Class Syllabus

 

III
Domination

 

(1.24) (1.31) (2.21) (2.28) (3.7) (3.14) (4.18)

Introduction

    Sex and Aggression -- the Biological Background
    (1.24)

Quotes
Maccoby & Jacklin
Drew Barrymore
Camille Paglia
John P.Scott
Norbert Elias
Dennis Miller

A. Biology

Readings
V, ch. 9, 'The biology of violence.'

Viewings
• * 2001: Monolith Murder
• * Lawnmower Man
Hollow Man
• * The Birds: Jungle Gym Scene
[See Also Wolf, Wolfen, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde]

 

B. Sex Differences

Readings

Eleanor Maccoby & Carol Jacklin - 'Summary and conclusions' from The Psychology

of Sex Differences (Stanford, 1974), 349-355.

Erving Goffman -' Genderisms,' Psychology Today, Aug. 1977, 19-23.
Simone de Beauvoir - `Introduction' from The Second Sex (Vintage,1974), xv-xxiv.

• (optional) Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice (Portia's courtroom scene).

Viewing
• Victor/Victoria

*Tootsie.

 

I. GENDER


Quotes
L. Tiefer
Norman Elias
Chrissie Hynde

 

2. Psychological Theories: Learning and Development
(1.31)

A. Roles
Readings
• Carol Gilligan - 'Woman's place in man's life cycle,' Harvard Educational Review, 1979.
• Erving Goffman - `Genderisms,' Psychology Today, Aug. 1977, 19-23.

 

• William Pollack - `Inside the world of boys: Behind the mask of masculinity'

from Lost Boys: Rescuing our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood (Holt 1998), 3-19.

Viewings
* Something Wild
*Tootsie 
* Forces of Nature
• *Rebecca (no video)
• We Remember Marilyn
[See also Forces of Nature]

Quotes
L. Tiefer
Chrissie Hynde
Milan Fernandez does Artaud

B. Learning

Readings
Janet Sayers -`Social learning,' from Sexual Contradictions (Routledge 1992)

Viewings
River Runs Through It [Plot Summary]
Shine [Plot Summary]
* Boys Don't Cry [Fight in bar] 
* Boyz 'n the Hood

C. Development

Reading:

Janet Sayers - `Cognitive theories' from Sexual Contradictions.

Lawrence Kohlberg & Dora Ullian - `Stages in psychosexual roles.'

Optional: John Broughton - `Women's rationality and men's virtues,' Social Research, 1983, 597-624.

Video:

Alice in Wonderland

Tumbleweeds

*Welcome to the DollhouseRape Threat, Rape Threat Part 2]

 

3. Psychoanalytic Theories: Freud and Lacan
(Wed, 5.30)

 

A. Freud

Readings
Sigmund Freud - `On the consequences of some anatomical differences

between the sexes,' S.E.

Karen Horney - 'The flight from womanhood: the masculinity-

complex in women as viewed by men and women' from Feminine Psychology (Norton 1967), 54-70.

• (optional) Janet Sayers - `Freudian theory,' from Sexual Contradictions.
• (optional) John Hesley & Jan Hesley - `What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' from
Rent Two Films and Call Me in the Morning (Wiley 1998), 157-160.

Viewings
*What's Eating Gilbert Grape [Gilbert's Family , Store in Trouble , Cheating Heart ]
Bagdad Cafe [Whoring daughter]
*Boogie Nights (no audio) [Dirk's Bedroom]
*Welcome to the Dollhouse [Grade Grubbing]
*Little Odessa 
*Affliction
*The Grifters 
* The Birds [ Mother's Approval]
"Sopranos" III-10

Quote
Karen Horney

B. Lacan
Readings
Jacques Lacan - `The meaning of the phallus,' from Juliet Mitchell & Jacqueline

Rose (eds.), Feminine Sexuality (Norton 1983).

Janet Sayers - `Lacanian perspectives' from Sexual Contradictions

(Tavistock, 1986), 79-96.

