GLS 592: Freaks and the Freakish
Instructor: Bill DiNome
The misshapen. The abnormal. The extraordinary body ... The freak. We may find physical difference repulsive, frightening or fascinating, yet irresistible to our gaze. Perceptions of “human curiosities” have changed through history, ranging from threats to society’s wellbeing and warnings of God’s displeasure, to nature’s mistakes and quiet heroes of moral authority. The freak appears at one extreme as a symbol of moral or intellectual turpitude, at the other as an emblem of moral or spiritual superiority, seemingly always representative of the societal fringe, the alien, the Other. But what does the concept of “the freak” suggest about society, about those of us who gaze upon or exploit them? How have freaks and the freakish been presented in art and literature?
We will take an interdisciplinary approach to the freakish as expressed in several literary genres and media within the Western tradition. We will focus our investigations through the lenses of myth, psychology, postcolonial theory, and disability studies. The seminar will incorporate readings in fiction, drama, and nonfiction, narrative film and photography, supported by scholarly research. Class work will consist of open discussion, group instruction, exploratory writing, and oral presentations. For final projects, students may choose to pursue research or creative endeavors in any medium.
Topics to be investigated include:
· monstrous birth in Western history;
· the freak as prodigy, human wonder, and natural anomaly;
· the evolution of the rhetoric of monstrosity;
· comparative views of physical versus social “deformity”;
· the politics and psychology of alterity;
· marginal and hybrid bodies mapped by gender, race and class;
· the freak as social construction and as situated in disability culture.
Image courtesy of http://americancivilrightsreview.com/Freak%20Show/freak-page2.html
Last Update: February 10, 2008
