D3. Women of the Frozen North

Though it’s a long way from the ancient Mediterranean world where the history of Western Literature begins to the Arctic, some of the works I read during my sojourn in Fairbanks, Alaska have continued to haunt me during my years here in Massachusetts, partly because of the continuing vitality of ancient themes such as patriarchy, child-murder and war in modern fiction, and partly because of the acknowledgment of essentially modern concerns, such as gender roles and ecology in the culture of Native Alaskans. Among the most memorable of Alaskan narratives are those by the Gwich’in writer, Velma Wallis. We will be reading several of her novels: Two Old Women, and The Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun.

Required Readings

Velma Wallis. Two Old Women. Fairbanks, (Epicenter Press, 1993)

Instructor: Lillian Corti earned a doctorate in Comparative Literature at the City University of New York in 1984 and has taught at various institutions including Queens College, Tulsa University, Marien N’gouabi University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she was on the faculty of the English Department and a member of the Women’s Studies Department for many years.