106-088 Body Cultures

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually admission to the Postgraduate Diploma or Fourth Year Honours in English or Cultural Studies, see Honours entry.

Semester

Subject Description

This subject focuses on the ways in which 'the body' is culturally inscribed in a variety of contemporary and historic discourses. Understanding the body as an irreducibly material object, the subject analyses how the body comes to be meaningful within various discourses such as those of colonialism, epidemiology and cyberspace. The native body, the pregnant body, the fat body and the freak body will be considered as case studies. Students should develop a knowledge of the ways the body, both private and public, individualised yet heavily regulated, is a productive focus for thinking about the inscriptions of power in our everyday lives.