ENGL 218(F,S) Forms of Violence (Gateway) (W)
"It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is almost as keen as the desire for ones that show bodies naked." When Susan Sontag made this claim she was referring to paintings and photographs. She could just as well have been talking about poetry or drama. In this course we will consider stories, plays and movies that take up, in one way or another, the problem of aestheticized cruelty. We will ask how art might help us to understand various forms of violence-domestic, random, state-sponsored-and how violence may help us to understand art. Works to be studied will include: Oedipus, The Bacchae, Othello, John Ford's The Searchers, Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil, and David Russell's Three Kings. We will also read stories and novels by Eudora Welty, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, and J.M. Coetzee.
Format: seminar/discussion. Requirements: five short essays, including one revision.
Prerequisite: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference given to advanced first-year students, sophomores, and English majors who have yet to take a Gateway.
This course is part of the Critical Reasoning and Analytical Skills initiative.
Hour: First Semester: KLEINER Second Semester: KLEINER