COML 4947 - Bio-Politics and Poetics of Nakedness

(crosslisted) ASRC 4947, FGSS 4947

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Enrollment limited to: 15 students.

N. Diabate.

In this course, you will explore nakedness as a form of protest by various social movements and in compelling fictional texts. As you analyze nakedness from ancient Greece to 21th century Africa, Asia, and Latin America, you will also be attentive to the variables of race, gender, and bodily abilities and how they complicate this mode of political speech. Primary texts include Devi’s “Draupadi,” Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow, Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, Tennyson’s “Godiva,” Auden’s “Cave of Nakedness,” videos of Femen, gay parades, and Occupy Wall Street. You will read these visual and literary texts in conjunction with theoretical reflections on shame/injury, exposure, and humanity by Freud, Foucault, Derrida, Levinas, Nancy, and Berger. Assignments will clarify and build upon the readings and films and include reflection papers, analytical, and argumentative essays.