE: T/Q: Academic fiction (replies)
 
Regarding academic fiction, readers might try Gail Godwin's THE ODD WOMAN,
but only read after, or in conjunction with, George Gissing's THE ODD WOMEN.
Both address gender issues, and Godwin adds the academic setting--tenure and
all that.
Eugene Baer
 
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(5)

 11:49:04.42
Subj:    RE: T/Q: Academic fiction (replies)
 
It's not much of a stretch to include Henry James's THE ASPERN PAPERS
("You publishing scoundrel!") and Nabokov's THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN
KNIGHT. They focus on scholarship, which can be as nasty as is department
politics.
 
Ed Griffin, U of Minnesota
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(6)

Subj:    RE: T/Q: Academic fiction (replies)
 
I just read the replies to novels on academic subjects.  No one mentioned
Bernard Malamud's A New Life!
*********************
Professor Todd Lieber
Department of English
Simpson College
*********************
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(7)

Subj:    RE: T/Q: Academic fiction (replies)
 
The Small Room, by May Sarton
The Crown of Columbus, by Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris
Fortunate Lives, by Robb Foreman Dew (or Dew Foreman?)
Hope it helps,
Angela M. Salas
Adrian College
P.S. I'm particularly fond of the Sarton novel.
P.P.S: Have you considred Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
AMS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(8)

Subj:    RE: academic fiction/college novels
 
Sender: "Michael P. Orth (Michael Orth)" <morth  @  cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu>

 
This is a response to the "academic fiction" thread of a few days back.
I call these "college novels," since who wants to read academic fiction?
 
Last term I taught a course in this subject, so I have a bunch of titles
to offer if anyone really needs them.  As their major paper for the
course each student wrote a chapter for hsrhr own class academic novel,
using Smiley's *Moo* as an inspiration.  Since I had four sections of
this course I got over 100 chapters--enough to make one passable novel.
If anyone is interested, I'll explain my process and what I'd do
differently next time.

 
How about A.S. Byatt's novel "Possession"--particularly interesting in
its address of "feminist scholarship"

 
The title of the movie which contains an affair a student is having with
her male English professor should have been (Looking For Mr.  Goodbar),
not (Seeking Mr. Goodbar).  Obviously I conflated the real title with
(Desperately Seeking Susan).
How about some gay and lesbian examples?  I vaguely remember at least
one, but since I can't remember the authors and titles, I can't make the
suggestions.  pkafka  @  turbo.kean.edu

 
And yet another:  Valerie Miner's _Murder in the English Department_ in
which a female graduate student allegedly murders the aged, male Milton
scholar (truly).
 
****************************************************************************
Lisa L. Higgins
c547634  @  showme.missouri.edu
University of Missouri-Columbia
 
"If we dare claim our lives as our own, we must read all the poems we
write with our bodies."  Minnie Bruce Pratt _S/HE_
*****************************************************************************

 
If we are including films, John Sayles's LIANNA is about a woman who
is married to her former professor, and leaves him when she falls in love
with her current (female) professor.
 
Frann Michel
fmichel  @  willamette.edu

 
Five novels that are of interest that deal either centrally or tangentially
with women in academia are: Death in a Tenured Position by Amanda Cross,
The Odd Woman by Gail Godwin, Miss Giardino by Dorothy Bryant, Stepping by
Nanvy Thayer and The Women's Room by Marilyn French.  In the Cross/Heilbrun
novel, Janet Mandelbaum is hired by the Harvard English Department because of
affirmative action and is killed by the English department.  The Bryant novel
which is self-published is about a high school English teacher who wants to
burn down the high school.  I wrote about all five of these novels in an
article in College English in 1982 called "The Demoralization Paper" where I
used these novels to examine my own situation in a community college and the
general situation of women academics.

Dorothy Bryants novel, MISS GIARDINO, will be reprinted by the Feminist Press
(with two other novels by Bryant) in 1997.
Edi Giunta
faustyj  @  eden.rutgers.edu

I have forwarded this as I  have read so many messages re academic novels
that
perhaps others may like to take a look at this as this particular title
doesn't appear to have been mentioned .
 
 ---------- Forwarded
message ---------- Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 09:59:45 +0200 (MET DST)

To: jadwin  @  SJFC.EDU

 
 
Dear Lisa,
         Re your request about college romance I used
 
Double Yoke    by Buchi Emechta  ( Pan publishers maybe or perhaps Fontana
                                   paperback )
 
with great success with undergrads. Emechta is a Nigerian writer now
resident in London. The prose is very easy to read.It deals with a
village girl going to college, how she negotiates her way through
harassment at college with a prof. and how she becomes a person in the
eyes of her boyfriend as her relationship with him circumvents his
expectations .....anyway, take a look if you have time ....
 
