MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF SOCIETY, CULTURE, MEDIA AND PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF CRITICAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES
UNIT OUTLINE
CUL 308: Changing Bodies, Changing Selves
2007, Semester I
Unit convenor: Dr Nikki Sullivan
Students in this unit should read this unit outline carefully at the start of semester. It contains important information about the unit.
If anything in it is unclear, please consult one of the teaching staff in the unit.
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A BOUT THIS UNIT
In contemporary western cultures the transformation of bodies occurs in a wide variety of ways, some of which are deemed natural, some of which are socially sanctioned, and others of which are pathologized. Moreover, the transformation on individual bodies is inextricably bound up with the (trans) formation of bodies of knowledge, institutional bodies and social bodies. The aim of the course is to critically examine the ways in which various forms of bodily transformation are understood, experienced, and practiced in contemporary culture and to explore the social, political and ethical effects of such.
The course is divided into two sections: concepts (part 1) and practices (part 2). In the first half of the course we will examine some of the assumptions that inform the understanding of, and debates about, various bodily practices. In the second half of the course students will be expected to critically examine the ways in which these concepts operate in the set readings and in the material discussed in lectures and tutorials.
T EACHING STAFF
Convenor: Dr Nikki Sullivan
W6A 828.
Phone: 9850 8760.
Email: nikki.sullivan@scmp.mq.edu.au
Consultation hours: Friday 3-5pm.
Jessica Cadwallder will be tutoring in this unit. Jess will make her contact details and consultation times available in tutorials.
C LASSES
Lectures are on Tuesday 11am – 12 noon, E6A 131
Tutorial attendance is compulsory. Please ensure that you are enrolled in a 2 hour seminar (Tuesday 1-3pm, W5C 210; Wednesday 9-11am, W5A
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204; Wednesday 1-3pm, W6B 315). Do not change tutorial groups without permission from the course convenor. iLectures are available and lecture notes will be posted on the CUL
308 website. Usernames and passwords will be given out in tutorials.
The timetable for classes can be found on the University web site at: http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au/
U NIT WEB PAGE
The web page for this unit can be found at: www.ccs.mq.edu.au/ug/308
R EQUIRED TEXTS
You will need to purchase
 a copy of the CUL 308 Unit Reader
This will be available from the Co-op Bookshop on campus. A copy will also be on Special Reserve in the Library.
L EARNING OUTCOMES
In this unit you will develop the following discipline based skills an/or attain the following knowledge:
 A clear understanding of the changing ways in which ‘the body’ has been understood and experienced.
 A broad sense of a number of the key issues and debates currently associated with particular forms of embodiment and particular modificatory practices..
 A general theoretical understanding of the relationship between forms of knowledge and forms of embodied subjectivity and sociality.
 An understanding of the political and ethical dimensions of bodily transformation in its many and varied forms.
 A practical knowledge of key methods of critical analysis
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In addition to the discipline-based learning objectives, all academic programs at Macquarie seek to develop students’ generic skills in a range of areas. One of the aims of this unit is that students develop their skills in the following:
 Critical analysis skills: you will learn to identify and evaluate arguments, synthesise ideas, and develop well-substantiated, coherent, and concise theses.
 Problem solving skills: you will learn to identify social and political problems and debates, evaluate various responses to them, and adapt the knowledge gained through this process to everyday situations.
 Multi modal skills: you will learn to engage with a range of texts and/or modalities, and in doing so, will become familiar with the conventions associated with each.
 Creative thinking skills: you will learn to bring together, in creative ways, texts (of various kinds), ideas, practices, events, and so on, in order to respond imaginatively to social and political problems.
 Research skills: you will learn to search (in various ways) for material, and to sort the information gathered in terms of its relevancy to your topic. Thus you will learn to read widely but also to be particularly selective about what theoretical sources you use in order to develop well-focused projects.
 Collaborative and interpersonal skills: you will learn to share information and debate ideas with your peers.
 Leadership skills: tutorial presentations will help you to develop the capacity to lead class discussion and to manage your tutorial group.
 Critical self-awareness: you will learn to be self-reflexive about your ideas and the social and political positions that you take.
 Communications skills: you will learn to express your ideas verbally and in written form, and to tailor your arguments in relation to audience and context.
T EACHING AND L EARNING S TRATEGY
In this course students are expected to attend lectures or listen to lecture tapes, to read all of the essential readings prior to attending tutorials, and elaborate responses to the set readings. Tutorials will be conducted in a range of ways including general discussion, question time, small group exercises, and so on.
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Honours
Cultural studies analyses the way people represent themselves to one another. Whether it’s your national identity that gives you the sense of who you are, or your sexuality; whether your medium is film, writing or multimedia or, for that matter, graffiti or clothes, cultural studies aims to reveal the complex, dynamic and political way in which representation makes and unmakes human relationships. From the intimate to the global, from personal practice to institutional power, critical and cultural studies reveals how images, meanings and identities influence the way our lives are organised.
