Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

We'll be attending many of these lectures for this course as part of Fashioning the Body, if you'd like to earn an extra 2 credits by attending all the sessions, you can sign up for the course itself.

See attached flier for details.

For more information, contact David Michael Wolach, dwuaw@yahoo.com

 

Exam preparation: Over the next several days, you’ll be preparing possible answers to these 6 questions (see attached) with partners of your choosing. We’ll also give you some time in class Friday afternoon to go over them with us. Some of you will see yourselves directly or indirectly cited here; thanks to all of you for the work you did in crafting your sample questions.

The exam itself: You’ll receive the official list of questions on SUNDAY MORNING and will turn in your answers on TUESDAY BY 5PM to your faculty member’s mailbox in Sem II A2117. Keep in mind that when writing the actual exam, you should give yourself no more than 3 hours, and use only your notes (not each other).

nytimes.com has posted a new interactive media feature called "Faces of the Dead in Iraq." The primary image is of Casey Mason, fresh faced young white man (I'll have to check back to see if they rotate this image), whose face is itself a mosaic: each of the tiles represents a dead soldier, and you can click on individual squares to learn more about that person.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/20061228_3000FACES_TAB1.html

Yeah, porn's pretty cool, but check out a re-airing of a "This American Life" show on "milestones" with an amazing segment about a funeral parlor director who's replaced the image of the embalmed body with "new media", video montages of old photographs.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=174

Friday, November 16
Meetings with Elizabeth, Sem II E2112
 
2:00 Emily B.
2:05 Liz
2:10 Melissa
2:15 Spencer
2:20 Sandra
2:25 Matt
2:30 Elise
2:35 Melanie
2:40 iea
2:45 Molly
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3:15 Kathleen
3:20 Celia
3:25 Gabriela
3:30 Sarah
3:35 Marie
3:40 Harrison
3:45 Jess
3:50 Katie Wulf
3:55 Theodora
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4:15-5:00 / open office hours
 
3 questions for everybody to consider:
- Will your primary product be completed by week 8?
- What aspect of your work do you think you might share with the program via the online conference?
- What elements of the complete proposal do you need to write or flesh out before turning in your next version?
 
Reminder: Next version due Week 9 in individual conferences.
Schedule to be posted; priority will be given to students continuing in the program.  

E-mail me to set up separate appointments (or come at 4:15): Morgan, Connor, Emily, Jenny, Katie, Courtney, Devin, Sonja
 

1. What are the structures of power/discourse that operate on us via our bodies?

 

2. What strategies of resistance can we adopt that both acknowledge and work to destabilize these structures or networks of power?

 

3. What, if anything, distinguishes the strategies that we deploy in our everyday lives from those we label as "academic/intellectual" or "artistic"?

For those of you with the energy to tackle some more theory, I'm attaching an article on feminist readings of Brecht that I'll be pirating from on Tuesday, "Brecht and the Mothers of Epic Theater," by Iris Smith.

And here are some other links you may want to check out for basic information on Brechtian theory:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/m.p.thompson/brecht.htm

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ger342/brechtet.htm

http://www.salisbury.edu/theatre/Epic%20Theatre/Epic%20theatre.htm