This course will take a critical look at the burgeoning historical
literature on the body.'  The main question we will be concerned to
answer is what is the appropriate and most useful application of the body
in history.  Is the body now a legitimate category of historical
research?  Is instead the search for and use of body metaphors a fruitful
historical method?  Or is the body a trend of the 1980s and 90s destined
to be forgotten?  In order to organize our work around a more concrete
theme we shall adopt as a secondary topic for the course the
institutionalization of deviance in modern Europe.  This is an area in
which the body literature in some ways got its start, which continues to
be a rich source for it, and which should be the best testing ground for
the above questions.