•••Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self and the Subject •••••
••••• Fall 2007 SYLLABUS (download PDF)
• Elizabeth Williamson
williame@evergreen.edu
Sem 2 E2112
Office Hours: Monday 1-3, Wednesday 12-1
• Julia Zay
jzay@evergreen.edu
Sem 2 D2108
Office Hours: Wednesday 12-1 and by appt.
PROGRAM DRUPAL WEBSITE: http://www2.evergreen.edu/fashioningthebody/
• CLASS SCHEDULE ••
>Tuesday 10-1. Sem 2 D1107 • GYMNASIUM •
“A place or building for practice of or instruction in athletic exercises . . . a school of the highest grade designed to prepare students for the universities” (OED)
In which students conduct investigative workshops involving writing and other techniques of analysis
>Tuesday 2-5. LH4 • CIRCUS •
“A circular arena surrounded by tiers of seats, for the exhibition of equestrian, acrobatic, and other performances” (OED)
In which students are educated and entertained by their faculty and visiting lecturers
>>Wednesday 10-12. Sem 2 D3107/3109 • CLINIC •
“A centre or other institution at which specialized treatment, diagnosis, or advice is available” (OED)
In which students gather for systematic study of the readings through detailed, intellectually rigorous discussion.
The first hour of Clinic will be student-led. Those who are not facilitating should bring two questions that 1) do not have a simple answer and 2) are grounded in the text. Be prepared to write these, or other questions that arise for you during the first half of clinic, on the board at the beginning of hour two, which will be faculty-led.
[Clinic is a form of seminar. “’Seminar:’ from ‘seminary:’ (seminarum: a seed-plot) A place of origin and early development; a place or thing in which something (e.g. an art or science, a virtue or vice) is developed or cultivated, or from which it is propagated abundantly.” (OED)]
>>>Friday 10-1. SEM 2 D1107 • BEAUTY PARLOR •
Inspired by the rich history of the American beauty shop and barber shop, in which gossip and other forms of local knowledge are disseminated
In which students share reports from the world outside the program, and “tease” various strands of everyday, material, and popular culture into shapely “dos”
>>>Friday 2-5. Sem 2 D1105 • REVUE •
“One of those dismal things called revues, that are neither comedies nor farces, nor anything but shambling, hugger-mugger contraptions into which you fling anything that comes handy” (OED)
In which we display films and other miscellaneous spectacles, using them as springboards for discussion of the week’s discoveries
• PROGRAM EXPECTATIONS ••
We expect all students to read Evergreen’s Social Contract—“A Guide for Civility and Individual Freedom” and to follow it. http://www.evergreen.edu/about/social.htm.
Please note that both kinds of freedom—positive and negative—are essential to learning. Negative freedom is the freedom from something, eg. Irresponsible, thoughtless, or mean-spirited behavior. Positive freedom is the freedom to do something, i.e. to stretch your intellectual boundaries in an environment designed to support such activities. Each seminar will collaboratively create a document that lays out specific ground rules that promote civility and mutual responsibility.
Classroom Etiquette:
• NO OPEN LAPTOPS IN CLASS (unless you have cleared this with us in advance as an access issue)
• Cellphones/PDAs TURNED OFF IN CLASS
In order to earn full credit for fall quarter, in addition to completing all program work, we expect you to:
1) Attend all class sessions, except in case of family emergency or illness—regular attendance problems, including tardiness, will be reflected in your evaluation.
2) Complete all assignments in a timely fashion including a robust proposal for your winter quarter project—regular lateness will be reflected in your evaluation.
3) Communicate regularly with faculty about problems that may be hindering your learning.
4) Complete a self-evaluation, revise it at least once, and submit it online at https://my.evergreen.edu/home
2 credits will be awarded this quarter for the independent project proposal. Faculty will return any incomplete or ill-conceived project proposal to the student for revision and/or completion. If the revision/completion work is unsatisfactory faculty may suggest that the student find another more suitable program for winter quarter.
PLEASE NOTE: In order to continue in the program in Winter quarter, students are required to earn full credit Fall quarter.
• LEARNING MODEL ••
Our hope is that this program will reinforce your existing critical thinking skills and increase your familiarity with the tools and topics of textual analysis, leading to a more sophisticated integration of extracurricular and academic investigations as described in the “Outcomes” section.