The Department of Critical and Cultural Studies offers four levels of undergraduate units covering a wide range of topics. We have units on
Australian culture, Asian cultural studies; the cultural politics of the war on terror; sexuality and queer theory; multimedia; graffiti, kitsch and trash; the culture of the body; creative writing; the theory and practice of performance, and more.
A coherent study at 300-level allows you to complete your basic degree, but many students go on to Honours in their fourth year.
Honours students do three seminar units and complete a short research project they design themselves. Honours is the gateway to higher degree research study (for the MPhil and PhD), if you want to pursue that path, but it also marks you out as having that extra training in research, analysis and writing.
You don’t have to be invited to do Honours. Entry is by application.
For more details about entry requirements and other enquiries, see the department website: www.ccs.mq.edu.au
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LECTURE SCHEDULE
Week 1: CONCEPT One: Bodies: Contemporary theories of the body and embodiment (Tuesday February 27 th ))
Essential Readings:
 Grosz, Elizabeth (1994) “Refiguring Bodies” in Volatile Bodies:
Toward a Corporeal Feminism, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
 Gatens, Moira (1996) “Corporeal Representation in/of the Body
Politic”, in Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality,
London: Routledge.
 Butler, Judith (2005) “Bodies that Matter” (excerpt), in Mariam
Fraser and Monica Greco (eds.) The Body: A Reader, London:
Routledge.
Films (non essential viewing):
 On Becoming (available on Special Reserve)
Further Readings:
 Burkitt, Ian (2002) “Technologies of the Self: Habitus and
Capacities”, in Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour,
32:2.
 Braidotti, Rosie (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and
Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, NY:
Columbia Uni Press.
 Bray, A & C. Colebrook (1998) “The Haunted Flesh: Corporeal
Feminism and the Politics of (Dis)embodiment”, Signs, 24:1.
 Cregan, Kate (2006) The Sociology of the Body, London:
Sage.
 Davis, Kathy (1997) “Embody-ing Theory: Beyond Modernist and Postmodernist Readings of the Body”, in Embodied
Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body, London: Sage.
 Grosz, Elizabeth (1995) “Bodies and Knowledges: Feminism and the Crisis of Reason”, in Space, Time and Perversion:
The Politics of Bodies, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
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 Grosz, Elizabeth (1990) “Inscriptions and body-maps: representation and the corporeal”, in T. Threadgold and A.
Cranny-Francis (eds.) Feminine, Masculine and
Representation, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
 Shildrick, M. (1997) “Fabrica(tions): On the construction of the human body,” in Leaky Bodies and Boundaries: Feminism, postmodernism and (bio)ethics (pp. 13-61). London: Routledge.
 Shilling, Chris (2005) The Body in Culture, Technology and
Society, London: Sage.
 Weiss, Gail (1999) Body Images: Embodiment as
Intercorporeality, NY: Routledge.
Week 2: CONCEPT Two: (Ab)Normalcy (Tuesday March 6th) Lecture by Ravi Glasser-Vora
Essential Readings:
 Davis, Lennard (1995 ) “Constructing Normalcy”, in Enforcing
Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body, New York:
Verso.
 Sullivan, Martin (2005) “Subjected Bodies: Paraplegia,
Rehabilitation and the Politics of Movement”, in Shelley
Tremain (ed.) Foucault and the Government of Disability,
University of Michigan Press.
Further Readings:
 2003). http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=506
 Bérubé, M. (2003) “Citizenship and Disability”, Dissent magazine (Spring)
 Canguilhem, Georges (1991) The Normal and the Pathological,
New York: Zone Books.
 Cregan, Kate (2006) “Regimes and Institutions: Authority and
Delimited Control”, The Sociology of the Body, London:
Sage.
 Curtis, B. (2002)” Foucault on Governmentality and
Population: The Impossible Discovery”, in Canadian Journal of Sociology 27(4), 505-533.
 Davis, L. J. (2002) “The Rule of Normalcy: Politics and
Disability in the U.S.A. [United States of Ability]”, in
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Bending Over Backwards: Essays on Disability and the Body
New York: NYU Press.
 Ewald, Francois (1990) “Norms, Discipline and the Law”, in
Representations, No.30.
 Foucault, (2003) Abnormal: Lectures at the College de
France 1974-75, London: Verso.
 Foucault, M. (1990) “Right of Death and Power over Life”, in
The History of Sexuality: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books.
 Foucault, M. (1994) “Open Up a Few Corpses” in The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception New
York: Vintage Books.
 Foucault, M. (2004) Lecture from 17 March 1976, in Society
Must Be Defended (pp. 239-264). London, UK: Penguin Books.
 Hacking, I. (1982) “Biopower and the Avalanche of Printed
Numbers,” Humanities in Society, 5(3-4), 279-295.
 Leroi, A. M. (2006) “The future of neo-eugenics,” EMBO reports, 7(12), 1184-1187.
 Leroi, A.M. (2003) Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and
Errors of the Human Body, London: Harper Perennial.
 Lingis, Alphonso (1994) “The Subjectification of the Body”, in
Foreign Bodies, NY: Routledge.
