This unit will use iLearn for submission of assignments, including reflections.  However, attendance at lectures and tutorials is important as indicated by the participation mark. 

Lectures will be interactive and class discussion in lectures is poorly recorded on iLecture, making face-to-face attendance highly valuable for students.  A roll will be taken in both lectures and tutorials will be recorded.

Those who have compelling reasons for not attending a face-to-face lecture (such as illnes or family responsibilities) should contact the convenor.  Students who cannot attend the lecture but wish to maintain a high participation mark for the unit will be required to five discussion questions relating to the lecture and reading material for that week to a discussion board on iLearn by the Monday following the lecture they have missed.

Equally, reading the set texts for the week is essential for completion of the unit.

The readings for the unit will be available on eReserve. 

What has changed since last year?

The range of theoretical reference points has been broadened in the 2014 iteration of this unit, with new a new lecture on The human biome and the anthropocene as part of a block focussing on intersubjectivity, emotion and space. 

An additional lecture on Biopower has been added in Week Three to enable students without a strong background in cultural studies more resources to help develop more effectively develop their understanding.  The reading list in Block 1 has been divided into essential and extension readings, with some changes to the essential readings, to offer students new to Cultural Studies an accessible entry point to new ideas, while enabling those with a highly developed understanding of Cultural Studies to continue to develop the theoretical sophistication of their arguments.  Tutorials are now 90 minutes in length, giving students sufficient time to think through complex ideas and view relevant video resources in tutorial.

In 2014 attendance at face-to-face lectures will be recorded and students who choose not to attend a face-to-face lecture will be required to submit a list of 5 discussion questions to an online discussion forum on the week after the lecture takes place.  The participation component for the unit has been increased to 20% to reflect this change, while the weighting of the exam has been reduced to 10%.

CUL322 Ab/normal bodies

The readings for each week relate to that week’s lecture.  For students in tutorials on Fridays, the first tute will be in Week 1.  The Tuesday class will start in Week 2, and the readings for that tutorial will be for the previous week lecture (ie we will discuss Week 1’s reading in Week 2, Week 2’s in Week 3 etc.).  There will be no tutorial in Week 12 for the Friday classes, but there will be a tutorial in Week 12 for for the Tuesday class.  This will ensure that everyone has a chance to listen to the lecture before attending their tutorial.

You MUST attempt the essential reading before attending class.  Your preparation for and participation in tutorials will be assessed. You will probably need to read most of these articles twice – the material is challenging!  If you are struggling, make a note of what confuses you and bring it to class for us to discuss. 

Those who are confident with cultural studies arguments or want to aim for very high marks should read the extension reading in addition to the essential reading.  We will often work through passages of the extension reading in detail in class, but it will not be assumed that everyone has read these articles beforehand.

Block 1: Creating “normal”

Week 1 (wk beginning 3 Mar): Introduction to the unit

Essential reading:

·      Budgeon, Shelley (2003) “Identity as an Embodied Event”, Body & Society, 9:1, pp.35-55.

Week 2 (Wk beginning 10 Mar) Biopower and perfect babies

 Essential Readings:

·      Perron, A., Fluet, C.. Holmes, D. (2004) “Agents of care and agents of the state: bio-power and nursing practice” Journal of Advanced Nursing, 50(5), pp.536-44

·      Landsman, Gail (2009) “Chapter Two: Doing everything right: choice, control and mother blame” pp.15-49 from Reconstructing motherhood and disability in the age of “perfect babies”, London, Routledge

Extension reading:

·      Rabinow, P. and Rose, N. (2006) “Biopower now” from Biosocieties 1, 195-217

Week 3 (wk beginning 17 March): ab/normalcy

Essential readings:

·      Davis, Lennard (1995) “Constructing Normalcy”, in Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body, New York: Verso

·      Dreger, A. (1998) “The limits of individuality: ritual and sacrifice in the lives and medical treatment of conjoined twins” Studies in the history and philosophy of biology and biomedical science 29(1) 1-29

Extension reading

·      Sharpe, Andrew (2007) “Structured Like a Monster: Understanding Human Difference Through a Legal Category”, Law and Critique 18:2

Week 4 (wk beginning 24 March): dis/ability

Essential Readings:

·      Goodley, Dan (2011) “Introduction: global disability studies” from Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, Sage, pp.1-21

·      Longmore, Paul. (1997) ‘Conspicuous Contribution and American Cultural Dilemma: Telethon Rituals of Cleansing and Renewal’ The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability (eds) David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder (eds) Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 134-158

Extension reading:

·      Mitchell, David and Snyder, Sharon (2001) “Re-engaging the body: disability studies and the resistance to embodiment” from Public Culture, Vol.13 No.3

Week 5 (wk beginning 31 March): from eugenics to genetics

Essential readings:

·      Snyder, S. L. & D. Mitchell (2002) “Out of the Ashes of Eugenics: Diagnostic Regimes in the United States and the Making of a Disability Minority”, Patterns of Prejudice, 36:1.

