Special Studies in Modernism: Cyborgs, Monsters, and Other Shells

Modernism comes with a host of monsters and ghosts. This course traces the teleology of "walking shells" in literary and visual culture and explores the crisis of: 1) parenthood in an age of synthetic reproduction; 2) racial and gendered logic in the sub-/semi-/non-human. We explore similarities and differences among these categories of the less-than-human. We want to rethink oppositional relationships, including between humans and things, bodies and objects, essence and prosthetics, art and technology.