Euripides' Medea and Morrison's Beloved: Exploring the Cultural Imaginary

Semester and Year	FA 2009
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1330
Section	001
Instructor	E. Frances White, Laura Slatkin
Days	Mon
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level
Foundation Requirement

Description

In this course we will focus intensively on Euripides’ Medea and Toni Morrison’s Beloved , which acknowledges Medea  as an important source. In exploring the cross-cultural and trans-historical enrichings each work may cast on the other, we will address questions of the political economy of the family and of sex, the nature of exile, the politics of the body, and the status of maternity. We will consider how these two distinctive genres—drama and novel—confront issues of agency and decision, and more broadly how literature displays and exposes the tensions and contradictions of the social. Readings will include essays by Gayle Rubin, Hortense Spillers, Nicole Loraux and others.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)