Psychoanalytic thought offers one of the most subtle and startling accounts we have of the nature of gender and sexuality, one that suggests how inextricably sexuality is bound to language, to the limits of culture, and to the problem of identity as such. We'll be interested in these issues in their own right; we'll be equally interested in the surprising ways psychoanalytic thought opens up literary and cinematic works-psychoanalysis is, in the end, a form of reading. The course will weave together theoretical texts and fictions from As You Like It to Some Like it Hot. We'll explore Antigone, "chick flicks" and "buddy" films courtly love lyrics and novels (Woolf, Duras) in the light of thinkers such as Freud, Jacques Lacan, Jacqueline Rose, Leo Bersani and Lee Edelman. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: lively participation, one short (6 page) and one long (12 page) paper. Prerequisites: a 300-level English course or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limit: 15 (expected: 15). Preference given to English and Women's and Gender Studies majors. (Criticism)