Abjection

“Contemporary literature,” says Kristeva, “propounds … a sublimation of abjection.” Following Kristeva, this course approaches modern literature to think through the questions of the abject and abjection. How does literature aestheticize the debased, the vile, and the expelled? In what ways does the abject disrupt order and threaten borders? What are the mechanisms “by which,” à la Butler, “others become shit”? Can we think of a positive ethics of self-abjection? These will be amongst the questions motivating us, as we revisit some of the masterpieces of world literature and (re)read them through the lens of the abject and abjection. Select texts include but are not limited to works by Shakespeare, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Baldwin, Coetzee, and Pamuk.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

• Group-Satisfying: Arts and Letters
• Multicultural Courses: International Cultures (IC)