Tools for textual study:
1) Collection—the initial act of research or experimentation
2) Observation—the careful study of and documentation of the formal qualities of the text
3) Analysis—formulation of initial conclusions about the underlying structure or logic that determines those formal qualities
4) Interpretation—an informed hypothesis about the possible meanings or significance of the text
5) Synthesis—bringing multiple texts into dialogue with one another using abstract concepts, including theoretical vocabulary and models/methodologies.
** Text: any cultural production (film, photograph, script, advertisement, commercial product, item of fashion, body, public figure, song, etc.) that inspires in-depth critical study on several levels
Topics:
1) Production of the text: when and where was the text produced? what historical conditions helped to shape it?
2) Politics of the text: how does the formal structure frame the content of the text? does the text replicate or challenge stereotypes and other structures of power or both?
3) Reception of the text: how widely has the text been copied and circulated? what type of reviews and criticism has it accrued? To what uses has it been put? What kinds of alterations or reappropriations has the text been subjected to since its first appearance? Why and to what ends?
Desired outcomes:
1) Working knowledge of the shape of early modern/modern/postmodern conceptions of the body and human embodiment in the west, contextualized generally within their intellectual history.
2) Development of robust critical thinking skills, including the ability to identify the assumptions and habits of thought that may interfere with your ability to engage with a text on its own terms (for those terms, see “Topics” above)
3) Increased ability to unpack concepts, identify tensions, and formulate questions that promote generative dialogue
4) Expanded toolkit of knowledge, including vocabulary, history, and abstract concepts
5) An appreciation for academic work as an intervention into an existing set of intellectual and cultural discourses
6) Application of program learning to the world beyond the classroom
• FALL QUARTER ASSIGNMENTS ••
These assignments are designed to complement one another and to give you practice in a wide range of critical
thinking skills. They are all equally important.
1. Concept Rhyming Papers
Due weeks 2, 6 (Tue 10/30), 7 [Group A] and 3, 6, 8 [Group B]. All essays due in hardcopy by 10 am Friday morning and
should be posted on your drupal blog by the end of the day. (length variable, double spaced, 1” margins). Follow a consistent style guide (either MLA or Chicago is fine)]
2. In-class writing
We’ll be asking you to do some more creative, informal types of writing on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Always type up and post these on your blog by the end of the day.
3. Beauty Parlor presentation
Friday morning of weeks 2-8, groups will present their collaborative investigations of body culture. Presentation
write-ups are due the morning of your presentation and should be posted on your blog as well that day.
4. Collaborative take home exam
Due Tuesday 12/4, by NOON in faculty mailbox.
5. Project Proposal for Winter quarter
••ROUGH DRAFT DUE WEDS of WEEK 8 [11/14] in CLINIC. FINE DRAFT DUE at individual meeting with faculty, WEEK 9 TUE 11/27 or WED 11/28
Your winter quarter project may be creative, critical, or a combination of the two, and it must engage directly with
program themes.
**The faculty are prepared to support projects in the following areas: research and critical writing; creative
writing, including fiction, poetry, playwriting, or mixed genre prose; photography; video; media installation;
dramatic and other modes of performance.
**Note that students must propose feasible and reasonably-scaled winter projects in a medium in which the
student has prior training and experience.
**In most cases, faculty cannot support projects in technically intensive media like video and photography when
the student is a beginning user of these media.
**If you plan to use performance spaces or media/photo equipment or facilities in winter as part of your project,
you are REQUIRED to submit a completed MRF (Media Request Form—available at Media Loan website and at
ML) and/or documentation of confirmed facility reservations with your project proposal.
**Students will not be doing creative projects fall quarter. However, if students need workshops to refresh
themselves in a particular area or need to obtain equipment or facility proficiencies in order to embark on winter
projects, these may be arranged outside of class time during the second half of fall quarter.
6. Corpus: sketchbook/sourcebook/image bank
“A body or complete collection of writings or the like; the whole body of literature on any subject. 4. The body or
material substance of anything” (OED)
-Kept online (blog) [e-Corpus] or in journal (paper)[a-Corpus] (a is for ‘analog’); At least 2 posts per week related to program concepts, issues, and questions. This is also a place to start to sketch, outline, or visualize ideas for your winter project. If an image or line from a reading or lecture strikes you, record it! It may play an important role in your winter project planning.
-The Corpus will be collected at midterm and end of term.
