WMS 316 - Representations of The Body

Institution:

DePaul University

Subject:

Description:

This course reflects the current explosion of intellectual interest in the body as a site of cultural meaning. We will enter this discussion by examining how the body, which seems to be a natural, universal fact, is also a deeply cultural symbolic construction. The readings attempt to capture the complexity of this evolving field using a multidisciplinary approach, including such fields as history, art, medicine, philosophy, religion, sociology, women's studies, and cultural studies. The course addresses the questions of how the body is socially created and sustained. It explores those questions in terms of tensions between nature and culture (to what extent is the body natural cultural ), body and spirit (what does human "embodiment" mean are we our physical bodies -and nothing else ), and how discourses of power converge in and on the body (gender/race/class/age/ability). Course topics include: the meaning of physical pain in Western history; the personal experience of and social construction of race in the U.S., with its background assumptions about skin color; the social constructions of gender, sexualities, and sexual desire; personal experience and the cultural "readings" and representations of male and female, old, disabled, and transgressive bodies; socio-cultural "readings" of physical violence pertaining to both victim and perpetrator.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.depaul.edu

Phone Number:

(312) 362-8000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Quarter

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