WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2008-2009       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Theories and Fiction of Androgyny
COL 251
Spring 2009 not offered
Crosslisting: ENGL 255, FGSS 248

The dream of a unique, complete being who is both male and female has a long history in the Western tradition. Moving from Plato to contemporary fiction, we will look at representations and theories of androgyny in literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and feminist theory, asking how and why one might imagine moving beyond the limitations of a single sex and who or what those fantasies serve. What is it about sex/gender that gives rise to its imagined transcendence? What other relations (of power, culture, nation) may be implicated in the representation of sexual difference and its overthrow? Is it possible to move outside of one's gender, or is gender designation itself flawed? In asking these questions we will be especially concerned to see how sex/gender difference is constructed at different moments even, and especially, when it is presumed to be overcome. Authors will include Plato, Ovid, Freud, Foucault, Balzac, Woolf, Cixous, Irigaray, and Hwang.

Essential Capabilities: Speaking, Writing
Reading & Writing
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (FGSS)

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459