Temas Subtemas
The course tackles the relations between literature and society, placing special emphasis on the political and socio-historical contexts. Likewise, the more relevant ideological and inter-textual
relations—and also the main aesthetic aspects—will be considered when analysing and/or discussing literary (con)texts of the English-speaking world.
1. Introduction: “Narratives of the Body” • Chuck Palahniuk: “Guts”
• Coco Fusco: Only Skin Deep. Changing Visions of the American Self
• Sean Baker: Tangerine
• Chuck Palahniuk: Invisible Monsters (Ch. 1-3)
2. “Narratives of Space” • Junot Díaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Episode One, in Part I: “Ghetto Nerd at the End of the World”).
• Fredric Jameson: The Cultures of Globalization (3-21: “Beyond Eurocentrism”).
• Jessica Abel: La Perdida (3-61).
• Ryan Murphy: Pose (Episode 1).
3. “Discourses of Abjection” • Kathy Acker: Great Expectations (5-36)
• Julia Kristeva: Powers of Horror (1-31)
• David Benioff: Game of Thrones (episode TBA)
• Judith Butler: Bodies that Matter (“Critically Queer” and/or “Gender is Burning”)
4. “Discourses of Violence” • Donna Haraway: A Cyborg Manifesto
• Bruce Miller: The Handmaid's Tale (episode TBA)
• Hannah Arendt: On Violence (selection)
• Guillermo Gómez-Peña: Dangerous Border-Crossers (22-47)
5. “Pre-Trauma Dystopias” • Paul Auster: Travels in the Scriptorium 1-51
• Andrei Tarkovsky: Stalker and/or Jonathan Nolan: Westworld
• Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulation (selection)
• Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake (Chapters 1 & 2)
6. “Heterotopic Discourses and the ‘Non City’” • Charles Bukowski: Tales of Ordinary Madness (selection)
• Mike Davis: City of Quartz (19-62)
• David Lynch: Lost Highway
• David Harvey: Rebel Cities (3-25)
7. “Immersion Narratives and the Terrain Vague” • Ken Levine. Bioshock Trilogy
• Bruce Straley. The Last of Us
• Raoul Barbet. Life Is Strange
• Patrice Désilets. Assassin’s Creed
• Mark J. P. Wolf. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (selection)