 Penrick, Martin (1997) “Defining the Defective: Eugenics,
Aesthetics, and Mass Culture in Early Twentieth Century
America”, in David Mitchell & Sharon Snyder (eds.) The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability, Michigan
University Press.
 Rabinow, P., & Rose, N. (2006) “Biopower Today’”
BioSocieties, 1(1), 196-217.
Week 3: CONCEPT Three: Disability (Tuesday March 13th)
Essential Readings:
 Garland-thomson, Rosemarie (2002) “Integrating Disability,
Transforming Feminist Theory”, NWSA Journal, 14:3.
 Snyder, Sharon & David Mitchell (2001) “Re-engaging the
Body: Disability Studies and the Resistance to Embodiment”,
Public Culture, 13:3.
 Darke, Paul Anthony (1994) “ The Elephant Man: An Analysis from a Disabled Perspective”, Disability & Society, 9:3.
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 PLEASE WATCH DAVID LYNCH’S FILM, THE
ELEPHANT MAN (1980), IN YOUR OWN TIME.
Films (non essential viewing)):
 The Elephant Man
 Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back (will be screened in class)
Further Readings:
 Adams, Rachel (2002) Sideshow USA: Freaks and the
American Cultural Imagination, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
 Canguilhem, Georges (2005) “Monstrosity and the
Monstrous”, in Mariam Fraser and Monica Greco (eds.) The
Body: A Reader, New York: Routledge.
 Dreger, Alice Domurat (2000) “Jarring Bodies: Thoughts on the Display of Unusual Anatomies”, in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43:2.
 Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie (1997) Extraordinary Bodies:
Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and
Literature, Columbia University Press.
 Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie (2003) “Making Freaks: Visual
Rhetorics and the Spectacle of Julia Pastrana”, in Jeffrey
Jerome Cohen & Gail Weiss (eds.) Thinking the Limits of the
Body, Albany: State University of New York Press.
 Kaveny, Cathleen (2002) “Conjoined Twins and Catholic
Moral Analysis: Extraordinary Means and Casuistical
Consistency”, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 12:2.
 Mitchell, David (1997) “Modernist Freaks and Postmodern
Geeks”, in Lennard J Davis (ed.) The Disability Studies
Reader, NY: Routledge.
 Shildrick, Margrit (2002) Embodying the Monster:
Encounters with the Vulnerable Self, London: Sage.
 Samuels, Ellen (2002) “Critical Divides: Judith Butler’s Body
Theory and the Question of Disability”, NWSA Journal, 14:3.
 Tremain, Shelley (ed.) (2003) Foucault and the Government of
Disability,
Week 4: CONCEPT Four: Suffering (Tuesday March 20 th ) Lecture by
Jess Cadwallader
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Essential Readings:
 Frank, Arthur W (2004) “Emily’s Scars: Surgical Shaping,
Technoluxe, and Bioethics”, in Hasting’s Centre Report, 34:2.
 Michalko, Rod (2002) “The Social Location of Suffering”, in
The Difference that Disability Makes, Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Further Readings:
 Williams, Simon & Gillian Bendelow (1998) “In Search of the
‘Missing’ Body: Pain, Suffering, and the (Post)modern
Condition”, in Graham Scrambler & Paul Higgs (eds.)
Modernity, Medicine, and Health: Medical Sociology
Towards 2000, NY: Routledge.
 Frank, Arthur (2001) “Can We Research Suffering?”, in
Qualitative Health Research, 11:3.
 Cassell, Eric J (2004) Nature of Suffering and the Goals of
Medicine, NT: Oxford Uni Press.
Week 5: CONCEPT Five: Self-mutilation (Tuesday March 27th)
Essential Readings:
 Pitts, Victoria (`1999) “Body Modification, Self-Mutilation and Agency in Media Accounts of a Subculture”, Body &
Society 5:2-3.
 Jeffreys, Sheila (2000) “’Body Art’ and Social Status: Cutting,
Tattooing, and Piercing from a Feminist Perspective”,
Feminism and Psychology 10:4.
 Brickman, Barbara Jane (2004) “’Delicate’ Cutters: Gendered
Self-mutilation and Attractive Flesh in Medical Discourse”, in Body & Society, 10:4.
Further Readings:
 Brooks, Traci L et.al. (2003) “Body Modification and
Substance Use in Adolescents: Is there a link?”, in Journal of
Adolescent Health, vol.32.
 Favazza, Armando (1996) Bodies Under Siege: Self-mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry, Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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 Groves, Abigail (2004) “Blood on the Walls: Self-mutilation in
Prisons”, in Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Criminology, vol.37.
 Hewitt, Kim (1997) Mutilating the Body: Identity in Blood and
Ink, Madison, WI: Popular Press.
 Kilby, Jane (2001) “Carved in the Skin: Bearing Witness to
Self-harm”, in Ahmed, S & J, Stacey (eds.) Thinking Through the Skin, London: Routledge.
 McLane, Janice (1996) “The Voice on the Skin: Self-
Mutilation and Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of Language”, in
Hypatia, 11:4.