(optional) William J.Richardson's paraphrase of the Lacan article
(optional) SM: `Asserting phallic mastery,' and `The limits of Lacan,'

SM, 83-103 & 89-94.

Viewing
* Parenthood
• * Mulan
* Robocop
Lawn Dogs
* High Art [Change of Plans , Lucy's Apartment]
sex, lies and videotape [Conversation in bar]
Capadonna MTV Video

Quote
Client in psychoanalytic therapy

C,
 

II. VIOLENCE


Quotes
Rawley Silver
John Dollard
Donald Winnicott
Carl Jung
Karen Horney
Melanie Klein
Selma Fraiberg
Langston Huges
Christopher Huvos
Michel Serres
Robin Morgan
Stephen King

5. AGGRESSION and GENDER (2.21)

Readings

William Shakespeare - Othello, Act , Scene 2.


Timothy Beneke - `Rapist: Chuck' from
Men on Rape (St Martins, 1982), 71-81.

Dana Crowley Jack - `The puzzle of aggression' from Behind the Mask: Destruction and
Creativity in Women's Aggression (Harvard 1999), 11-51.

Jean Baker Miller & Janet Surrey - `Rethinking women's anger' in Judith Jordan (ed.), Women's Growth in Diversity (Guilford 1997), 199-216.

Ginger Goldner, Peggy Penn, Marcia Sheinberg & Gillian Walker - "A feminist relational view of battering" (from `Love and violence: gender paradoxes in volatile attachments' in Mary Gergen & Sara

Davis (eds.), Toward a New Psychology of Gender, pp.575-601 (Routledge, 1996), pp.575-579 optional.

Review "JFa" material

Optional:

Royster murder reports, New York Times

John Broughton - Interview re `Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' 12/98. Albert Bandura & Gerald Walters - from Social Learning and Development

Viewing


RAPE -
The Accused,
Welcome to the Dollhouse scene one

Welcome to the Dollhouse scene two,
Basic Instinct

ABUSE -
What's Love Got To Do With It

VIOLENCE -
*Raging Bull

AGGRESSION -
Girl Interrupted; Something Wild (Demme)
Spellbound(Hitchcock)
Thelma and Louise (Scott)
What Planet Are You From? (Mike Nichols 2000).

LEARNING:
Hope and Glory*.

6.SEXISM, HETEROSEXISM and HOMOPHOBIA (2.28)
Readings

`Homophobia and the fear of unmanliness,' SM, 16-22.

Abelard - `Historia calamitatum' from The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Penguin 1974) 65-68.

Laurie Mandel & Charol Makeshift - `Heterosexism in middle schools,' in
Nancy Lesko (ed.), Masculinities at School (Sage 2000), 75-103.

Wilhelm Reich - `The institution of compulsory marriage as the basis of contradictions in sexual life,' from Sex-Pol (1936), 34-39.

Adrienne Rich - `Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence' Signs, 1980, 5, 631-660, reprinted in Ann Snitow (ed.), Powers of Desire (Monthly Review Press, 1983), 177-205..

Viewing

SEXISM:
La Strada (Fellini)
Lulu (Depardieu)
*Reservoir Dogs
(Tarantino)
Celebration
*The Sweet Life (Leigh)
*Journey to the Center of the Earth
*Thelma & Louise; *What Planet Are You From?
Wayne's World
*Nurse Betty
Beyond the Clouds

CODEPENDENCY:
All in the Family
Keeping the Faith
Nurse Betty

REVERSE SEXISM: Great Expectations.

HOMOPHOBIA - American Beauty; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert;*Boys Don't Cry; Before Night Falls.

REICH: Visit to Organon.

Quotes
Tina Turner
NWA
Adam Jukes
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo & Michael Messner
Pierre Bourdieu
Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer
Jean Baudrillard
Othello
James Gilligan
P.J. Harvey

IV. SEXUALITY

 

Quotes
John Ashbery
Joan Riviere
Kenneth Burke
Jack Nicholson
New York Times
Kaia Wilson

7. MASCULINITY (3.7)

Readings

Michael Kimmel - `Masculinity as homophobia,' in Mary Gergen & Sara
Davis (eds.)
Toward a New Psychology of Gender (Routledge,1997), 223-242.

