AMST0263A-S14
American Psycho
Please register via ENAM 0263A
American Psycho: Disease, Doctors, and Discontents (II) (AL) *
What constitutes a pathological response to the pressures of modernity? How do pathological protagonists drive readers toward the precariousness of their own physical and mental health? The readings for this class center on the provisional nature of sanity and the challenges to bodily health in a world of modern commerce, media, and medical diagnoses. We will begin with 19th century texts and their engagement with seemingly "diseased" responses to urbanization, new forms of work, and new structures of the family and end with contemporary fictional psychopaths engaged in attacks on the world of images we inhabit in the present. Nineteenth century texts will likely include stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Later 20th-century works will likely include Ken Kesey, /One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest/, Thomas Harris, /The Silence of the Lambs/, Susanna Kaysen, /Girl, Interrupted/, and Bret Easton Ellis, /American Psycho/.
What constitutes a pathological response to the pressures of modernity? How do pathological protagonists drive readers toward the precariousness of their own physical and mental health? The readings for this class center on the provisional nature of sanity and the challenges to bodily health in a world of modern commerce, media, and medical diagnoses. We will begin with 19th century texts and their engagement with seemingly "diseased" responses to urbanization, new forms of work, and new structures of the family and end with contemporary fictional psychopaths engaged in attacks on the world of images we inhabit in the present. Nineteenth century texts will likely include stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Later 20th-century works will likely include Ken Kesey, /One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest/, Thomas Harris, /The Silence of the Lambs/, Susanna Kaysen, /Girl, Interrupted/, and Bret Easton Ellis, /American Psycho/.
- Term:
- Spring 2014
- Location:
- Munroe Hall 405(MNR 405)
- Schedule:
- 9:30am-10:45am on Tuesday, Thursday (Feb 10, 2014 to May 12, 2014)
- Type:
- Lecture
- Instructors:
- Michael Newbury
- Subject:
- American Studies
- Department:
- Program in American Studies
- Division:
- Interdisciplinary
- Requirements Fulfilled:
- LIT NOR
- Levels:
- Undergraduate
- Cross-Listed As:
- ENAM0263A-S14 *
- Availability:
- View availability, prerequisites, and other requirements.
- Course Reference Number (CRN):
- 22303
- Subject Code:
- AMST
- Course Number:
- 0263
- Section Identifier:
- A