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Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (401-0-1)

Topic

Modernism and Medicine

Instructors

Francisco Miguel Caballero Vazquez

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-319: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Modernism and Medicine

This course examines the evolving conceptions of the body and human life shaped by modernist medicine, thought, and aesthetics. Situated within the broader debates on the nature of science from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the course explores how modernism's preoccupation with fragmentation and alienation both reflected and challenged contemporaneous medical discourse. With a transnational approach, we will analyze medical narratives, philosophical essays, and artistic creations on topics that may include eugenics; germ theory (vaccines, discovery of antibiotics); the development of X-ray technology and the illusion of body transparency; the prominence of syphilis and tuberculosis, the emergent medicalization of trans experiences, the rise of psychoanalysis, wartime wounds and mutilations, debates on vitalism, the higyenization of public spaces, hysteria, and the resistance posed by non-Western epistemologies of health.

Learning Objectives

- Evaluate how medical discourse and practices shaped modernist thought and aesthetics.
- Explore the internal debates in science about its methods, the critiques against those methods, and the subsequent configuration of a modernist medicine
- Explore the centrality of experiences related to war and epidemics in modernist works.
- Assess the influence of vitalist philosophies on modernist writers and artists
- Discuss the prominence of non-normative bodies in modernist literature and art, analyzing representations of disability, illness, and gender nonconformity.
- Analyze the critiques of modern subjectivity presented in psychoanalytic theories and their implications for understanding body identity and symptoms in modernist texts.
- Investigate how modern medical technologies prompted debates on new ways of perceiving the body and self.
- Analyze the discourse surrounding control over non-normative sexualities and gender expressions in modernist contexts

Class Materials (Required)

All course materials will be available on Canvas.

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Please contact the department of Spanish & Portuguese to request a permission number, spanish-portuguese@northwestern.edu.