(3 cr. hrs.)

Above course carries COLL A & H distribution credit
Tu / Th 1:00PM - 2:15PM

While single, material bodies are often assumed to be simple,
physical, and natural, more people are willing to see groups such as
nations or societies (the body politic) as social constructions.
This course will question such distinctions, exploring this thing we
call “the body” and some of the numerous factors that shape the
relationship of individual bodies to larger social groups.  It will
begin by examining the two key terms of the title and their assumed
relationship.  What is the body?  Is the body natural or social?
What is a body politic?   What is the process of its construction or
imagination?   The course will then turn to the factors shaping the
relationships of bodies to bodies politic.  How are individual
bodies positioned vis-à-vis larger entities by notions of gender,
sexual physiognomy, ability, technological alteration, and racial or
national difference?  This is an upper-level, reading-intensive
mixed-format seminar presuming some previous course experience in
critical race studies, Cultural Studies, or feminist/women’s and
gender studies.

Preliminary Booklist:
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

Daphne Brooks, Bodies in dissent:  Spectacular performances of race
and freedom, 1850-1910

Judith Halberstam, Posthuman Bodies

Emily Martin, Flexible Bodies

David Serlin, Replaceable you:  Engineering the body in postwar
America

Jennifer Terry, Processed lives:  Gender and technology in everyday
life

Terry, Deviant bodies:  Critical perspectives on difference in
science and popular culture

Technologies of the Gendered Body