What does it mean to be a man or a woman? Or neither? Or both? How are sex and sexuality employed as conceptual tools to construct the ideas of “foreignness” and “monstrosity”? This course explores sexuality, bodies, and gender across medicine, literature, and creative arts. Four topics are introduced: 1) Body, Gender, and Same-Sex Desire in Late Imperial China; 2) Cross-Dressing, Gender Performativity, and Traditional Chinese Familial Values; 3) One Body, One Sex? Nonbinary Bodies and the Monstrous Races; 4) Gender and Virtual Bodies in Creative Imagination. These topics call into question the links between anatomical sex, gender, and cultural forces that sought to regulate sexuality and gender by de-naturalizing the common understanding of sexual binary categories and hetero-normativity as universal across time and space. Questions about non-binary bodies also constitute a racial discourse that emphasizes spatial and bodily boundaries between humanity and monstrosity.
Upon completion of this course, students will
1) Deepen their understanding of the history of the body
2) Enhance critical thinking and analytical skills in discourses on gender and sexuality
3) Demonstrate adequate communication skills in various formal and informal circumstancesWhat does it means to be a man or a woman? Or neither? Or both? How are sex and sexuality employed as conceptual tools to construct the ideas of “foreignness” and “monstrosity”? This course explores sexuality, bodies, and gender across medicine, literature, and creative arts. Four topics are introduced: 1) Body, Gender, and Same-Sex Desire in Late Imperial China; 2) Cross-Dressing, Gender Performativity, and Traditional Chinese Familial Values; 3) One Body, One Sex? Nonbinary Bodies and the Monstrous Races; 4) Gender and Virtual Bodies in Creative Imagination. These topics call into question the links between anatomical sex, gender, and cultural forces that sought to regulate sexuality and gender by de-naturalizing the common understanding of sexual binary categories and hetero-normativity as universal across time and space. Questions about non-binary bodies also constitute a racial discussion that emphasizes spatial and body boundaries between humanity and monstrosity.
Upon completion of this course, students will
1) Deepen their understanding of the history of the body
2) Enhance critical thinking and analytical skills in discussions on gender and sexuality
3) Demonstrate adequate communication skills in various formal and informal circumstances
Li Yu李漁 (1611-80). “A Male Mencius’s Mother Raises Her Son Properly By Moving House Three Times男孟母教合三遷”. In Silent Operas無聲戲. Translated and edited by Patrick Hanan (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990), pp. 99-134. (short story)
Matthew Sommer. “Penetrated Males in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma”. Modern China Vol. 23, No. 2 (1997): 140-180.
Mulan Joins the Army 木蘭從軍 (film, 1939, with English subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B99xRkrwdTs&t=717s
Dino Felluga. “Modules on Butler: On Gender and Sex.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory.
Li Shizhen 李時珍. “Human Anomaly” (人傀), In Ben Cao Gang Mu (本草綱目), Volume IX: Fowls, Domestic & Wild Animals, Human Substances. Translated by Paul Unschuld. University of California Press, 2021, pp. 1050-64.
The Cases of Marie Germain and Marin Marcis: selected passages from The Journal of Montaigne’s Travels in Italy by Ways of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581
Selected imagery of non-binary sexed figures in Hereford Mappa Mundi (a medieval world map), Marvels of the East, and Mandeville’s Travels
Leah DeVun, “Mapping the Borders of Sex”, In Trans Historical: Gender Plurality Before the Modern. Edited by Greta LaFleur, Marsha Raskolinkov, and Anna Klosowska (Cornell University Press, 2021), pp. 27-41.
Lin Pey Chwen 林珮淳, Eve Clone Series (New Media Art)
Lu Yang 陸揚, Uterus Man (New Media Art)
Donna Haraway. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s”. In The Haraway Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 7-46 (especially 7-13).
Kaye Mitchell. “Bodies That Matter: Science Fiction, Technoculture, and the Gendered Body”. Science Fiction Studies Vol. 33 (2006): 109-28.
Li Yu Li Han (1611-80). “A Male Mencius's Mother Raises Her Son Properly By Moving House Three Times”. In Silent Operas Nonsense. Translated and edited by Patrick Hanan (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990), pp. 99-134. (short story)
Matthew Sommer. “Penetrated Males in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma”. Modern China Vol. 23, No. 2 (1997): 140-180.
Mulan Joins the Army (film, 1939, with English subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B99xRkrwdTs&t=717s
Dino Felluga. “Modules on Butler: On Gender and Sex.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory.
Li Shizhen. “Human Anomaly”, In Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume IX: Fowls, Domestic & Wild Animals, Human Substances. Translated by Paul Unschuld. University of California Press, 2021, pp. 1050-64.
The Cases of Marie Germain and Marin Marcis: selected passages from The Journal of Montaigne’s Travels in Italy by Ways of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581
Selected imagery of non-binary sexed figures in Hereford Mappa Mundi (a medieval world map), Marvels of the East, and Mandeville’s Travels
Leah DeVun, “Mapping the Borders of Sex”, In Trans Historical: Gender Plurality Before the Modern. Edited by Greta LaFleur, Marsha Raskolinkov, and Anna Klosowska (Cornell University Press, 2021), pp. 27-41.
Lin Pey Chwen Eve Clone Series (New Media Art)
Lu Yang, Uterus Man (New Media Art)
Donna Haraway. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s”. In The Haraway Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 7-46 (especially 7-13).
Kaye Mitchell. “Bodies That Matter: Science Fiction, Technoculture, and the Gendered Body”. Science Fiction Studies Vol. 33 (2006): 109-28.
| 評分項目 Grading Method | 配分比例 Grading percentage | 說明 Description |
|---|---|---|
| In classIn class in class |
60 | Reading, Discussion, Writing, Attendance and Participation |
| FinalFinal Final |
40 | Creative project |