 Meiners. Erica (1999) “Sick & Twisted: reading revolting research”, in Qualitative Studies in Education, 12:5.
 Pugliese, Joseph (2004) “Subcutaneous Law: Embodying the
Migration Amendment Act 1992”, in The Australian Feminist
Law Journal, vol.21.
 Strong, Marilee(2000) A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain, London: Virago.
 Sullivan, Nikki (2002) “Fleshly (dis)figuration, or How to Make the Body Matter”, in The International Journal of Critical
Psychology, vol.5.
 Van Lenning, Alkeline (2002) “The System Made Me Do It?: A response to Jeffreys”, Feminism & Psychology 12:4.
Week 6: PRACTICE One: Cosmetic surgery (Tuesday April 3rd)
Essential Readings:
 Gilman, Sander L (1999) “Judging by Appearances”, in Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery,
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
 Negrin, Llewellyn (2002) “Cosmetic Surgery and the Eclipse of
Identity”, in Body & Society, 8:4.
 Fraser, Suzanne (2003) “The Agent Within: Agency Repetoires in Medical Discourse on Cosmetic Surgery”, in Australian
Feminist Studies, 18:40.
Films (non-essential viewing):
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 Extreme Makeover (available in Special Reserve)
 First Wives Club (1996) dir. Hugh Wilson
 Brazil (1985) dir. Terry Gilliam
Further Readings:
 Balsamo, Anne (1996) “On the Cutting Edge: Cosmetic
Surgery and New Imaging Technologies”, in Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women, Durham: Duke
Uni Press.
 Blum, Virginia (2005) “Becoming the Other Woman: The
Psychic Drama of Cosmetic Surgery”, Frontiers, 26:2.
 Blum, Virginia (2003) Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic
Surgery, Berkeley, UCP.
 Cahill, Ann J (2003) “Feminist Pleasure and Feminine
Beautification”, in Hypatia, 18:4.
 Comiskey, Carolyn (2004) “Cosmetic Surgery in Paris 1926: The
Case of the Amputated Leg”, Journal of Women’s History,
16:3.
 Davis, Kathy (1998) “Facing the Dilemma”, in PD Hopkins (ed.)
Sex/Machine: Readings in Culture and Technology,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
 Davis, Kathy (1999) “’My body id my art’: Surgery as Feminist
Utopia?”, in J. Price & M. Shildrick (eds.) Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader, Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni Press.
 Davis, Kathy (2003) Dubious Equalities and Embodied
Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery, New
York: Rowman & Littlefield.
 Gibson, Margaret (2006) “Bodies Without Histories: Cosmetic
Surgery and the Undoing of Time”, Australian Feminist
Studies, 21:49.
 Gimlin, Debra L (2002) Body Work: Beauty and Self Image in
American Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Huss-Ashmore, Rebecca (2000) “’The real me’: Therapeutic
Narrative in Cosmetic Surgery”, in Expedition, 42:3.
 Jeffreys, Sheila (2005) Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful
Cultural Practices in the West, London: Routledge.
 Kauffman, Linda S (2003) “Cutups in Beauty School”, in
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen & Gail Weiss (eds.) Thinking the Limits of the Body, Albany: State University of New York Press.
 Miller, Laura (2003) “Mammary Mania in Japan”, Positions:
East Asia Cultures Critique 11:2.
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 Morgan, Kathryn Pauly (1995) “Women and the Knife:
Cosmetic Surgery and the Colonization of Women’s Bodies”, in Dana E Bushnell (ed.) “Nagging” Questions: Feminist Ethics in Everyday Life, London: Rowman & Littlefield.
 Rothman, Sheila & David J Rothman (2003) The Pursuit of
Perfection: The Promise and Perils of Medical Enhancement,
NY: Pantheon.
 Scranton, Philip (ed.) (2001) Beauty and Business: Commerce,
Gender, and Culture in Modern America, New York:
Routledge.
 Shevory, Thomas C (2000) Body/Politics: Studies in
Reproduction, Production, and (Re)Construction, Westport,
CT: Praeger.
MID SEMESTER BREAK: Monday 9 th April – Friday 20 th April.
PLEASE NOTE: There will be no lecture or tutorials in the week of
April 23 rd – 27th as this is a study week for all Critical and Cultural
Studies students. Classes will resume on Tuesday May 1st.
Week 7: PRACTICE Two: ‘Non-mainstream’ Body Modification
(Tuesday May 1st)
Essential Readings:
 Karmen MacKendrick (1998) “Technoflesh, or ‘Didn’t that hurt?’”, Fashion Theory 2:1.
 Atkinson, Michael (2003) “The Civilizing Resistance:
Straightedge Tattooing”, in Deviant Behaviour: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 24:197-200.
