Reading the Body

Course Description

Summary

Should boys be robust and ruddy? Should girls be wan, lithe and prone to vapors? Unlike the Western scientific, biomedical constructions of the body, a cultural constructionist approach accepts the body, the self, and the person as culturally shaped, constrained, and invented. In this course, we will explore how social values and hierarchies are written in, on, and through the body, the relationship between body and (gender) identity; and the experiences and images of the body cross culturally. Our bodies and our perception of them constitute an important part of our sociocultural heritage, and throughout life we undergo a process of collectively sanctioned bodily modification that serves as an important instrument for our socialization. Alternating between discussion and experiential classes, students will read and discuss texts that address the social construction of the body, and examine the basis for movement, our anatomical structure, and how this is socially modified.