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CS92PROD
Remaking Bodies, Rethinking Social Movements

FGSS 310
Spring 2017 not offered
Course Cluster: Disability Studies, Queer Studies

This course examines bodily modifications/transitions/transformations and how these processes of remaking bodies profoundly impact on social movements of the last decades, be they feminist, antiracist, gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer, trans, intersex, disability, and fat movements, to name some. The bodily transformations covered in this course are very diverse, from more normalized ones, such as tattoos, piercings, and cosmetic surgeries, to more uncommon and/or "extreme" ones, like gastric bypass surgeries, sex reassignment surgeries, ethnic surgeries, voluntary acquisition of a disability (blindness, paraplegia, amputation) and of HIV (called "bug chasing"). This course provides an overview of the key concepts, theories, and debates in a variety of fields of studies that look at these bodily transformations and how they sometimes cause rifts, fraught discussions, and divisions among social movements and how they sometimes help to create solidarities and alliances between marginalized groups. It also explores these bodily transformations through intersectional analyses that show how they are intertwined with other components such as sex, gender identity, sexuality, class, race, (dis)ability, language, and so on. Topics will include identity and bodily transformations, the normative body, the social and cultural representations of nonnormative bodies and modified bodies, the medicalization and pathologization of different bodies, and power relations between social movements.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS FGSS
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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