7. Drupal Student Blogs:
Each student will have a blog on our program drupal site that is readable only by others in the program. The following things should be posted on your blog regularly:
1. Transcripts of in-class writing from Gymnasium, Clinic, Revue
2. Beauty Parlor presentation write-up
3. Concept Rhyming Essays (3 total)
4. Winter Project Proposal
5. Corpus postings (if you have an e-Corpus)
WEEKS 1 – 3 : THE CITIZEN
>Week 1 : EMBODYING POWER Pt. 1: Militarism, Whiteness
READINGS: Foucault, “The Political Investment of the Body” (For WED)
(all handouts) Mauss, “Techniques of the Body” (For FRI AM)
Douglas, “ The Two Bodies” (For FRI AM)
Theweliet, “Male Bodies and the ‘White Terror’ For FRI PM)
Dyer, “The White Man’s Muscles” (For FRI PM)
Tuesday, 9/25
Gymnasium: Program intro
Circus: EW on Prisons and “visualizing power”, JZ on heads, faces, and mug shots
Wednesday, 9/26
Clinic: Discuss Foucault
Friday, 9/28
Beauty Parlour: Intro to Cultural Materialist Fieldwork; Discuss Mauss + Douglas
Revue: SCREENING Beau Travail (1999) dir. Claire Denis. France, 90 min; Discuss Theweleit + Dyer
>Week 2 : EMBODYING POWER Pt. 2
READINGS: Genet, The Balcony; Foucault, The History of Sexuality, pp. 1-73 (For TUES)
Tuesday, 10/2
Gymnasium: EW on Visualizing Power in The Balcony, JZ on Foucault in context
Circus: Individual meetings with seminar leader in faculty offices
Wednesday, 10/3 Clinic: Discuss Foucault, pp. 1-73
Friday, 10/5
Beauty Parlour: Group 1 presentations
Revue: Individual student meetings with seminar leader in faculty offices
>Week 3 : EMBODYING GENDER, Pt. 1
READINGS: Foucault, The History of Sexuality, pp. 77-159 (For TUE)
de Lauretis, “Technology of Gender” (For WEDS)
Holmlund, “Visible Difference and Flex Appeal: The Body, Sex, Sexuality, and Race in the ‘Pumping Iron’ Films” (For FRI)
Tuesday, 10/9
Gymnasium: Calisthenics: on citizenship and masculinity
Circus: Lectures on Foucault, Gender
Wednesday, 10/10
Clinic: Discuss de Lauretis and Foucault
Friday, 10/12
Beauty Parlour: Group 2 presentations
Revue: SCREENING: Pumping Iron II: The Women (1985), dir. George Butler. US, 107 min.;
Discuss Holmlund
WEEKS 4 – 6 : THE SUBJECT
>Week 4 : EMBODYING GENDER, Pt. 2 + Visiting Artist Scott Turner Schofield
READINGS: Butler, “Bodies That Matter (excerpt)” (For TUE/FRI)
Fausto-Sterling, Sexing The Body pp. Ch. 1, 2, 9 (For TUE)
Bornstein, TBA OR Halberstam TBA
"The Body You Want: Liz Kotz Interviews Judith Butler" (For FRI)
Tuesday, 10/16
Gymnasium: Scott Turner Schofield leads workshop
Circus: SCREENING: Southern Comfort (2001) dir. Kate Davis. US, 90 min.
