Course info

In this course we will examine the figure of the monster, a wildly popular creature in human life, from ancient sagas and ballads to modern film, literature and media. In this course we’ll ask the question: What does it actually mean to be labeled as a monster? How do different monsters (and the different cultural constructions of monstrosity they suggest) help people to create specific ideas of what is “normal,” and where do these ideas in turn find their origins? While stories and tales of monsters date back to the virtual beginnings of human history, this course will focus on the critical intersection of Enlightenment, technology, and body aesthetics as seen through the rise of Modernity. To that end, we will keep our focus throughout this course on the idea of Enlightenment that was articulated first in the 18^th Century by the philosophers Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant, and later engaged again by 20^th Century philosophers critical theorists.