Monsters, freaks, and perverts – a genealogy of monstrosity 3800-MDD22-S-OG

Cultural history shows that every community produces its "other" in the form of a monster. This image usually causes ambiguous reactions: rejection, contempt and fascination. The monster is a natural and necessary point of reference for any community. This notion, however, has no stable meaning, but rather is constantly inscribed in the context of a general transformation of culture. The main question of the seminar is what form the monster takes today and what it derives from. Provisionally, one can isolate two major areas in which the concept makes its presence felt. The first of them is the area of medico-legal analysis, which avoids the use of this concept, but the notion of deviation remains closely related to the older notions of monster and monstrosity. During the course, we will trace the emergence of two contemporary figures of "monsters": the medical monster - the deviant, and the criminal monster. We will analyze the extent to which today's legal and medical classifications abandon or retain selected elements of the former concept of the monster.
The second area where monstrosities and monsters appear is popular culture. The popular imagination seems to feed on the concept of the monster, and the figures of monstrosity are constantly diversifying. Similarly to the scientific concept of a monster, the figures of monsters appearing in the mass imagination may be treated as diagnostic tools that allow us to describe our culture, its fears, ideals and norms.

Type of course

elective seminars
general courses

Mode

Classroom

Prerequisites (description)

(in Polish) Ukończony kurs historii filozofii.

Learning outcomes

Acquired knowledge
Students have:
- the knowledge of specialist philosophical terminology in Polish
- the knowledge of views of a philosopher or the current state of research in a selected philosophical issue
- the knowledge of the complex nature of language and historical variability of its meanings

Acquired skills
Students have:
- the ability to interpret philosophical texts independently
- the ability to identify argumentative strategies in oral and written statements
- the ability to formulate precisely, orally and in writing, complex philosophical problems, to formulate a thesis and to comment on them critically

Acquired social competences
Students are ready:
- to identify their own knowledge and skills
- to recognize gaps in their knowledge and skills
- to carry out their own research

Assessment criteria

The grade will be based on:
- active participation in the discussions
- presentation/essay

Dopuszczalna liczba nieobecności podlegających usprawiedliwieniu: 2 in a semester

Bibliography

Hans Mayer „Odmieńcy”
Andrzej Perzanowski “Odmieńcy”
Elisabeth Rudinesco “Nasza mroczna strona”
Georges Canguillem „Potworność i to, co potworne”
Anna Wieczorkiewicz „Monstruarium”
Niall Scott’s „Monsters and the Monstrous”
Richard Kearney “Strangers, Gods and Monsters”
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson “Niezwykłe ciała”
Stephen Asma „On Monsters”
Carolin Pickard „Speaking of Monsters”
Waltraud Ernst “Histories of the Normal and The Abnormal”
Filippo Del Lucchiese “Monstroisity and Philosophy”
Fiona Mitchell “Monsters in Greek Literature”
Touba Ghadessi “Portrait of Human Monsters in the Renaissance”
Richard Godden “Monstrosity, Disability, and the Posthuman in the Medieval and Early Modern World”
Nadja Durbach “Spectacle od Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture”
Asa Simon Mittman “Monsters and the Monstrous”
Alison Miller “Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body”
Andrew Hock-soon Ng “Dimensions of Monstrosity”
Anna Katharina Schaffner “Modernism and Perversion”
Alexa Writh „Monstrosity: The Human Monster in Visual Culture”
Anna Kerchy “Exploring the Cultural History of Continental European Freak Shows”
Gary Cross “Freak Shows Legacies”

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 3800-MDD22-S-OG in USOSweb