Body Politics

Catalog description

The body plays a central role in today's global challenges, including in the promotion of justice, equality, health, and human rights. But controversies surrounding these aspirations also reveal the existence of divergent - often opposing - definitions of the body. This course asks how current political struggles over issues such as gender identity, racism, and reproductive and human rights involve conflicting understandings of the body. What relationships do these notions establish or depend upon between the body, identity, power, and truth? How do body politics inform debates about the anti-vaccination movement, "political correctness," or body modifications? To denaturalize our ideas about the body, the course combines the exploration of current trends with the examination of views from diverse time periods and cultures. By identifying and analyzing these contrasting assumptions, the course seeks to better understand the challenges we face today, and how to address them. Major topics will include the problem of embodiment and the limits of our bodies; the role the body plays in the definition of racial and gender identities; bodily disciplines; and the human quest for truth.