Writing the Body in Literature and Culture

Module description

Until recently, the physical body has been a much-neglected subject of contemporary women's writing, whether fictional or autobiographical. Theoretical writings that emerged from contemporary feminist debates in the latter part of the twentieth century tended to privilege more psychoanalytic or abstract considerations of the corporeal. Feminist thought's differentiation of sex and gender, and consequent drive to dissociate biology from determinism and to emphasise the power of the rational female mind may further account for the only recent emergence of the body as a subject worthy of critical and literary analysis. How can language capture the physiological changes and states undergone by the body? Is the 'unspeakable' nature of certain physiological experiences compounded by their unspoken nature, their taboo status? This module seeks to redress that imbalance by focusing more on the materiality of bodies (principally female or non-binary) as they evolve through a series of life events or experiences: abortion; motherhood; transition and ageing. It locates the body in different epochs and national contexts in order to examine the relationship between subjectivity, corporeality and identity more broadly. The content of this module will also be supplemented with audiovisual and filmic representations of the body as part of its secondary corpus. All texts on this module are available in translation. 

Assessment details

one 4000-word essay (100%)

Educational aims & objectives

• To introduce students to the literary, historicaland cultural contexts of twentieth-century and twenty-first century women's writing
• To deepen students' knowledge of different genres dealing withrepresentations of the body: theory, fiction(including the short story), autobiography, and the essay
• To introduce students to (or to consolidate their prior knowledge of) theories of corporeality and the body in relation to women's writing in particular

Learning outcomes

By the end of this module, students will:

• demonstrate sound knowledge of the various contexts of the twentieth- and twenty-first century writing dealing with representations of the body
• be able to analyse a generically diverse selection of texts dealing with corporeality by placing them in their context and by adopting different theoretical approaches
• have developed a series of transferable skills (essay writing, textual analysis, individual or group presentations)
• have gained an insight into the specificities of writing the body from a female and feminist

Teaching pattern

two hour seminar, weekly 

Suggested reading list

• Marie Darrieussecq, Truismes (Paris: POL, 1996)
• Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales, trans. by Linda Coverdale (London: Faber and Faber, 1997)
• Annie Ernaux, Les Armoires Vides (Paris: Gallimard, 1974).
• Annie Ernaux, Cleaned Out, trans. by Carol Sanders (Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1996).
• Annie Ernaux, L'évenement (Paris: Gallimard, 2001) (French original).
• Annie Ernaux, Happening, trans. by Tanya Leslie (New York: Seven Stories, 2019).
• Jenny Erpenbeck, Die Geschichte vom alten Kind (Frankfurt am Main: btb, 2001).
• Jenny Erpenbeck, 'The Old Child', in The Old Child and the Book of Words, trans. by Susan Bernofsky (London: Portobello, 2008).
• Claudia Piñeiro, Elena sabe (Buenos Aires: Alfaguera, 2007).
• Claudia Piñeiro, Elena knows (Edinburgh: Charco Press, 2021).
• Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Ausser sich (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2017).
• Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Beside Myself, trans. by Imogen Taylor (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2019).
• Elisa Victoria, Vozdevieja (Barcelona: Blackie Books, 2018).
• Elisa Victoria, Oldladyvoice (Sheffield: And Other Stories, 2021)
• Ennatu Domingo, Madera de eucalipto quemada: Un relato sobre los orígenes y las identidades (Barcelona: Navona, 2022)
• Burnt Eucalyptus Wood: On Origins, Language and Identity (London: Indigo., 2023)

Module description disclaimer

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Please note that modules with a practical component will be capped due to educational requirements, which may mean that we cannot guarantee a place to all students who elect to study this module.

Please note that the module descriptions above are related to the current academic year and are subject to change.