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Semester 1

Body in Literature (ENLI10110)

Course Website

https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours

Subject

English Literature

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 English Literature courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we do not consider civilisation & other interdisciplinary courses, freshman seminars, writing/composition courses or film/cinema/media courses; visiting students who have taken multiple courses in literature in other languages, should have passed at least two courses in English Literature as well. **Please note that this course may incur additional costs to purchase core texts** **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course examines some of the most influential ways in which literary writing has depicted and explored the human body, and discusses arguments about identity, gender, race, desire, sex, violence, beauty and monstrosity. The human body has been depicted in a wide variety of different ways across a range of cultural and historical contexts. It has been described, variously, as a biological entity, clothing for a soul, a site of cultural production, a psychosexual construct and a material encumbrance. Each different characterisation brings with it a range of anthropological, biological, political, theological and psychological discourses that explore and construct identities and subject positions. The body is at once a locus of invention and self-expression, and also an object of domination and control. In today's culture it is also located at the heart of debates about race, gender, sexuality and identity. This course considers the different ways in which the human body has been such a central object of discussion in literature from the Renaissance onwards and explores the politics and philosophy of bodily representation.

Course Description

We will discuss the variety of ways in which literature has presented the human body by reading a range of literature published from the early-modern period to the end of the twentieth century. These literary texts will be read in the light of critical and theoretical arguments drawn from sources that present varied perspectives on embodiment. The structure of reading and analysis on the course is broadly comparative: we will explore the similarities and differences between the set texts, and examine the various types of analysis made possible by the critical and theoretical modes of reading which will be introduced as the course progresses. Key topics for discussion this year will include: the meanings of beauty, ugliness and monstrosity; desire and sexuality; gender, race and representation; violence and death; identity, power and performance. Class discussions will focus on the literary, philosophical, theological, psychological, social, cultural and political implications of different manners of writing about embodiment. To prepare for these discussions, students will be required to work in advance in smaller 'autonomous learning groups' to produce material which will be presented to the class in a variety of forms (written reports posted to the course vle, informal contributions to discussion, and more formal verbal or written presentations). As well as writing two essays for the course (30% and 60% of the overall grade), students will be assessed on their contribution to classes (10%).

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on an English Literature exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year English Literature course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed, and students will not be permitted to enrol in three 3rd year English Literature courses in the same semester at any time. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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