American Studies 215 - The Embodied Self

Spring
2017
02
4.00
Wendy Bergoffen
MWF 11:00AM-11:50AM
Amherst College
AMST-215-02-1617S
CHAP 203
wbergoffen@amherst.edu
AMST-215-02

"The Embodied Self" in American Culture and Society is an interdisciplinary, historically organized study of American perceptions of and attitudes towards the human body in a variety of media, ranging from medical and legal documents to poetry and novels, the visual arts , film, and dance. Among the topics to be discussed are the physical performance of gender; the social construction of the ideal male and female body; health reform movements; athletic achievement as an instrumentalization of the body; commercialization of physical beauty in the fitness and fashion industries; eating disorders as cultural phenomena; the interminable abortion controversy; the equally interminable conflict over pornography and the limits of free speech; and adaptations to the possibility of serious illness and to the certainty of death.


Limited to 25 students. Spring semester.  Professors Couvares, K. Sanchez-Eppler and Lecturer Bergoffen. 

Permission is required for interchange registration during all registration periods.