Handmaids Tale, The: Issues and Topics

AP Representative Authors: Focus on Essayists and Fiction Writers

1. Choose four of the following topics. Each topic addresses either political or social aspects related to the novel.

2. Using links listed and other reference materials, collect and gather information. Notes may be your own choosing (i.e. Cornell style, Noodletools, Evernote, etc.)

 3. Record all citations in NoodleTools using Advanced MLA format. The work cited page will used for your literary analysis after you finish reading the novel.

Reagan Era Conservatism

• Search "Ronald Reagan and feminism" in EbscoHost to view perspectives of his presidency and women's issues
• "The Women's Rights Movement." from American Social Reform Movements Reference Library
• Sleepwalking through History: America in the Reagan Years by Haynes Johnson 
• The Reagan Presidency : Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies edited by W. Elliot Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham 
• The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989 by Steven F. Hayward 
• Tear Down This Myth: How the Regan Legacy has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future by Will Bunch
• Living through the End of the Cold War edited by Jeff T. Hay 
• Power and the Presidency edited by Robert A. Wilson 

Feminist Issues/Backlash Against Feminists

• search 'feminism' in U.S History in Context for historical analysis
• Feminism overview and viewpoints (Opposing View Points)
• Feminism: Opposing Viewpoints by Jennifer Hurley, ed.
• Women's Rightsby Jacqueline Ching and Juliet Ching 

Ceausescu's Romania

• read Legacy of Romania's Ban on Contraceptions Lives On from the Irish Times
• http://www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/overplanned_parenthood.htm
• Encyclopedia of Censorship by Jonathan Green and Nicholas Karodlides  

Taliban 

• Women in Afghanistan 
• search 'taliban and women' in Global Issues in Context for individual articles 

Texas Abortion Law 2013

• http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/18/perry-signs-abortion-bill-law/
• http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/832/billtext/html/HB00002I.htm
• http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_OAL.pdf  

ISIS

• Life Under ISIS Control  
• All Women's Brigade 
• Women Enslaved 
• Violence and Oppression  

Fundamentalism

• http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/fundam.htm 
• Suggested article in Proquest History E-Library 'Fundamentalism and the Family: Gender, Culture, and the American Pro-family Movement"by Margaret Lamberts (see parts 1 & 2)
• Fundamentalists and Extremists by Douglas Long

Nazi Germany

• search 'nazism' in World History in Context for in-depth analysis 
• http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Women_Nazi_Germany.htm 
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online article National Socialism (3 pages)
• Rise of the Nazis by Neil Tonge
• http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html 

Stalinist Russia

• http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Stalins%20Russia.htmsearch 
• 'stalin' in World History in Context for in-depth analysis
•  Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia by Cull, Culbert, and Welch
• http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/ 

Theocracy

• search 'theocracy' in Global Issues in Context for individual articles
• Theocracy Watch: A Christian 51st State? (Opposing Viewpoints)
• In God’s Name (EBSCO Host)

Totalitarianism

• http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture10.html
• search 'totalitarianism' in Global Issues in Context for individual articles