Khaula Murtadha-Watts - `Theorizing urban black masculinity construction
in an African-centered school,' in Nancy Lesko (ed.), Masculinities at School (Sage 2000), 49-71.

Steve Neale - `Masculinity as spectacle,' Screen, 1983, 24(6), 2-16.

**Klaus Thewelweit - `Foreword' (Barbara Ehrenreich) from Male
Fantasies, Vol.1 (Minnesota 1987), xvii-xxii, and `Battle and the
body' from Male Fantasies, Vol.2 (Minnesota 1989), 176-223.

Constance Penley - `The cabinet of Dr.Pee-Wee: Consumerism and sexual
terror,' camera obscura, 1988, 17, 133-154.

Optional:

John Broughton - `Anality and gender in the Gulf War' (unpubd.)

John Broughton - excerpt from `Dialog of imaginary and symbolic aggression in the father-son relationship' to appear in C.E.Robins & Maria Taruzzi-Goldman (eds.), Lacan and War (Nomos).

Viewings

Spartacus

Gladiator*

Pee-Wee's Playhouse

Ice T - MTV biography

*Affliction

*Star Wars

*The Quick and the Dead

*Robocop

*Three Kings

*The Cell

*Everything You Ever Wanted
to Know About Sex.

(Sexism)
La Strada
Lulu
•*
Reservoir Dogs
Celebration
* The Sweet Life
*
Journey to the Center of the Earth
* Thelma and Louise [Explosion]
* What Planet Are You From? (not available)
Wayne's Word
* Nurse Betty
Beyond the Clouds
Bridget Jones' Diary
G.I. Jane
Who's Talking Now?
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex

 

 

V. ALTERNATIVES, REVERSALS, PARADOXES

 



8.HOMOSEXUALITY and QUEER THEORY (3.14)

 

Readings

Kaja Silverman - `A woman's soul in a man's body: femininity in male homosexuality' from Male Subjectivity at the Margins (Routledge, 1993), 339-347.

Judith Halberstam - `Transgender butch,' from Female Masculinity (Duke 1998), 141-173. (maybe also: `Looking butch: a rough guide to butches on film,' 175-230.

Judith Butler - `Imitation and gender insubordination', from Diana
Fuss (ed.), Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories/Gay Theories (Routledge, 1991), 637-648.

William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice.


Viewings


(Homoerotic): Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Steel Magnolias; Thelma & Louise*.

(Gay) - Rock Hudson's Home Movies; Querelle;Menage.

(Lesbian):*Heavenly Creatures; Relax, It's Only Sex (P.J.Castellaneta, 1999);*Chasing Amy;*High Art; Mercy.

(Homophobia): Looking for Mr Goodbar; Public TV program on Homophobia.

(Homosexuality and death): Rope; High Art; Bound.

(Homoeroticism and suicide): Thelma and Louise*;

(Butch): Aliens; The Killing of Sister George; Touch of Evil; Caged Heat.

Quotes
Disneyana
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
E. Bene
Ellen Degeneres

 

Quotes
Lennon/McCartney
Kenneth Burke
Marianna LaFrance
Wallace Stevens
Judith Butler

9. HETEROSEXUALITY and its FAILURES (3.28)

Readings

Harold Pinter - The Comfort of Strangers (from novel of same name by Ian
McEwan) [Faber & Faber, 1990], 3-12, 19-24, 31-36,39-40.

Ian McEwan - Enduring Love (Vintage 1998), 1-16, 216-219.

Sigmund Freud - `The psychology of love,' S.E.

Jacques Lacan - `The meaning of the phallus,' in Juliet Mitchell &

Jacqueline Rose (eds.), Feminine Sexuality (Norton 1983).

