Monsters, Cyborgs, and Other Created Bodies
ENGL 427A
Dr. Steve Tomasula
From tribal scarification practices to the Human Genome Diversity
Project, people in all places and times have conceived of the body as
something that could be written and read. Because the human body is so
coded by ideas of identity, society, and fashion, authors have always
used it as a vehicle to convey emotion or ideas: they have always used
it as a metaphor through which to tell their stories. With the
advent of Dolly the Sheep, though, postructualist thinking has become
literal in the body-that-is-the-book while the book-that-is-the-body
has become much more of an open book, one in which ideas of authorship,
originality, ownership and meaning merge with ideas of bio-engineering,
cloning, plastic surgery, and cultural significance. That is,
just as visual media began to “infect” the writing of literary works
toward the end of the last century, so “thinking through the body”
increasingly seems to permeate contemporary prose and poetry. In
Monsters, Cyborgs, and Other Created Bodies we will read a broad
spectrum of literary works and visual objects in light of how they both
reflect and generate thinking about the body: how they express
ideas of what we see when we look at each other, who we think we are,
and how these representations of the body influence how we act: our
laws, literature, beliefs, art, and other cultural phenomenon.
Required Reading List
The Elementary Particles by
Michel Houellebecq. Vintage. ISBN: 0-375-72701-9.
Galetea 2.2 by Richard Powers.
St. Martins Press. ISBN 0-312-42313-6
The Divine Comedy, 1: Inferno
by Dante. John Sinclair trans. Oxford U.P. ISBN: 0-10-500412.
Adulthood Rites by Octavia E.
Butler. Warner Books. ISBN: 0-446-60378-3.
Anil's Ghost by Michael
Ondaatje. ISBN: 0375724370
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.
Bantam. ISBN: 0553212478
Patchwork Girl by Shelly
Jackson. Eastgate. ISBN: 1-884511-23-6.
Her Other Mouths by Lidia
Yuknavitch. House of Bones Press. ISBN: 0-9656665-0-6.
Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife
by William Gass. Dalkey Archive. ISBN: 1564782123
Oryx and Crake by Margaret
Atwood. Anchor Books. ISBN: 0-385-72167-6.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglas by Frederick Douglas. Signet. ISBN: 0-451-16188-2.
A number of other supplemental readings will come up during the
class. See below.
Course Requirements
One short paper, midterm, final, one long paper.
Class Attendance
Much of the value of this course is derived from class
discussion. Therefore, you are expected to attend class
regularly. Documented illness and extreme emergencies are the
sole acceptable reasons for missing class. All assignments will
be collected on the dates they are due whether you were in class to
receive the assignment or not. This means that if you are absent,
it is your responsibility to find out what you missed. If you are
absent more than two classes, the grade on your final assignment (and
if necessary, other assignments) will be lowered one grade for each
additional class missed.
Grades
Your final grade will be based mainly upon the quality of the work you
submit. However, when calculating final grades I will also take
into consideration class participation, and effort. No late work is
accepted without prior arrangement. Incompletes are not given.
Loosely defined, I interpret letter grades as follows: A = Exemplary;
distinctly above very-good work: a maturity of ideas and craft. B
= Very Good; better than what can be expected from the majority of
students in course at this level. C = Good; competent writing
that shows a conscious attempt to absorb the material and put it into
one’s own context even though it might also exhibit some
problems. D = Substandard; exhibits more problems than might be
expected from someone who is concentrating on the task at hand. F
= Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200; in general
it's hard to fall into this category unless through some combination
involving lack of effort, participation and/or attendance.
Thematic
Outline
Intro: Why the Body? Why Now?
Film clip: John Wayne’s Beach Landing in The Longest Day. Film clip: beach
landing from Steven Spielberg’s Saving
Private Ryan. Film clip: actual D-Day Beach Landing
Footage. Film clip: bullet entering chest from Three Kings.
The Language of the Body
Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife
by William Gass.
Essay on Russian tattooing in prisons; on mid-drift in fashion.
Video clip: TV Tattooing/Piercing, fashion.
Visual aids: a selection of contemporary art works.
Excerpt from Michel Foucault’s Discipline
and Punish.
“First, Body” by Melanie Rae Thon.
“The Romans in Films,” from Mythologies
by Roland Barthes.
Film clip: sweaty Romans in Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar.
The Body through Time
Visual art: Selections from The
History of Anatomical Drawing.
preface to Jorge Luis Borges, The
Book of Imaginary Beings.
Classic: Selections
from Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
Book One: The Creation, The Four Ages; Jove’s Intervention; The Story
of Lycaon; the Flood; Deucalion and Pyrrha; Apollo and Daphne; Jove and
Io (p. 3-27); Arachne (p. 129-133); & The Story of Tereus, Procne,
Phiomela (p. 143-151.); & Nestor Tells the Story of Caeneus; Nestor
Goes on and on with the Story of the Battle with the Centaurs
(291-301).
Film clip: centaurs in Walt Disney’s Fantasia.
Film clip: “Show Down in House of Blue Leaves” in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1.
Medieval: Dante. Inferno.
Visual art: Gustave Dore’s illustrations for Dante’s
Inferno.
Renaissance: selection
from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.
Philomela’s rape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Film clip: Lavinia’s mutilation and rape in Julie
Taymor’s Titus.
Victorian/Early Modern:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.
Modern: Kafka, “The Hunger Artist.” Beckett, “First Love.”
Postmodern: Patchwork Girl by Shelly Jackson.
The Racial Body
The Narrative of Frederick Douglas
by Frederick Douglas.
“Dr. Immortelle” by Kathleen Ludwick (1930).
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison.
Adulthood Rites by Octavia E.
Butler.
The Sexual Body
Excerpt from History of Juliette, or “The Misfortune of Virtue” by
Marquis de Sade
Selections from Aureole by
Carol Maso.
Her Other Mouths by Lidia
Yuknavitch.
Excerpt from I Dreamt I was a
Nymphomaniac by Kathy Acker.
The Elementary Particles by
Michel Houellebecq.
The Material Body
Anil's Ghost by Michael
Ondaatje.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret
Atwood.
“Soundings” by Abraham Verghese
“The Pathology Lesson” by Michael Dibdin.
“The Cells, Tissues, Systems and Cavities of the Body” by Jeanette
Winterson.
Fidget by Ken Goldsmith.
Selections from Georges Bataille
Collected Poems or The Story
of the Eye by Georges Bataille.
The Body Constrained/ The Body in Pain
Film clip: Johnny gets shot with a riot-control gun & the boys give
each other electrical shocks from Jackass: The Movie.
“Red Fire Farm” by Anchee Min.
“The Internment” by John Conroy. Other visual aides: photos of torture
equipment from Medieval Times. Photos of U.S. soldiers torturing
Iraqi prisoners.
“The Pimp Well Served” by Marquis de Sade.
“Augustine de Villeblanche, or Love’s Stratagem” by Marquis de Sade.
“Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body” by Kathy
Acker.
Post-Human Body
“The Artificial Man” by Clare Winger Harris (1929).
Galetea 2.2 by Richard Powers.
“On Ceasing to be Human” by Jerry Bruns.
Selections from Being Human:
Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics at:
www.bioethics.gov/bookshelf.
The Visible Man project at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html.
“Searching for Your Inner Chimp” by Carl Zimmer. Natural History. Dec.
2002/Jan. 2003, p. 36+.
Chromosome 22 by Tal and
Orit Halpern at: http://www.mindspring.com/~biography/introresults.html
(view with Netscape or Firefox)