reading the body class, columbia university. professor laura ciolkowski, zine librarian jenna...
DESCRIPTION
The body has always been a key site for interpretation. How do we interpret bodies in their myriad roles as targets (and agents) of disciplinary power, as the embodiment of Nature and the expression of modern cultural logics of gender, race, sexuality, and nation? How do bodies work and how they “mean”? A heavily interdisciplinary exploration of the body, this course ranges from the reading of bodies in scientific, sociological, literary, and historical texts to the interrogation of representations of the body in anthropological, philosophical, and cinematic sources. Topics will include: Discipline and the modern body; cosmetic surgery and other forms of body modification or “somatechnics”; sexual violence and narratives of trauma; commodity culture and media constructions of the body; eating disorders and cultural constructions of gender; diseased bodies, hysteria and psychoanalysis; transnational bodies and the politics of labor; technology and embodiment in a digital age. Some of the key questions that will structure our work include: What does it mean to explore the body as a socially meaningful, historical object of analysis rather than as a purely “biological entity”? How do we define “deviant” bodies and which bodies get to count as “normal”? How does our understanding of Nature and Culture, authenticity and artifice structure our beliefs about the body and gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race? What does it mean to be “embodied” and how does embodiment complicate some of the ways we think about identity and difference?TRANSCRIPT
Reading the BodyProfessor Laura Ciolkowski
Librarian Jenna FreedmanJune 27, 2013
the body in zines
Choose a zine, report back on one or more of these questions:
● Why did the artist/writer choose this medium? How does its communication style differ from online media?
● What does the zine reveal about the body—the author's relationship with theirs, how their body is viewed or treated, how they regard others' bodies?
● How do the visual elements or style support or contradict the text?
introduction to zines
● Definition● History ● Types
the people's medium
● Who makes zines?● Why do they do it?
library stuff
● Zines website● Using CLIO to find zines● Be our friend on
Facebook, Flickr, LiveJournal, or MySpace. Follow the library on Twitter.
● Contact Jenna Freedman [email protected], 212.854.4615, IM: BarnardLibJenna