INQ-270 | Men/Women/Monsters

Full Title: Men, Women, and Monsters: Gender as Identity in the Ancient World

Topic Description:

In this course we will examine the formation of gender identity and anxiety through a variety of works representing pre-modern cultures. Fields of study represented include literature, music, religion, philosophy, art, and history, and the cultures we will encounter include ancient Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as medieval Europe, Japan, and India. Our studies will focus on how the works we examine use gender to create and express categories of social and sexual identity yet at the same time both emphasize and distort those categories with the addition of the monstrous. Students will be asked to confront and evaluate the questions and conundrums raised by these works, consider ways the artists tried to answer these questions, and determine why these questions are relevant to their lives today.

Counts as Global? Yes

Topic Approved: April 2010