Wednesday, 10/17
Clinic: Discuss Butler, Fausto-Sterling, Bornstein
Friday, 10/19
Beauty Parlour: Group 3 presentations
Revue: A look at work by photographer Cathy Opie and others TBA. Discuss Butler+Kotz
••REQUIRED FRIDAY EVENING PERFORMANCE: (attendance will be taken)
Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps (2007) Scott Turner Schofield. Experimental Theater (COM Bldg)
>Week 5 : THE BODY IN THE MARKETPLACE
READINGS: Stallybrass, “Worn Worlds” (For TUE)
Middleton and Dekker, The Roaring Girl (For TUE)
Orgel, Impersonations Preface + Ch. 1, 2, 3, 5 (For TUE)
Tuesday, 10/23
Gymnasium: Writing Models / Stallybrass
Circus: Elizabethan theater and fashion
Wednesday, 10/24 Clinic: Discuss The Roaring Girl and Orgel chapters
Friday, 10/26
Beauty Parlour: Group 4 presentations
Revue: Elizabethan theater on film
>Week 6 : THE CIVIC BODY
READINGS: Brecht, The Good Person of Szechwan (For WED)
Brecht, Brecht on Theatre: (For TUE) “Shouldn’t We Abolish Aesthetics?;” “The Epic Theatre and Its Difficulties;” “The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre;” “Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction;” “Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting;” “The Popular and Realistic;” “A Short Organum for the Theatre”
Tuesday, 10/30
Gymnasium: Brechtian theater + the Alienation Effect
Circus: Brecht and other techniques of the body
Wednesday, 10/31
Circus: Discuss Brecht
Program to Suheir Hamad performance at 11am
Friday, 11/2
Beauty Parlour: Group 5 presentations
Revue: Brechtian and avant garde theater on film
WEEKS 7 – 8 : THE SELF
>Week 7 : THE TECHNO-UTOPIAN BODY, pt 1: from machine to cyborg
READINGS: E.T.A. Hoffman, “The Sandman” (For TUE)
Villiers de L’isle Adam, Tomorrow’s Eve (For TUE)
Jennifer Gonzalez, “Envisioning Cyborg Bodies: Notes from Current Research” (For WED)
Elizabeth Grosz, “Bodies-Cities” (For FRI)
A. Huyssen, “The Vamp & the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis” (FRI)
Tuesday, 11/6
Gymnasium: <cyborgraphia>
Circus: EW on formal aspects of Tomorrow’s Eve, JZ on Edison, androids, gender, cyborgs
Wednesday, 11/7
Clinic: Discuss Tomorrow’s Eve, Hoffman, Gonzalez
Friday, 11/9
Beauty Parlour: SCREENING: Metropolis (1927), dir. Fritz Lang. Germany, 123 min. Discuss Grosz + Huyssen LOCATION CHANGE: SEM 2 E1105
Revue: GO TO Oly Film Fest show "Feminist Video Art of the 1970s." (3:30pm start. Meet at Capitol Theater @ 3:00).Coffee/conference in pairs/groups afterwards and post on blog about it.
>Week 8 : THE TECHNO-UTOPIAN BODY, pt 2: celebrity as cyborg/AfroFuturism
READINGS: Kobena Mercer, “Monster Metaphors: Notes on Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’” (for TUE)
Paul Gilroy, “Race Ends Here” (For WED)
Jose Quiroga “Latino Dolls” (for TUE)
Orlan, “’I Do Not Want to Look Like…’” OPTIONAL
Jasmine Rault, “Orlan and The Limits of Materialization” OPTIONAL
Tuesday, 11/13
Gymnasium: <cyborgraphia>
Circus: "Thriller", Ricky Martin, Orlan et. al.: Sex, Celebrity, and the Hyperreal
Wednesday, 11/14
Clinic: Discuss Mercer, Gilroy, Quiroga. ROUGH DRAFT OF WINTER PROJECT PROPOSAL DUE
Friday, 11/16
Beauty Parlour: Group 6 presentations; 12-1pm: program goes to RECITAL HALL for "Media Ventriloquism," a lecture by Douglas Kahn, Evergreen alum ('73) and Professor in the Technocultural Studies program at the University of California Davis.
What happens when the puppet loses the tight-jawed twang and finds its voice in a well-known political figure, when the puppet loses the forearm and grows a real spine, saying what it really meant to say? Rare footage of Pauline Pantsdown: the anti-Citizen Kane of Australian political drag.
Revue: quick winter proposal conferences w/ faculty
THANKSGIVING BREAK• November 19 - 23
WEEKS 9 – 10 : COMPILE>REVIEW>COMPOSE>PROPOSE
>Week 9
READINGS: None
•• Individual meetings w/ seminar faculty. Winter Project proposal Fine Draft due at individual meeting.
•• Draft of self-evaluation due Friday 11/30 AM
•• Meet with exam prep group this week on your own to compile and study for take-home exam.
Tuesday, 11/27
No class, individual meetings on project
Wednesday, 11/28
No class, individual meetings on project
Friday, 11/30
Beauty Parlour: GROUP 7 Presentations & Self-evaluation writing workshop
Revue: Exam review session
>Week 10
READINGS: None
••Take-home Exam due Tuesday by Noon in faculty mailbox.
••Student project presentations.
Tuesday, 12/4
NO CLASS. EXAM DUE AT NOON in FACULTY MAILBOX.
Wednesday, 12/5
Clinic: Super Surprise Wild Card Screenings
Friday, 12/7
Beauty Parlour: Winter Project proposal presentations
Revue: Winter Project proposal presentations