Good Luck
 

Lisa Shapiro's _The Color of Winter_ is a lesbian/academic novel (Naiad Press,
1996).

Another academic novel dealing with women and education is Dorothy
L. Sayers' _Gaudy Night_.
 
Kris Gerhard
Iowa State University
kgerhard  @  iastate.edu

On "academic novels, for plays/movies, how about "Educating Rita" and
"Oleanna"?
Jenny Lloyd
SUNY at Brockport
jlloyd  @  acspr1.acs.brockport.edu

Joyce Carol Oates has written a novel called _Marya:  A Life_ that includes a
chapter or so about her time in graduate school and affair with a faculty
member.
 
For a satiric novel about graduate school politics and romance from a
male viewpoint, see Kingsley Amis's _Lucky Jim_ (1953).
 
Rachel A. Rosenberg
Northwestern University
rrosenbe  @  casbah.acns.nwu.edu

Also Amanda Cross' "What About Max?"

A number of recent respondents to the query about novels showing what
college life was like for students (undergrad., I'd assumed, and possibly
grad.) have provided references for books about faculty--which are
useful in their own right.  Two other books that are more specifically
on women students' relation to academe (and both are great books):
Rebecca Goldstein's _The Mind/Body Problem_ (a novel about both
being a student and then being married to an academic, as I recall),
and Alice Kohler's wonderful memoir, _A Solitary Woman_ (about
herself dropping out of a Ph.D. program in philosophy in order
to explore her own philosophical and educational quest alone).
Marilyn Edelstein, Dept. of English, Santa Clara U, Santa Clara
California
medelstein  @  scuacc.scu.edu

Ahdaf Soueif has written a very powerful novel, "In the Eye of the Sun"
which tells the story of a young Egyptian woman Asya and her graduate
study in England. Education isn't the central theme, but it plays a key
role in the novel, and it would offer a different perspective for your
students. The novel is quite long (785 pages), but gripping. All the
best,
Andrea Shalal-Esa (shalal  @  wam.umd.edu)

The best, funniest and most cynical novel ever written about academia,
romance, male professors, female students, coercion, blackmail and
general all-round nastiness is The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury.
David Lodge is also an entertaining writer of academic novels - Nice
Work is a very funny story about a female academic who goes on an
"industry awareness" programme or some such thing to a factory, it's
about the differences between academics and people with "real" jobs.
Small World and Changing Places are also excellent novels but both
are from a male perspective, females featuring mainly as prey.
    Christina Lee

I didn't see anyone mention A. S. Byatt's POSSESSION.  If plays are to be
included Albee was mentioned) then one must consider OLEANNA by David Mamet
which certainly had the predicted effect upon my husband/professor and
me---unable to speak to one another for some time after leaving the theatre.
What a fascinating course.  I so often wish I could take some of the offerings
mentioned/constructed on this list.   Mary Ann teaching highschool English at
a feminist school in Toronto.

Actually, ALL of Carolyn Heilbrun/Amanda Cross's novels have an academic
setting.  I belive the "Max" one is *The Question of Max* not *What About....

Since no one has mentioned this, and it is somewhat on a lighter vein:
 
Lorrie Sprecher, _Sister Safety Pin_, is a really enjoyable novel
about being female, punk, lesbian, and in graduate school. If I
recall correctly, the original post asked about novels focusing on
faculty-student relationships, which this novel does not, but I
recommend it to anyone (and everyone). It's an excellent read for
anyone interested in the recent riot-grrrl type of subcultural
activity as well!
 
Lauraine Leblanc
Institute for Women's Studies
Emory University
 
LLEBLA  @  SOC.EMORY.EDU

Given the discussion about the 'Americas', I thought I would suggest an
academic novel with Canadian content,  Nora Kelly's My Sister's Keeper, set
in a Women's Studies department in a Canadian university.
 
Katherine Side
klside  @  YorkU.ca

Thanks, thanks, thanks for the many excellent responses to my query.  I'm
compiling them all into an annotated list that I'll distribute to the
list sometime in the next month.  When exactly this will be, I don't know
- as Joan's signature block says, "The only person to have everything
done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe."  ;-)
 
Lisa
 
**************************************************************************
 
Lisa Jadwin                               e-mail:  jadwin  @  sjfc.edu
English Department                        office:  716/385-8192 (+ voicemail)
St. John Fisher College                   fax:     716/385-7311
3690 East Avenue                                   716/385-8129
Rochester, NY  14618