COD 2023 - D818

Webinar - Hypermasculinity and Homophobia in Cold War Discourse in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) by Tennessee Williams for Cambridge International AS & A Level Literature in English 2023, 2024 and 2025

Language and Literature secondary school teachers. People interested in Literature

2 sessions, start: 05-May

Course detail

Year: 2023
Level: Distance
Language: English
Status: Ended
Lugar: Distance
Facilitator/s: Martha Patricia De Cunto
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ESSARP Schools
Free of charge
Exams Schools
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Non affiliate
Free of charge

Sessions

Sessions Dates Start Finish
1 05 May 2023 05:30 pm 07:00 pm
2 12 May 2023 05:30 pm 07:00 pm

Facilitator/s

Martha Patricia De Cunto

She holds a Master of Arts in Literary Linguistics from the University of Nottingham, UK and is currently doing a PhD in Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. She is also pursuing a Master's Degree in Cultural Studies at UNR. She has been a lecturer in American Literature, Children's Literature, YAL Literature and Introduction to Literary Studies at I.E.S. Lenguas Vivas "Juan Ramón Fernández". She has also taught Creative Writing at ISP “Joaquín V. González”. She has been a teacher of Language and Literature in several schools in Buenos Aires for more than 30 years.
Language and Literature secondary school teachers.
People interested in Literature
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) by Tennessee Williams, a popular and critical success onstage and as a film production, shines a light on “taboo” school topics such as sex and homosexuality. It is an excellent play to read and analyze with our students, who are already used to discussing sexual and gender issues outside classroom in our day and age. It is a daring masterpiece by Williams, who raises the subject of closeted individuals in McCarthy’s times, when there was political and sexual spying by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). It is a great choice of text to discuss old traditional prejudices and to compare the southern mentality in the 1950´s with our western modern way of thinking on homophobia and patriarchy in the 21st Century. In compliance with the exam requirements, this webinar will offer a literary linguistic approach to the play. It will discuss characters and the relationship to other characters, their fears and ambitions, their conflicts and solutions to their predicaments. It will deal with different levels of analysis: thematic, psychological, sociocultural and mythic. It will also grapple with the importance of imagery, symbolic meaning of names and the title of the play. The webinar will tackle the importance of the American agrarian Southern Cold War context in the construction of heteronormativity and patriarchy and their implications on the lives and decisions of the characters during the course of the play.
1) Characters and characterization, conflict and themes.
2) Historical context.
3) Key rhetorical figures and symbolic elements.
4) Mendacity, sex orientation and identity.
5) Mystery and the grotesque.
6) Memory and initiation.
7) The female body and fertility.
8) The use of stage directions and the role of the narrator in those directions.
The facilitator will present the topics and give examples from the play. Participants will be required to work on questions for exam practice.
Bhabha, H. (2002). El lugar de la cultura. Buenos Aires: Manantial.
Bloom, H. (ed) (2011). Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: Infobase Publishing.
Butler, J. (2006). Deshacer el género. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (eds.) (2006) The Language and Sexuality Reader. London: Routledge.
Deleuze, G. (1999) “Post-scriptum sobre las sociedades de control”, en Conversaciones con Claire Parnet, Valencia: Pre-textos.
Foucault, M. (1976) (trans. Hurley, R.) The History of Sexuality. Volumes I,II,III and IV. London: Penguin Books
Harvey K and Shalom C. (eds.) (1997). Language and Desire: Encoding Sex, Romance and Intimacy. London: Routledge.
Hornby, R. (2004). “Southern Decadence” The Hudson Review, Inc., pp. 111-117
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4151389
Jones, B.F. (1966) “The Struggle for Identity” The British Journal of Sociology Vol. 17 No. 2 Published by Wiley (pp.107-121).
Wright, E. (1984). Psychoanalytic Criticism. Theory in Practice. Methuen.
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