COML 1127

FWS: Cannibal Cultures

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

The cannibal is always the other. Eating human flesh as a practice or a ritual always happens in the remote past or in far-away places. And yet, the cannibal lives among us. In spite of real cases of cannibalism, most of these cannibals inhabit our reality only in books, films, songs, or artworks. Nevertheless, they form an important part of our cultural imaginary. This course investigates figures of the cannibal in contemporary aesthetic texts (and some of their influential predecessors) with a focus on different cultural contexts. Issues that will be at the center of our attention are cannibalism's deployment to mark cultural differences, as well as for political and ideological purposes, its relation to sensationalism and (spectatorial) pleasure, and its varying configurations in different cultural contexts and media. As we engage with a wide range of texts, from novels to television series, from films to video clips, from art to philosophical reflections, we will use them as models and inspirations for different writing exercises.          This course deals with cannibalism—explicitly violent content will be part of the class.

When Offered Fall, Spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

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