·      Novas, Carlos and Rose, N. (2000) “Genetic Risk and the Birth of the Somatic Individual”, Economy and Society, 29:4.

Extension reading:

·      Garland-Thomson, R. (2012) “The Case for Conserving Disability” Bioethical Inquiry (2012) 9:339–355

Week 6 (wk beginning 7 April): Intersex bodies

Wednesday 9 April by 12 midnight, take-home exam due for submission via Turnitin on iLearn.

Reflective summary of reading due by midnight April 10

Essential Readings:

·      Preves, Sharon (2002) “Sexing the Intersexed: An Analysis of Sociocultural Responses to Intersexuality”, Signs, 27:2, pp.523-56.

·      Dreger, Alice Domurat (2000) “Jarring Bodies: thoughts on the Display of Unusual Anatomies”, Perspective in Biology and Medicine, 43:2, pp.161-72.

MID SEMESTER BREAK

Block 2: The experience of embodiment: spaces, emotions and social life

Week 7: (Wk beginning 28 April) The child with intellectual disability and the ‘disabled’ family: stigma, personhood and identity (Guest lecturer: Kathryn Knight)

Reflective summary of reading by midnight May 1

Essential readings:

·      Goffman, E. 1963. Selections from Stigma. In The Disability Studies Reader ed. L.J. Davies. 2006. New York: Routledge.

·      Kittay, E.F. 2009. The personal is philosophical is political: a philosopher and mother of a cognitively disabled person sends notes from the battlefield. Metaphilosophy, vol. 40, nos 3-4, pp 606-26.

Week 8 (Wk beginning 5 May) Bodies in space and time

Reflective summary of reading due by midnight Thurs May 8

Essential readings:

·      Crook, Tim (2008) “Norms, Forms and Beds: Spatializing Sleep in Victorian Britain”, Body & Society, 14:4, pp.15-35.

·      Thompson, E.P. (1967) “Work Discipline and Industrial capitalism”  Past and Present 38 pp.56-97

Week 9 (wk beginning 12 May): Bodies at work

Essay proposal due for submission by midnight Wednesday May 14

Reflective summary of reading due by midnight Thurs May 15

Essential readings:

·      Dyer, S., McDowell, Banitzky, A. (2008) “Emotional labour/body work: the caring labours of migrants in the UK’s National Health Service” from Geoforum 39, 2030-2038

·      Collinson, David and Collinson, Margaret (1997) “’De layering managers’: time-space surveillance and its gendered effects’ Organization August 1997 vol. 4 no. 3 375-407

Week 10: The human biome and the anthropocene (Guest lecturer: Cath Simpson)

Reflective summary of reading due by midnight Thurs May 22

Essential reading

·      No author “The human biome: me, myself, us” from The Economist Aug 18 2012 http://www.economist.com/node/21560523

·      Flannery, Tim "The Superior Civilisation", New York Review of Books, 26 February, 2009, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/feb/26/the-superior-civilization/?pagination=false

·      Roeder, Mark (2013) Unnatural Selection: why the geeks will inherit the earth, Sydney: Harper Collins Australia, 2013, "The Anthropocene" from pp. 15-29.

Week11 (wk beginning 27 May): Ageing bodies, bare lives?

Reflective summary of reading due by midnight Thurs May 29

Essential readings:

·      Crichton, J. (2007) “Living with dementia: curating self identity” Dementia, 2007,  Vol.6(3), pp.365-381

·      Lanoix (2006) “No Room for abuse” Cultural Studies Vol. 19, No. 6 November 2005, pp. 719􏰀/736

Week12 (wk beginning 2 June): Revision and writing week

There will be no lecture or Friday tutorial this week, but Nicole will be available in her office between 10 am and 2 pm for one to one meetings to discuss the essay. The Tuesday class will run as usual to discuss Week 11’s readings.

Final essay due: midnight Tuesday June 10, 2014