Slavoj Zizek - `Why does the phallus appear?' from Enjoy Your Symptom (Routledge, 1992), 113-146.

 

Optional:

Diane Diasse - Hothead Paisan; SM, 134-167.

Daniel Clowes - Ghost World (comic book).• Amina Mama - 'Psychodynamics' in adult subjectivity' and 'Black femininity' from

Viewings

(Courtship) - The Birds; Notorious; Out of Sight; Happiness.


(Fantasy)- Moulin Rouge; If; Billy Liar; Brazil*; Ghost World.

(Love) - Elvira Madigan; Betty Blue; Moulin Rouge; Enfants du Paradis.

(Sex) - Reservoir Dogs*?

(Violent masculinity) - Basic Instinct*; The Man Who Cried; Marnie*; The Man Who Knew Too Much 2.

(Domestic femininity) - Happiness.

(Infidelity) - An Unmarried Woman.

(Betrayal) - North by Northwest.

(Impotence) - Bonnie and Clyde; Schizopolis; sex, lies and videotape*.

(Castration): Blood of the Poet*.

(Frigidity) - Marnie*.

(Failure): Eye of the Beholder; North by Northwest; Pearl Harbor; Scenes from a Marriage; Wild Strawberries;

(Death): Name of Female Tightrope Walker beginning with E; Bonnie
and Clyde.

 
10. TRANSGENDER and TRANSSEXUAL (with Robert Heihn) (4.4)

Quotes

Michael Hoffman
Marcuse
Robert Paul Wolff
Philip Abrams
C. Wright Mills
Hannah Arendt
R. Slotkin
Abdul Jabbar Muhsin
Ella Sharpe
David Caroll
Celeste Olalquiaga
Blanchot
J.W. Fulbright
V. Propp

 
Readings

Lynne Segal - `Queer theory and gender sabotage,' in Kathryn Woodward (ed.), Identity and Difference (Sage/Open University 1997), 214-224.

Karen Horney - `The flight from womanhood: the masculinity-complex in
women as viewed by men and women' from Feminine Psychology
(Norton 1967), 54-70.

Judith Halberstam - `Looking butch: a rough guide to butches on film,' from Female Masculinity (Duke 1998), 175-230.

Judy Butler - `Gender is burning,' from Bodies that Matter (Routledge,
1993), 121-140.

Constance Penley - `The cabinet of Dr.Pee-Wee: Consumerism and sexual
terror,' camera obscura,

William Shakespeare -The Merchant of Venice.

 

Optional

John Broughton - Review of `In a Year of 13 Moons,' Psych Critique Newsletter, 1982, 2, and Review of `Ma Vie en Rose,' Bank Street College of Education Occasional Papers, 2002


Viewing

(Cross dressing): Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex;
Tootsie*; Pee Wee's Great Adventure (Tim Burton); Some Like It
Hot (Wilder); *Psycho.


(Drag): Priscilla; To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie
Newmar; Paris is Burning (Jenny Livingstone);

(Camp): Pee Wee's Playhouse; Hairspray (Waters).

(Transgender): M.Butterfly; The Crying Game (Neil Jordan);
Ma Vie en Rose (Alain Berliner); Myra Breckenridge;

(Mother): White Heat.

(Transsexual): The World According to Garp (George Roy Hill);
Twin Peaks (David Lynch).

(Violence): Dressed to Kill (DePalma); Silence of the Lambs

(Jon Demme); Silence of the Hams (Mel Brooks?)

Quotes
Protesters picketing Time Warner to protest "Cop Killer"
Chrissie Hynde

11. SADISM/MASOCHISM (4.11)

Reading

Sigmund Freud - `A child is being beaten,' Collected Papers, vol.2,
172-186.

Jessica Benjamin - `Rational violence and erotic domination,' Feminist Studies, 1980.

Anne McClintock - `Culwick and Munby' from Imperial Leather.


Review:

John Broughton - `Theses on violence' (appropriate sections).