 Pitts, Victoria (2003) “Modern Primitivism and the
Deployment of the Other”, in In the Flesh: The Cultural
Politics of Body Modification , NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Films (non-essential viewing):
 Stigmata: The Transfigured Body (on Special Reserve)
 The Illustrated Man (1969) dir, Jack Smight
 Irexumi (1982) dir. Yoichi Takabayashi
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 Tattoo (1981) dir. Bob Brooks
 Tattoo (2002) dir. Robert Schwentke
 Memento (2000) dir. Christopher Nolan
Further Readings:
 Atkinson, Michael & Kevin Young (2001) “’Flesh Journeys’ Neo
Primitives and the Contemporary Rediscovery of Radical
Body Modification”, in Deviant Behaviour: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, vol.22.
 Best, Sue (1991) “Foundations of Femininity: Berlei Corsets and the (un)making of the Modern Body”, in Continuum:
Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 5:1.
 Braunberger, Christine (2000) “Revolting Bodies: The
Monster Beauty of Tattooed Women”, in NWSA Journal,
12:2.
 Holland, Samantha (2004) Alternative Femininities: Body, Age, and Identity, Oxford: Berg.
 Larratt, Shannon (2002) MODCON: the secret world of extreme body modification, BMEzine.com.
 Pitts, Victoria (2003) “Subversive Bodies, Invented Selves:
Theorizing Body Politics”, in In the Flesh: The Cultural
Politics of Body Modification , NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Riley, Sarah & Sharon Cahill (2005) “Managing Meaning and
Belonging: Young Women’s Negotiation of Authenticity in
Body Art”, Journal of Youth Studies, 8:3.
 Sullivan, Nikki (2001) Tattooed Bodies: Subjectivity,
Textuality, Ethics and Pleasure, NY: Preager.
 Sweetman, Paul (1999) “Anchoring the (Postmodern) Self?
Body Modification , Fashion and Identity”, Body & Society 5:2-
3.
 Walker, Lisa (2000) “Embodying Desire: Piercing and the
Fashioning of ‘Neo-butch/femme’ Identities”, in Sally Munt
(ed.) Butch/Femme: Inside Lesbian Gender, Cassell: London.
Week 8: PRACTICE Three: Transplantations (Tuesday May 8th)
Lecture by Gretchen Riordan
Essential Readings:
 Wiggins et.al. ?????????????????????????????????????
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 Baylis, Francois (2006) “Changing Faces: Ethics, Identity and
Facial Transplantation”, in David Benatar (ed.) Cutting to the
Core: Exploring the Ethics of Contested Surgeries,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
 Nancy, Jean-Luc (2002) “L’Intrus”, in CR: The New
Centennial Review, 2:3.
Films (non-essential viewing):
 Transplantation: The Issues (on Special Reserve)
 Great Organ Bazaar (on Special Reserve)
 Vanilla Skye (2001) dir. Cameron Crowe
 Face/Off (1997) dir. John Woo
 A Woman’s Face (1941) dir. George Cukor
 Eyes Without a Face (1959) dir George Franju
 Logan’s Run (1976) dir. Michael Anderson
 Shattered (1991) dir. Wolfgang Petersen
Further Readings:
 Adamek, Philip M (2002) “The Intimacty of Jean-Luc Nancy’s
L’Intrus”, in CR: The New Centennial Review, 2:3
 Baylis, Francois (2004) “A Face is Not Just a Hand: pace
Barker”, in The American Journal of Bioethics, 4:3.
 Dickenson, Donna and Guy Widdershoven (2006) “Ethical
Issues in Limb Transplants”, in David Benatar (ed.) Cutting to the Core: Exploring the Ethics of Contested Surgeries,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
 Butler, Peter, Alex Clarke and Richard Ashcroft (2004) “Face
Transplantation: When and For Whom?”, in American Journal of Bioethics, 4:3.
 Lock, Margaret (1995) “Transcending Morality: Organ
Transplants and the Practice of Contradictions”, in Medical
Anthropology Quarterly, 9:3.
 Perpich, Diane (2005) “Corpeus Meum: Disintegrating Bodies and the Ideal of Integrity”, in Hypatia, 20:3.
 Powell, Tia (2006) “Face Transplant: Real and Imagined
Ethical Challenges”, in The Journal of Law, Medicine and
Ethics, vol.34.
 Scheper-Hughes, Nancy (2000) “The Global Traffic in Human
Organs”, in Current Anthropology, 41:2.
 Sharp, Lesley A (1995) “Organ Transplantation as a
Transformative Experience: Anthropological Insights in the
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Restructuring of the Self”, in Medical Anthropology
Quarterly, 9:3.
 Younger, Stuart, Renee Fox and Laurence O’Connell (eds.)
(1996) Transplantation: Meanings and Realities, Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Week 9: PRACTICE Four: Circumcision (Tuesday May 8th)
Essential Readings:
 Fox, Marie & Michael Thomson (2005) “Short Changed? The
Law and the Ethics of Male Circumcision”, The International
Journal of Children’s Rights, no. 13.
 Sheldon, Sally & Stephen Wilkinson (1998) “Female Genital
Mutilation and Cosmetic Surgery: Regulating Non-
Therapeutic Body Modification”, Bioethics, 12:4.
 Njambi, Wairimu Ngaruiya (2004) “Dualisms and Female Bodies in Representations of African Female Circumcision”, in
Feminist Theory, 5:3.
