Bodies represent a fundamental site where power is negotiated. Looking at how bodies are controlled, regulated, narrated, historicized, weaponized, institutionalized, and theorized can offer critical insights into American culture. By exploring, for example, how differently looking bodies can be constructed as monstrous, how male bodies can be militarized for the benefit of a war narrative, or how non-white bodies can be subjugated or exoticized in a colonial context, we can try to understand the cultural politics expressed in diverse narratives around bodies.
In this seminar, we will examine different conceptualizations of bodies and we will look at how bodies are represented in American (popular) culture through different lenses, such as gender, queerness, race, class, and disability.
The seminar will enable students to deepen their understanding of American film, television, literature, and other texts in US culture as well as to engage with literary and cultural theory in order to analyze a primary text of their choice. The exam for this module is a portfolio exam that will consist of different written components which will showcase what students have learned throughout the semester
- Trainer/in: Ravizza Eleonora