COMP 242T Reading and Writing the Body (Not offered 2008-2009; to be offered 2009-2010) (W)
Am I a body, or do I have one? The tradition of favoring thought over physical experience has long informed, and limited, our sense of self as human beings. While some writers maintain that the creative impulse is a gift of the muse and that it is rooted entirely in the mind or spirit, there are those for whom the human body, frequently their own, plays a central role, both in the process of creation and as a subject of artistic inquiry or contemplation. In their writing, these authors tell a very different tale with regard to the literary process, and it is focused on the primacy of the physical experience. This course will consider the work of, among others, Maupassant, Kafka, Tanizaki, Tolstoy, Dinesen, Babel, Mandelstam, and Atwood in order to examine how writers from different cultural and aesthetic perspectives either present or use the body as a vehicle of expression. We will also consider other areas of study that are intimately related to the physical experience, such as asceticism, illness, prostitution, and disability, and occasionally turn our attention to other art forms.
Format: tutorial. Requirements: weekly one-hour sessions with the instructor and a fellow student. Every other week the student will write and present orally a 5 to 6-page paper on the assigned readings for that week. On alternate weeks the student will write and present a 2-page critique of the fellow student's paper.
No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 10 (expected: 10). Preference will be given to majors in Comparative Literature.
VAN DE STADT