Films (non essential viewing):
 Acts of Love (on Special Reserve)
 Warrior Marks (on Special Reserve)
 Rites (on Special Reserve)
 Antwone Fisher (2002) dir. Denzel Washington
 Cours Toujours (2000) dir. Dante Desarthe
 Drowning by Numbers (1988) dir. Peter Greenaway
 Europa Europa (1990) dir. Agnieszka Holland
 Moolaadé (2004) dir. Ousname Sembene
 Fire Eyes (1994) dir. Soraya Mire
Further Readings:
 Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa (2001) “Virtuous Cuts: Female
Genital Circumcision in an African Ontology”, in
Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 12:1.
 Adams, Alice E (1997) “Molding Women’s Bodies: The Surgeon as Sculptor”, in D.S. Wilson & C. M. Laennec (eds.) Bodily
Discursions: Genders, Representations, Technologies,
Albany: State University of New York Press.
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 Benatar, Michael & David Benatar (2003) “Between
Prophylaxis and Child Abuse: The Ethics of Neonatal Male
Circumcision”, The American Journal of Bioethics 3:2.
 Boddy, Janice (1998) “Vioence Embodied? Circumcisions,
Gender Politics, and Cultural Aesthetics”, in R. Emerson
Dobash & Russell P. Dobash (eds.) Rethinking Violence
Against Women, London: Sage.
 Boyle, Elizabeth Heger (2002) Female Genital Cutting:
Cultural Conflict in the Global Community, Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
 Braun, Virginia (2005) “In Search of (Better) Sexual Pleasure:
Female Genital ‘Cosmetic’ Surgery”, Sexualities, 8:4, pp.407-24.
 Davis, Simone Weil (2002) “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, Feminist
Studies, 28:1.
 Family Law Council (1994) Female Genital Mutilation: a report to the Attorney-General, Sydney: Commonwealth
Government of Australia.
 Fraser, David (1995) “The First Cut is (Not) the Deepest:
Deconstructing ‘Female Genital Mutilation’ and the
Criminalization of the Other”, Dalhousie Law Journal, vol.18.
 Glick, Leonard B (2005) Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, Oxford Uni Press.
 Goldman, R (1997) Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma,
Boston: Vanguard Press.
 Gollaher, David L (2001) Circumcision: A History of the
World’s Most Controversial Surgery, Basic Books.
 Green, Fiona J. (2005) “From Clitoridectomies to ‘Designer
Vaginas’: The Medical Construction of Heteronormative
Female Bodies and Sexuality Through Female Genital
Cutting”, Sexualities, Evolution and Gender, 7:2, pp.153-87.
 Hill, George (2003) “Can anyone authorize the nontherapeutic permanent alteration of a child’s body?”, The American
Journal of Bioethics 3:2.
 Hosken, Fran (1980) Female Sexual Mutilations: The Facts and
Proposals for Action, Lexington, MA: Women’s International
Network News.
 Hosken, Fran (1982) The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual
Mutilation of Females, Lexington, MA: Women’s
International Network News.
 Howard, Rhoda (1993) “Health Costs of Social Degradation and Female Self Mutilation in North America”, in K. & P.
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

Mahoney (eds.) Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century,
Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
Kirby, Vicki (1987) “On the Cutting Edge: Feminism and
Clitoridectomy”, Australian Feminist Studies, no.5.
Kirby, Vicki (2005) “Out of Africa: Our Bodies Ourselves?”, in
O. Nnaemeka (ed.) Female Circumcision and the Politics of
Knowledge: African Women in Imperialist Discourses,
Westport, CT.: Praeger,
 Li, Xiaorong (2001) “Tolerating the Intolerable: The Case of
Female Genital Mutilation, Philosophy and Public Policy

Quarterly, 21:1.
Matlock, David (2004) Sex by Design, Demiurgus
Publications.
 Moruzzi, Noram Claire (2005) “Cutting Through Culture: The
Feminist Discourse on Female Circumcision”, Critique:
Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 14:2.
 Walley, Christine (2002) “Searching for ‘Voices’: Feminism,
Anthropology, and the Global Debate Over Female Genital
Operations”, in S. James and C. Robertson (eds.) Genital
Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S.
Polemics, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
 Winter, Bronwyn, Denise Thompson and Sheila Jeffreys
(2002) “The UN Approach to Harmful Traditional Practices”,
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4:1.
Week 10: PRACTICE Five: Self-demand amputation (Tuesday May
15th)
Essential Readings:
 Elliot, Carl (2003) “Amputees by Choice”, in Better Than Well:
American Medicine Meets the American Dream, New York:
W.W. Norton & Co.
 Jordan, John W (2004) “The Rhetorical Limits of the ‘Plastic
Body’”, in Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90:3.
 Bayne, Tim & Neil Levy (2005) “Amputees by Choice: Body
Integrity Identity Disorder and the Ethics of Amputation”,
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 22:1.
Films (non-essential viewing):
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 Whole (on Special Reserve)
 Complete Obsession (on Special Reserve)
Further Readings:
 Charland, Louise C (2005) “A Madness for Identity:
Psychiatrioc Labels, Consumer Autonomy and the Perils of the Internet”, in PPP, 11:4.