Optional:

`Towards the death instinct' from Freud for Beginners, 144-152; Tobias Wolff - `Bullet in the brain,' New Yorker, 82-83.

Viewing
Belladonna, 8mm.

 

VI. Cultural Violence

 

Quotes

12. HISTORICAL and POLITICAL (4.18)

Readings

Sigmund Freud - excerpts from Civilization and its Discontents.


Wilhelm Reich - from "The Mass Psychology of Fascism,"
reprinted in Richard Sennett (ed.), The Psychology of Society (Vintage), 288-291.

Herbert Marcuse - Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society. In Negations (Beacon, 1968), 248-268.

Franz Fanon - `Concerning violence,' from The Wretched of the Earth, 35-59.

William Palmer - `The terrorism film texts,' from The Films of the Eighties (Southern Illinois, 1993), 114-178.

Optional:

Walter Benjamin - `Critique of violence,' in Reflections
(Schocken, 1978), 277-300.

Viewings

(Political) - Passage to India; Burn.


(Historical) - Evolution of Violence (cartoon).


(Terrorism) - The Siege; Die Hard with a Vengeance; Brazil*; Independence Day*; other Bruce Willis movie with mad bomber
in NYC; Ted Kaczynski documentary footage.

 

 


13. THE BODY, DAMAGE and the GROTESQUE (4.25)

Readings

Mikhail Bakhtin - from Rabelais.

J.G.Ballard - The Atrocity Exhibition (Re/search Press 1990).

Linda Kauffman - `Cutups in beauty school,' `Scrambling the codes:

"Videodrome",' and `J.G.Ballard's "Atrocity Ehibitions"' from Bad Girls and Sick Boys (California 1998), pp. 50-80, 128-135, & 149-192.

Viewings

*; Zed and Two Noughts*


Hollow Man*

Crash

Jeepers Creepers.

 

14. GENDER and VIOLENCE in the MEDIA (5.2)
Readings


Nancy Boyd-Franklin & A.J.Franklin - `Rap, media influences, and hoop dreams,' from Boys Into Men: Raising Our African American Teenage Sons (Plume 2000), 128-138.

Gillian Skirrow - Hellivision (gender and fantasy in video games. In Colin McCabe (ed.), High Theory / Low Culture (Manchester University Press, 1986), 115-142.

Carol Clover - `Her body, himself: gender in the slasher film,' from Men, Women and Chainsaws.

Optional:

Review Miller reading above.

Viewings

BETRAYAL - The Crying Game (funfair); Betrayal; Silent Rapture.

SLASHER - Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

VIOLATION - Straw Dogs; Prince of Tides.

RAPE/REVENGE - I Spit on Your Grave.

VGs and VR - Mortal Kombat; Strange Days; Ghost in the Machine; Virtuosity.


15. SCHOOLS, GENDER and VIOLENCE (5.9)

 

Quotes

Readings


Jane Kenway & Sue Willis - `Power' from Answering Back: Girls, Boys and Feminism in the Schools (Routledge 1998), 96-113.

Pierre Bourdieu - `Pedagogical violence,' from Reproduction.

Alan Block - `School as the product of the adult fantasy of a world without children,' from I'm Only Bleeding: Education as the Practice of Social Violence Against Children (Lang 1997), 121-146.

Pedro Noguera - `Preventing and producing violence: a critical analysis of responses to school violence,' Harvard Educational Review, 1995 65(2), 189-212.

John Perez - `Shoot' (comic strip).

Ursula Kelly - `Schoolgirl exotica' from Schooling Desire (Routledge, 1997), 91-97.

Viewings

The Meaning of Life (Pt 2: `Growth and Development' - domination of wife, via domination of students to waging war)

Dangerous Minds

Dead Poets Society

*Welcome to the Dollhouse

if...

*Basketball Diaries.

 

I. GENDER


2. Psychological Theories: Learning and Development
(1.31)

A. Roles
Readings
• Carol Gilligan - 'Woman's place in man's life cycle,' Harvard Educational Review,

1979.

