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, cinematic and visual 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 (Balzac, 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 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 25
(expected: 20). Preference given to English, Comparative Literature, and
Women's and Gender Studies majors.
(Criticism)