 First, Michael B (2004) “Desire for Amputation of a Limb:
Paraphilia, Psychosis, or a New Type of Identity Disorder”, in
Psychological Medicine, vol. 35.
 Furth, Greg and Robert Smith (2002) Amputee Identity
Disorder: Information, Questions, Answers, and
Recommendations about Self-Demand Amputation, 1 st
Books.
 Johnston, Josephine & Carl Elliott (2002) “Healthy Limb
Amputation: Ethical and Legal Aspects”, in Clinical
Medicine, 2:5.
 Money, John, Russell Jobaris & Gregg Furth (1977)
“Apotemnophilia: Two Cases of Self-Demand Amputation as a Paraphilia”, in The Journal of Sex Research, 13:2.
 Sullivan, Nikki (2005) “Integrity, Mayhem, and the Question of
Self Demand Amputation” Continuum: Journal of Media and
Cultural Studies (forthcoming).
Week 11: PRACTICE Six: Transgenderism (Tuesday May 22nd)
Essential Readings:
 King, Dave (1996) “Gender Blending: Medical Perspectives and Technology”, in R. Ekins & D. King (eds.) Gender
Blending: Social Aspects of Cross-dressing and Sex-changing,
London: Routledge.
 Meyerowitz, Joanne (2006) in S. Stryker and S. Whittle The
Transgender Studies Reader, NY: Routledge.
 Butler, Judith (2001) “Doing Justice to Someone: Sex
Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality”, GLQ:
Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, 7:4.
Films (non-essential viewing):
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 The Boy Who Was Turned into a Girl (on Special Reserve)
 Boy Interrupted (on Special Reserve)
 Gendernauts (on Special Reserve)
Further Readings:
 Billings, Dwight B & Thomas Urban (1996) “The Socio-Mecial
Construction of Transsexualism: An Interpretation and
Critique”, in R. Ekins & D. King (eds.) Gender Blending: Social
Aspects of Cross-dressing and Sex-changing, London:
Routledge.
 Chilard, Colette (2003) Transsexualism: Illusion and Reality,
Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press.
 Green, Richard & John Money (1969) Transsexualism and Sex
Reassignment, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
 Hausman, Bernice L (2000) “Do Boys Have to be Boys?:
Gender, Narrativity, and the John/Joan Case”, in NWSA
Journal, 12:3.
 Hausman, Bernice L(1995) Changing Sex: Transsexualism,
Technology and the Idea of Gender, Durham: Duke
University Press.
 Meyerowitz, Joanne
 Rosario, Vernon (2004) “The Biology of Gender and the
Construction of Sex?”, GLQ: Journal of Gay and Lesbian
Studies, 10:2.
 Shapiro, Judith (1991) “Transsexualism: Reflections on the
Persistence of Gender and the Mutability of Sex”, in J.
Epstein & K. Straub (eds.) Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, London: Routledge.
 Stone, Sandy (1991) “The Empire Strikes Back: A
Posttranssexual Manifesto”, in J. Epstein & K. Straub (eds.)
Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity,
London: Routledge.
 Walters, William (1986) “Ethical Aspects: Is Gender
Reassignment Morally Acceptable?”, in Walters, W & Ross, M
W (eds.) Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Week 12: PRACTICE Seven: Intersex (Tuesday May 29th)
Essential Readings:
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 Dreger, Alice Domurat (1998) “’Ambiguous Sex’ – or
Ambivalent Medicine? Ethical Issues in the Treatment of
Intersexuality”, Hastings Centre Report.
 Chase, Cheryl (2002) “’Cultural Practice’ or ‘Reconstructive
Surgery’? U.S. Genital Cutting, the Intersex Movement, and
Medical Double Standards”, in S. James and C. Robertson
(eds.) Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood:
Disputing U.S. Polemics, Urbana and Chicago: University of
Illinois Press.
Further Readings:
 Dreger, Alice Domurat (1998) Hermaphrodites and the
Medical Invention of Sex, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
 Dreger, Alice Domurat (1999) Intersex in the Age of Ethics,
Maryland: University Publishing Group.
 Dreger, Alice Domurat (2000) “Doubtful Sex”, in Londa
Schiebinger (ed.) Feminism and the Body, Oxford: Oxford
Universtiy Press.
 Fausto-Sterling, Ann (2000) Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, NY: Basic Books.
 Hegarty, P. & Cheryl Chase (2000) “Intersex Activism,
Feminism, and Psychology: opening a dialogue on theory, research, and clinical practice”, in Feminism & Psychology,
10:1.
 Kessler, Suzanne J (1990) “The Medical Construction of
Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants”, in Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol.16.
 Lebacqz, Karen (1997) “Difference or Defect? Intersexuality and the Politics of Difference”, Annual of the Society of
Christian Ethics, vol. 17.
 Morland, Iain (2001) “Is Intersexuality Real?”, Textual
Practice, 15:3.
