Introduction!

Hello everyone! My name is Kajla (pronounced like Kayla but my parents got creative with the spelling) and I’m in my last year of a dual degree program studying French and Biology. I’ve wanted to be a doctor for pretty much my whole life, hence the bio degree, and the French is kind of just something that happened along the way. I did French immersion all through my childhood, and I loved it more than I realized. So when the opportunity arose to add a French degree to my university experience I thought “why not!” and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. I even got to go to France last year with Go Global and it was an unforgettable experience.

I’m so excited to take this course as it’s unlike any course I’ve taken before and honestly just sounds like something I would do in my free time…I used to be a much bigger reader in high school, but sadly the transition to university killed that drive in me. So I will take any excuse to pick up a book again, especially those I wouldn’t gravitate to on my own. My background in studying literature is almost exclusively in French, so I’ve read books by Ernaux and Slimani before. Other than that, the rest of authors are new to me! I can’t wait to read the Italian and Hispanic authors since those are cultures I have never studied before.

I definitely fit into the category of people who rarely read books written by men, and I’m glad to be continuing that tradition. Like we discussed on Friday, this preference in my case is just a matter of taste. However I do believe that literature is inherently political, especially women’s writing. And by reading these books, we are actively taking a stance against the patriarchy by giving these women space in the academic world. Given that UBC is a relatively prestigious university, just by studying these books we are assigning them value and saying they are worth reading and studying. So even unconsciously, we are combatting misogyny in the literary world!

One goal I have for this course is to define, even broadly, what the “woman experience” is. Evidently, the idea of womanhood is entirely subjective. But perhaps by reading this collection of books, there is a throughline that connects them all, which could help me define what womanhood even is. Or maybe it will reaffirm that womanhood is an individual experience and that the whole concept is made up. Either way I will have learned something!

Can’t wait to see you all next Friday! Happy reading!