AJ24070 The Meaning of Monsters

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2002
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 4 credit(s). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: k (colloquium), z (credit).
Teacher(s)
James Soderholm, Ph.D. (lecturer), Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. Michaela Hrazdílková
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 15 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/15, only registered: 0/15, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/15
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The dragon tipped up his great tusked head, stretched his neck, sighed fire. "Ah Grendel!" he said. He seemed that instant almost to rise to pity. "You improve them, my boy! Can't you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme. You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they are. You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from--the blunt facts of their mortality, their abandonment--that's what you make them recognize, embrace! You are mankind, or man's condition: inseparable as the mountain-climber and the mountain. If you withdraw, you'll instantly be replaced. Brute existents, you know, are a dime a dozen."
---John Gardner, Grendel
What distinguishes the normal from the monstrous? To monsters, is "normality" monstrous? Why does Mary Shelley produce a "hideous progeny" (the novel itself) that presents a monster who is more human(e) than his creator? Why do people almost always call the monster "Frankenstein" when this is Victor's surname? These confusions are productive and evolve a schizoid temperament that will also give us respectable Dr. Jekyll and horrible Mr. Hyde, as well as the polite, brainy Dr. Lecter and that gourmet consumer of brains, Hannibal, whose acts of cannibalism both echo and parody Grendel's talent for devouring men of the mead hall. What is the 'nature' of zoophagy ('life-eating') and what is so monstrous about it? And in what sense is psychiatry--and all detective work, including literary investigation--a kind of ritual dissection? The word "lecteur", after all, means "reader."
Shelley's famous monster portends the dangers of mad scientists and run-away technology; her story about the presumption of playing god is never more relevant in a time of genetic engineering, eugenic fantasies, and cloning. Is creating a headless body for its spare parts a boon to humanity or a monstrous pursuit? Is Dolly (the cloned sheep) a freak of nature or a freak of culture, a woolly monster or the means for inexpensive lamb chops and nice sweaters? And how do we, or must we, respond to the idea that human beings should not 'play god' by creating new life forms? The robot, the android, the replicant, the cloned human-- these would seem to be our future. Is it a monstrous future or the triumph of technology over mortality?
In this course we shall learn how to "read" monsters, both literally and symbolically. And we shall want to discover how monsters read us and how they serve as omens, warnings, and cautionary figures. This is a course of and about monstrous intimacy, the meaning of monsters as exiles, outsiders, and scapegoats, the transmogrification of normality into monstrosity, the calculus of vampirism (can one always tell host from parasite?), and the dialectic of Creator and Creature.
Our readings will include The Odyssey, Book 9 (Cyclops), Beowulf, Grendel, The Golem, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, The Silence of the Lambs, Alien, and Bladerunner.
Language of instruction
English
Further Comments
The course is taught only once.
The course is taught: every week.
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