Looking for articles again

[robinturner]

I've just found out that instead of teaching ENG 102 next semester, I'll be teaching ENG 101, and need to come up with a new course tout suite, since I don't want to recycle any of my old 101 courses again—I've done "Monsters" and "Warriors" twice, and don't want to repeat my Tolkien course in a semester where there won't be many 101 courses so students have less choice, since you can only get away with doing a whole course on Tolkien if you're guaranteed a class of hardcore Tolkien fans rather than students who were put in that section because it was the only one that fit their timetables. (Our Freshman English courses are all based on a theme chosen by the instructor—students sign up for whichever course interests them.)

I've decided to base this course on the final third of my old "Warriors" course, which was about female warriors, as this was the most interesting and popular part. The working title is "Amazons: women warriors in history, legend and popular culture." The popular culture part is easy: I've just found a couple of good articles on Kill Bill, and thanks to Slayage and Whoosh! I have oodles of papers on Buffy and Xena. To kick off the historical/legendary part, I have a chapter from Lyn Webster Wilde's On the Trail of the Women Warriors: The Amazons in Myth and History. What I really need now is some texts on how historical female warriors have been used to create nationalist or feminist icons. Boadicea/Boudicca is the obvious example, and I may bring in Elizabeth I, since although she didn't physically kick anyone's ass, she did direct a war, and played on the woman warrior image quite consciously. There are some similar figures in Chinese history that I may look into.

Another idea I'm toying with is looking at female action characters in computer games. Lara Croft is an obvious choice, and it would be interesting to look at female fighters in MMORPGs. There's an interesting tension there between feminism and male adolescent lust!

Anyway, gentle reader, if you know of good online texts along these lines, please share!

Comments

[trochee.livejournal.com]

It's not an online source, but a different lady warrior, alongside your Athena/Amazon/Buffy types. [Edit: correcting link to point directly to Marianne]

[solri.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that picture is definitely going in my course book.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

off the top of my head, and wildly unrelated characters that I just thought of:
nationalist/mythological: Joan of Arc, Lady [Rule] Britannia
modern-day and problematic: Lynndie England, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, Sigourney Weaver in Aliens
modern and mythological/SF/F: Wonder Woman, Niki/Jessica Sanders, and Aeryn Sun (Farscape)

[solri.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'd forgotten Lieutenant Ripley! I once compared her to Beowulf in an article (though the main topic was Star Wars, so it wouldn't be suitable). Some of these might be good for students to research for their oral presentations.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Haha - I just used that icon for the hell of it, then thought "Goddammit, Arya Stark!"

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

Your course descriptions always make me envy the undergraduates at your school.

I'm going to urge you to read Antonia Fraser's The Warrior Queens right away. It's reasonably multicultural - I would never otherwise have heard of Jinga Mbandi and the Rani of Jhansi - and extends from Queen Medb and Camilla of the Volscians to Margaret Thatcher.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Aha - they even have it in our library! Thanks.

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

Sure. The Wikipedia contributors believe that Queen Tamar has been a nationalist icon for Georgia, which could be worth pursuing.

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

I was watching the new Michael Wood show about India today, and he said that Megasthenes reported that Chandragupta Maurya had an elite corps of female warriors as his personal bodyguards.

[blorky.livejournal.com]

+1 on the Fraser recommendation.

How kooky do you want to get? In the US, you could make an interesting lecture that Calamity Jane was one of the earliest gender confused role models who built a career out of emulating "da boys". No cultural traction for your students, perhaps.

[ironed_orchid]

Hmm, can't think of any articles just now.

Examples might be Molly from Neuromancer who is the obvious model for Trinity in the Matrix movies.

Elizabeth I's speech at Tilbury obviously leaps to mind. Although I always think of the version in Blackadder where Queenie proclaims "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of the concrete elephant!".

[ironed_orchid]

Oh, and female warriors in martial arts films: Crouching Tiger, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers all being recent examples.

[solri.livejournal.com]

We are definitely watching Crouching Tiger. It's not unusual for martial arts films to have a strong female character (that's following a tradition that probably goes back a couple of thousand years) but three? With a weird wicked stepmother - confused stepdaughter - good stepsister triangle? Besides, I have a tradition of showing this film, having used it in my previous warriors course and an early one called "An Introduction to Chinese Thought".

[ironed_orchid]

Excellent.

complex suggestion

[cassielsander.livejournal.com]

This might be a bit off the wall but, if you're including comic book types, I consider Elektra: Assassin to be just about the greatest graphic novel of all time, with the added point of interest that it comes from the sometimes-precambrian mind of Frank Miller. She, the warrior whores from Sin City and his other big female character Martha Washington could be considered three ways a juvenile male mind could make a woman into a warrior (sexual instincts transformed into violence, violence as a recourse against those same instincts, or just plain defeminized).

Of course Wonder Woman is more iconic, if dull. That's Marvel vs. DC comics for you.

[genhawk.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this would be relevant, and you probably already know about it, but there's a guy who does research on MMORPG populations (including some gender items). If you google "Daedalus Project" you'll find it.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Ah, one of the students put me on to that in my "Virtual Worlds" course - must go and check it out again.

[arya.livejournal.com]

For historical ones, try Tomoe Gozen.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

oo, good idea. I learned about her from reading the endnotes in Usagi Yojimbo, which is surprisingly detailed about Japanese history.

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

alas, I have no idea about texts, since I haven't really taught anything like this (but now I am thinking that this might be in my future), but have you considered Samus from the video game Metroid (first female first person adventure game) or how about Pocahontas? Joan of Arc? Queen Victoria (crazy but omg amazing)?

Ash

[elderly-vrouw.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone mentioned Mary Gentle's "Ash"?