Borders and Bodies

This course is a cross-cultural exploration of the construction of gender through significant landmarks in contemporary literature, from feminist and queer theory perspectives. The course will focus on a range of novels, short stories, essays and poetry written in the twentieth- and the twenty-first century from or about the United States, Europe and the MENA region. Through an examination of these works, alongside seminal works of feminist and queer theory (Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, bell hooks, etc.) we will ask: is it possible to write about a similar issue as represented across texts from different geographical and cultural zones, and how do you do so ethically without either erasing difference or exaggerating it? How do these texts (critical and creative) dismantle the ways we have been taught to evaluate canonical, male-dominated literary histories? Authors will include Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Hanan al-Shaykh, Nawal El Saadawi and Abdellah Taïa.