Masterseminar 8220 Representations of the Body 8221 Di 08.30h

Uniquely, the body has a dual character, simultaneously the medium of private, internal sensations, as well as a publically perceptible object in the physical world. (Longo: 665). We will be addressing questions of the body before and beyond representation, the cultural construction of the body, the domestication and regulation of the body, the revaluation of the body from the 1980s onwards, questions of having a body vs. being a body, transformations of the body, etc. We willbe focusing on the body as both repository and tool for information. This, of course, is not a new approach: the body's readability has been explored in recent centuries in physiognomics (Johann Caspar Lavater) or phrenology (Franz Josef Gall). In contrast, we will foreground body movements. It appears that these are a staple ingredient of fictional texts, but one rarely seen or used for interpretation. Which brings us back to the first sentence: both the body as seat of sensations and the reference of first person experience as well as the body as a physical object , like any other object in the external world find a representation in fictional texts and will take -centre stage- in our discussions. This will be a fairly theoretically based seminar. We will be reading texts by Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Tim Ingold, Marcel Mauss and Thomas Alkemeyer as our main focus. Primary sources will be compiled in a reader and taken from the 19th and 20th century British literature. These will include e. g. a collection of excerpts from novels, two short plays by Samuel Beckett, a short story by Virginia Woolf, an excerpt of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Therefore, please be prepared to read extensively for the seminar and take an active part in our weekly discussions. You will find secondary texts and material in the seminar’s -elektronische Semesterapparat” from September 1st onwards. The first meeting will take place on Tuesday, October 20th, 2015, at 9.00 a.m. Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Universität Düsseldorf WiSe 2015/16 Dr. Wolter Ingrid Charlotte