Module: ENG5113-20 Bodies

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi

Module Tutor Contact Details: k.hadjiafxendi@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

From the shame of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis, literature has always invested the human body with cultural, ideological and political significance. This module traces the long, visceral history of the ways in which bodies—alive and (un)dead, altered, classed, dynamic, gendered, fluid, liberated, pained, punished, racialised, tender, sexed and unsexed—serve as sites for enforcing, as well as contesting, society's dominant discourses and prejudices. 

The module is organised into three sections, allowing you the opportunity to reflect on the various ways in which the body is represented in literature. Topics to be covered may include: classed, gendered, racialised bodies; scandal and sensation; body shocks; dis/ability; ornamentation; medicalised bodies; fashion; phenomenology; the unruly, grotesque, extraordinary body; the body politic. Its aims and objectives will be assessed through an essay and a portfolio.

2.Outline syllabus

Section 1: Inscriptions: Written on the Body

We will begin this module by reflecting on how a variety of texts from different contexts treat the body as a signifier. Particular emphasis will be given to critical and theoretical work (by literary historians, anthropologists, philosophers) on the body in literature and in the wider public sphere.

Section 2: Enforcements: Discipling the Body

This section will examine literature’s role in the enforcement of social and cultural boundaries as well as dominant discourses. Emphasis will be placed in the depiction of disciplined, punished, shamed and othered bodies.

Section 3: Reclamation: Bodies as Sites of Resistance

This section explores representations of the body as a site of resistance to real and imagined repressive regimes as well as social and political injustices. Emphasis will be placed on individual and collective reclamations and affirmations of the body, including the body politic broadly defined.

3.Teaching and learning activities

Teaching on this module will involve lectures, seminars, workshops, and tutorials. 

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Comparative analysis: 2,000 words (close readings of two passages) 

• % Weighting: 40%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Essay: 3,000 words 

• % Weighting: 60%