 Preves, Sharon E (2003) Intersex and Identity: The Contested
Self, New Jersey: Rutgers Uni Press.
 Roen, Katrina (2005) “Queer Kids: Toward Ethical Clinical
Interactions with Intersex People”, in M. Shildrick and R.
Mykitiuk (eds.) Ethics of the Body: Postconventional
Challenges, MIT Press.
 Warnke, Georgina (2001) “Intersexuality and Categories of
Sex”, in Hypatia, 16:3.
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A SSESSMENTS & THEIR R ELATIONSHIP TO L EARNING O UTCOMES
Assessments:
1) A tutorial presentation. At the beginning of the course students must nominate a week in which they will give a presentation on the material (issues, debates, practices) covered in that week’s lecture and readings. Presentations MUST be creative, and at the same time, critically engaged. This assessment task is compulsory and is worth 20%
2) A take-home exam/comprehension exercise. Due date: Monday
April 16th. This assessment task is worth 30% of your overall grade. Assessment instructions will be handed out in lectures, tutorials, and will be placed on the CUL 308 website in the last week of the first half of semester. EXTENSIONS ARE NOT
PERMITTED GIVEN THAT THIS IS A TAKE-HOME EXAM.
3) Final essay: 2,500 – 3,000 words. Due date: Monday 12 th June.
This is worth 40% of your overall grade. Essay questions will be available after the mid semester break.
4) Tutorial attendance and participation. This is worth 10% of your final grade. Please note that if you do not attend 70% of tutorials and you do not provide medical certificates or other similar support documentation, you will fail the course.
Assessment task 1 is designed to encourage students to develop multi-modal skills, and to enhance their creative thinking and communication skills.
Assessment task 2 requires students to undertake a close reading of two of the essential readings set for the first half of the course.
Questions will be set which will assist you in this. The aim of the task is to ensure that students have a firm grasp of at least two of the concepts introduced in the first half of the course since an understanding of these is essential for engagement in the debates about particular practices set for the remainder of the course.
Assessment task 3 is designed to assist students to develop a clear understanding Cultural Studies as both a discipline and a practice,
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and a good knowledge of the body as a discursive construct. You will be required, for example, to undertake textual analyses, show an understanding of key conceptual terms and an awareness of issues and debates in contemporary culture, and critically analyse the ways in which particular forms of knowledge impact on embodied subjectivity and social relations.
Submission of assessments:
 Essays must be submitted at the Student Enquiry Office on the ground floor of W6A before 5pm on the due date
 Be sure to keep multiple copies of all work submitted (ie hard copies, disk copies etc). If submitted work goes astray you will need to resubmit it as quickly as possible. The department does not take responsibility for lost essays nor does it accept this as a reason for an extension.
 Do not put assessment tasks under the door of your tutor’s/lecturer’s office.
 Essays must be properly referenced and must include a bibliography. For more information go to http://www.scmp.mq.edu.au/writingguide.html
 Do not reproduce work from another course in any of your essays. This is a failable offence.
 Do not presume that it is OK to submit work after the due date. If you require an extension you must speak to your tutor before the essay is due.
 Final essays are in lieu of examinations, therefore late essays will not be marked unless you have made a formal application for special consideration through the Registrar’s Office with supporting documentation. Contact Student Enquiry Services on telephone 9850 6410 or email: sesinfo@mq.edu.au or visit http://www.reg.mq.edu.au/Forms/APSCons.pdf for further details.
P LAGIARISM
The University defines plagiarism in its rules: "Plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one's own." Plagiarism is a serious breach of the University's rules and carries significant penalties. You must read the University's practices and procedures on plagiarism. These can be found in the Handbook of Undergraduate
Studies or on the web at: http://www.student.mq.edu.au/plagiarism/
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The policies and procedures explain what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, the procedures that will be taken in cases of suspected plagiarism, and the penalties if you are found guilty. Penalties may include a deduction of marks, failure in the unit, and/or referral to the
University Discipline Committee.
U NIVERSITY P OLICY ON G RADING
Academic Senate has a set of guidelines on the distribution of grades across the range from fail to high distinction. Your final result will include one of these grades plus a standardised numerical grade
(SNG).
On occasion your raw mark for a unit (i.e., the total of your marks for each assessment item) may not be the same as the SNG which you receive. Under the Senate guidelines, results may be scaled to ensure that there is a degree of comparability across the university, so that units with the same past performances of their students should achieve similar results.
It is important that you realise that the policy does not require that a minimum number of students are to be failed in any unit. In fact it does something like the opposite, in requiring examiners to explain their actions if more than 20% of students fail in a unit.
The process of scaling does not change the order of marks among students. A student who receives a higher raw mark than another will also receive a higher final scaled mark.
For an explanation of the policy see http://www.mq.edu.au/senate/MQUonly/Issues/Guidelines2003.doc
or http://www.mq.edu.au/senate/MQUonly/Issues/detailedguidelines.doc
.
S TUDENT S UPPORT S ERVICES
Macquarie University provides a range of Academic Student Support
Services. Details of these services can accessed at http://www.student.mq.edu.au
.
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