| Instructor: Dr Kenneth
Chan |
Introduction
What is it about monsters under our beds or in our closets that terrify us so? How do things that go bump in the night continue to haunt our imagination and our subconscious? Why are we drawn to horror and slasher flicks despite our fears and nightmares? What role does monstrosity play in our cultural and social imagination, for instance in the increasing popularity of Halloween here in Singapore? What does out understanding about the monstrous reveal about our humanity? To answer these questions, we will not only dwell on monsters, space aliens, ghosts, and other unearthly creatures of the night, but we will also critically examine the tropological or allegorical significance of monstrosity as a social, cultural, or political discourse. The concept of the monster not only evokes the notion of the Other, but it also touches on the very core of what it means to be human. We fiercely defend the boundary that divides the human from the inhuman or the monstrous. To cross this line is to bring on fears of abnormality, estrangement, and existential crises, thereby fragmenting and challenging our sense of selfhood and social identity. Students will tackle these and other related issues through literature, film, and theoretical texts from various disciplines including history, psychology, film studies, and biology. Some of the thematic and topical concerns that students will and can explore either through the readings and viewings or through their own essays include:
- “Monsters” of history like Adolf Hitler
- Monster movies like King Kong, Eight Legged Freaks, and Godzilla, and what they suggest about our fears of nuclear research and the transformative effects of radiation on nature and genetics
- Our fascination with dinosaurs
- Mutation
- Artificial intelligence and the rise of the machines
- Criminals and the insane
- Social, cultural, and sexual minorities
- Serial killers and their representation such as in the local television series True Files and in slasher films like Nightmare on Alm Street and Psycho
- Space aliens and the questions of origin
- Ghosts and hauntings
- Victorian fears of degeneration
- The existential crisis
- Inner demons
So, be afraid. . . . Be very afraid!
Objectives
The primary objective of this module is to help students acquire writing and critical thinking skills that will enable them to function effectively and productively in the intellectual environment of the university. The academic essay, which constitutes the main genre that we will learn to write in order to achieve this goal, provides students with transferable writing skills they can bring to their different disciplines. The academic essay also lends itself efficiently to the acquisition of critical thinking practices as it offers students an opportunity to hone their skills of argumentation, rhetorical organization, and persuasion. Hence, we will be writing three essays of progressive length, each developing various aspects of the academic writing process such as close reading, textual analysis and interpretation, deployment of sources, and research incorporation. (Though grammar, syntax, and format are crucial in these writing exercises--issues that we will also pay attention to, our main emphasis is on argumentation and rhetoric.) To further enhance the learning process, there will be instructor-student conferences, multiple drafts of each essay, class presentations, peer reviews, class discussions, and IVLE forums and discussions. These activities also seek to demonstrate the social nature of writing that transcends the individual production of ideas, for the writing of essays is a means of entering into on-going scholarly debates and dialogue on various issues, in our case that of monstrosity. Hence, this turns writing into an exciting activity, particularly in its ability to transform what is often perceived as "mundane" student assignments into lively engagements with the "real" world and its relevant and immediate concerns.
Required Texts
Selected Readings:
Chow, Rey. “Women in the Holocene: Ethnicity, Fantasy, and the Film
The Joy Luck Club.” Ethics After Idealism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1998.
98-112.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Thesis).” Monster
Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota
P, 1996. 3-25.
Doty, Alexander. “‘He’s a Transvestite!’ ‘Ah,
not exactly.’ How Queer Is My Psycho.” Flaming Classics: Queering
the Film Canon. New York: Routledge, 2000. 155-88.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. New York: Vintage, 1988. (excerpts)
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. New York: Routledge, 1991. (excerpts)
Johnson, Barbara. “My Monster/My Self.”
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. New York: Bantam, 1972.
Kearney, Richard. Strangers, Gods, and Monsters: Ideas of Otherness. New York:
Routledge, 2002. (excerpts)
Grady, Frank. “Vampire Culture.” Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. 225-41.
O’Neill, John. “Dinosaurs-R-Us: The (Un)Natural History of Jurassic
Park.” Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis:
U of Minnesota P, 1996. 292-308.
Pingree, Allison. “America’s ‘United Siamese Brothers’:
Chang and Eng and Nineteenth-Century Ideologies of Democracy and Domesticity.” Monster
Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota
P, 1996. 92-114.
Shakespeare, William. Richard III.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.
Wood, Robin. “An Introduction to the American Horror Film.” Movies
and Methods Vol. II. Ed. Bill Nichols. Berkeley: U of California P, 1985.
Films:
All About My Mother, Pedro Almadovar
Gods and Monsters, Bill Condon
The Fly – David Cronenberg
Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock
From Hell – Hughes Brothers
The Hulk, Ang Lee
Max, Menno Meyjes
A. I. – Steven Spielberg
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