• William Pollack - `Inside the world of boys: Behind the mask of masculinity'

from Lost Boys: Rescuing our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood (Holt 1998), 3-19.

Viewings
* Something Wild
*Tootsie 
* Forces of Nature
• *Rebecca (no video)
• We Remember Marilyn
[See also Forces of Nature]

Quotes
L. Tiefer
Chrissie Hynde

B. Learning

Readings
Janet Sayers - from Sexual Contradictions (Routledge 1992)

Viewings
River Runs Through It [Plot Summary]
Shine [Plot Summary]
* Boys Don't Cry [Fight in bar] 
* Boyz 'n the Hood

C. Development
Readings
Lawrence Kohlberg & Dora Ullian - 'Stages in psychosexual roles.'
(optional) John Broughton - `Women's rationality and men's virtues,'

Social Research, 1983.

Viewings
Alice in Wonderland
Tumbleweeds
* Welcome to the Dollhouse [Rape Threat, Rape Threat Part 2]

3. Psychoanalytic Theories: Freud and Lacan
(Wed, 5.30)

A. Freud
Readings
Sigmund Freud - `On the consequences of some anatomical differences

between the sexes,' S.E.

Karen Horney - 'The flight from womanhood: the masculinity-

complex in women as viewed by men and women' from Feminine Psychology (Norton 1967), 54-70.

• (optional) Janet Sayers - `Freudian theory,' from Sexual Contradictions.
• (optional) John Hesley & Jan Hesley - `What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' from
Rent Two Films and Call Me in the Morning (Wiley 1998), 157-160.

Viewings
*What's Eating Gilbert Grape [Gilbert's Family , Store in Trouble , Cheating Heart ]
Bagdad Cafe [Whoring daughter]
*Boogie Nights (no audio) [Dirk's Bedroom]
*Welcome to the Dollhouse [Grade Grubbing]
*Little Odessa 
*Affliction
*The Grifters 
* The Birds [ Mother's Approval]
"Sopranos" III-10

Quote
Karen Horney

B. Lacan
Readings
Jacques Lacan - `The meaning of the phallus,' from Juliet Mitchell & Jacqueline

Rose (eds.), Feminine Sexuality (Norton 1983).

Janet Sayers - `Lacanian perspectives' from Sexual Contradictions

(Tavistock, 1986), 79-96.

(optional) William J.Richardson's paraphrase of the Lacan article
(optional) SM: `Asserting phallic mastery,' and `The limits of Lacan,'

SM, 83-103 & 89-94.

Viewing
* Parenthood
• * Mulan
* Robocop
Lawn Dogs
* High Art [Change of Plans , Lucy's Apartment]
sex, lies and videotape [Conversation in bar]
Capadonna MTV Video

Quote
Client in psychoanalytic therapy

NO CLASS on MEMORIAL DAY

4. Jung and Object Relations Theory
(Mon, 6.4)

A. Jung
Readings
Carl Jung - `The syzygy: animus and anima,' from The Portable Jung
(Viking, 1971),148-162.
Susan Pollack & Carol Gilligan - 'Images of violence in TAT test stories,'

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982, 42 (1), 159-167.

Viewings
*Something Wild (Abducted by Luln)
Julia
Victor/Victoria

B. Klein
Reading
Gillian Skirrow - Hellivision (gender and fantasy in video games. In Colin McCabe

(ed.), High Theory/Low Culture (Manchester, 1986), 115-142.

Viewings
Alien
Army of Darkness
* Fantastic Voyage

C. Chodorow
Readings
Nancy Chodorow - 'Oedipal asymmetries and heterosexual knots,' Social Inquiry,

1976, 4, 454-468.

(optional) Janet Sayers - 'Post-Freudian psychoanalysis' from

Sexual Contradictions (Tavistock 1986), 33-78.

Viewings
Tumbleweeds
Anywhere But Here
*Boogie Nights (no audio) [ Dirk and Mother]
Exotica
High Art
* sex, lies and videotape

 

Presentation of final projects