The Senses and the Subject in Cinema and Poetry
ENGL 320
Spring 2026
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
AMST 304, FGSS 310 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Disability Studies, Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate |
In this course, we will study a mixture of emotionally stimulating and structurally difficult contemporary cinema and lyric poetry, as well as select philosophical and theoretical approaches to the senses and the subject. Do theories and notions of the senses assume the subject, and/or subjectivity? If so, then how? What is the relationship between embodiment, the senses, the world, racialization, blackness, and being? How do select Western theoretical, aesthetic, and poetic frameworks represent and think as such? While cinema and lyric poetry might seem like strange neighbors, this course specifically foregrounds them as "repositor[ies] of synesthesia," where not only the reconstitution of the subject after some disturbance (i.e., sensorial, physiological, social, historical, etc.) will be relevant to how we read, but also when that either does not happen or constitutively cannot happen. (Note that some short fiction may also be part of the course readings.) |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (American Studies)(Caribbean Studies Minor)(English)(Social, Cultural and Critical Theory Certificate) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Less than 50% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
There will be a printed Course Pack that students can purchase via Wesportal and select books available at RJ Julia. That list updates with each iteration of the course but could consist of: Césaire, Aimé NOTEBOOK OF A RETURN TO THE NATIVE LAND and DISCOURSE ON COLONIALISM; Smith, Tracy K. LIFE ON MARS; Mbembe, Achile ON THE POSTCOLONY; Phillips, Rowan Ricardo SILVER.
A selection of works by the following filmmakers, poets, philosophers, and theorists will appear on the syllabus: Maya Deren, Haile Gerima, Ousmane Sembène, Sara Gómez, Nicolás Guillén Landrián, Jean Rouch, Abderrahmane Sissako, Marlon Riggs, Manthia Diawara, Agnès Varda, Michael Haneke, Luca Guadagnino, John Akomfrah, Lucrecia Martel, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias, Robert Hayden, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, José Lezama Lima, Derek Walcott, Claudia Rankine, David Marriott, Aristotle, Plato, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Rei Terada, Susan Sontag, Rey Chow, select mystics.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Reading journal, Short essay (close-reading assignment), sound/multi-media experiment, footnote/endnote project (will prepare student for research essay), research essay (final). |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Contributes to fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: LH3, WL, Theory |
| Instructor(s): Ellis Neyra,Ren Times: ...W... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: 15 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 4 | SO: 2 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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