ENG497A.002 SENIOR SEMINAR
Bodies-Becoming & Identity Machines: Post/human Literatures
Prof. Eileen Joy

Fall 2008

Wednesdays 6:00 - 8:50 p.m. (Peck Hall 0408)

Figure 1. Francis Bacon, Man with Dog (1953)

". . . contrary to a deeply rooted belief, the book is not an image of the world. It forms a rhizome with the world, there is an aparallel evolution of the book and the world; the book assures the deterritorialization of the world, but the world effects a reterritorialization of the book, which in turn deterritorializes itself in the world (if it's capable, if it can). Mimicry is a very bad concept, since it relies on binary logic to describe phenomena of an entirely different nature. The crocodile does not reproduce a tree trunk, any more than the chameleon reproduces the colors of its surroundings. The Pink Panther imitates nothing, it reproduces nothing, it paints the world its color, pink on pink; this is its becoming-world, carried out in such a way that it becomes imperceptible itself, asignifying, makes its rupture, its own line of flight, follows its 'aparallel evolution' through to the end. The wisdom of the plants: even with something else -- with the wind, an animal, human beings (and there is also an aspect under which animals themselves form rhizomes, as do people, etc.). 'Drunkenness as a triumphant irruption of the plant in us.' Always follow the rhizome by rupture; lengthen, prolong, and relay the line of flight; make it vary, until you have produced the most abstract and tortuous of lines of N dimensions and broken directions. Conjugate deterritorialized flows. Follow the plants: you start by delimiting a first line consisting of circles of convergence around successive singularities; then you see whether inside that line new circles of convergence establish themselves, with new points located outside the limits and in other directions. Write, form a rhizome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency." (Gilles Deleuze and Feliz Guattari, from A Thousand Plateaus: Schizophrenia and Capitalism)

". . . I would suggest that we, as we reflect on the European tradition of metamorphosis, are like Ovid's . . . Narcissus. For even if we gaze at our own reflection when we bow low over the pool of our literary past, that gazing is a mark of who we are, and who we are is, in part, what we have been. . . . [Stories] are a significant component of what we think with. Hence our self-reflexivity, our tendency to study ourselves, is a mark of the self we carry with us as we bend over the pool. Our concern with how we can change yet be the same thing -- our fascination with the question of identity in all its varieties -- is inherited from our traditions. The identity we carry with us questions -- and by questioning confirms -- itself. In this sense, we are all Narcissus, as we are also the werewolf, a constantly new thing that is nonetheless the same." (Caroline Walker Bynum, from Metamorphosis and Identity)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

In this course, we are going to explore how, following the thinking of Donna Haraway, the body does not end at the limits of the skin, but is dispersed across a world of affects, intensities, and objects. We will be especially interested in exploring hybridities and transformations of different "selves" that cross unexpected borders, from plant to insect to wolf to human to machine and beyond. Our scope will be broad, extending from stories of metamorphoses in the classical and medieval periods through the fairy tales of the so-called Enlightenment to the cyberpunk and cognitive fictions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In addition, we will be reading some theoretical texts culled from a wide variety of academic fields. Our ultimate aim will be to have [hopefully] lively conversations about the nature of what it means to be "human" while also being "post/human," and also about the role of literature in human and other transformations of "self" and "world."

As this is a seminar-style course, preparing for and participating in class are vitally important to your ultimate success, and therefore, your contribution to in-class discussions as well as your attendance record will be factored into your final grade. Although I will provide much guidance and commentary, this is a discussion-, not a lecture-centered, course, and therefore students must come to class prepared with critical questions and comments related to the readings and films under discussion. As this is also a reading-intensive course, not keeping up with the reading could be extremely detrimental to your progress and final evaluation. One final (but important) word: coming to class without the text under discussion will be automatic grounds for dismissal from that particular class period (and will count as an absence).

REQUIRED PURCHASE TEXTS (available at University Bookstore in Morris University Center)

Neil Badmington, ed. Posthumanism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Signet Classics, 2000.

Philip K. Dick. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Vintage Books, 1991.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003.

Jeanette Winterson. The Stone Gods. Harcourt, 2008.

*SOME of the readings for the course are literary texts and articles that will be distributed as handouts and/or be available through Lovejoy Library's Electronic Course Reserves.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1 CRITICAL PAPER, 10-12 pages (50%)

A two-part project: an annotated bibliography [due by mid-November] and a critical research paper. You are expected to develop your own topic and approaches; introduction of secondary texts, critics, media, and ideas is encouraged. This critical essay should deliver an original critical perspective and argument that takes up the theme of metamorphosis and/or post/humanism in relation to one or more of the primary literary texts we will have read this semester and at least one visual text that we have either viewed in class or that you have chosen on your own (this can include films, painting, multimedia artworks, online art installations & experimental websites, television series, etc.). Ideally, this paper should draw inspiration from the well of intellectual ideas encountered in course readings and class discussion, supplemented by additional secondary research. To help you get started, go here for a working bibliography of sources relevant to the subjects under discussion in this course [and also check out here my short bibliography for primers on critical theory]. For some help with MLA-style research documentation and citation, go here and here.

SHORT READING RESPONSES (30%)

To facilitate class discussion, you will write short responses (roughly in the neighborhood of 2 typed pages) to weekly readings. It is up to you to decide which reading (or readings) to respond to, and in what manner. These short reading responses (five total) don't begin until after we've acclimated ourselves (typically in the third or fourth week of the course--see Schedule of Events below), and they are not due in the last seven weeks of the course, in order to give you more time for your paper research and writing. For more detailed guidelines on these short papers, go here.

CLASS PRESENTATION (10%)

Each student is responsible for making one fifteen-minute presentation to the class based on either: 1) one of the chapters in our volume of essays edited by Neil Badmington, Posthumanism, or 2) one of the readings on our Working Bibliography (see above) that are available as Electronic Course Reserves. This will mainly be a summary presentation in which you provide to your fellow students a summary of the reading, to include what you think are its most important and/or intriguing points, as well as questions that you think are raised in the reading that are worth debating further.

CLASS PARTICIPATION (10%)

See above, second paragraph under COURSE DESCRIPTION.

LATE ASSIGNMENT POLICY

I do not accept late assignments. Period. If there is an extraordinarily good reason for needing an extension on a due date, let me know in advance, and we will work it out.

ATTENDANCE POLICY

Attendance, promptness, and participation are essential to success in college courses. Faculty members recognize that unexpected occasions may arise when a student must be absent from class, but my general attendance policy is that if you are absent more than the number of required class sessions per week (in this case, that would be more than 1 session), I have the option of lowering your final course grade by one letter grade for each additional session missed. Furthermore, if absences become excessive (more than two weeks' worth of sessions), the SIUE Registrar, at my request, reserves the right to withdraw you administratively. For more information on this, please consult the following: SIUE Class Attendance Policy. Failure to attend class in a responsible and committed manner may thus be grounds for failure in or administrative withdrawal from the course.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

Any student found engaging in an act of academic dishonesty will be promptly dismissed from the course with a grade of "F." By "academic dishonesty," I mean PLAGIARISM (the act of representing the work of another as one's own), which the University considers a grave breach of intellectual integrity. All definitions, terminology, concepts, and patterns of organization taken from an outside source must be identified and given credit in any essay or exam you write--whether it be for the English department or any other department. For more detailed information on this, please consult the following: SIUE Plagiarism Policy.

Figure 2. Kismet robot, M.I.T.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (subject to revision as semester progresses)

ECR=Electronic Course Reserves

Figure 3. Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (second version, c. 1944)