The Politics of Burial

“[H]umanity is not a species,” writes Robert Pogue Harrison, “[i]t is a way of being mortal and relating to the dead. To be human means above all to bury.” Following Harrison, this course considers literary imaginings of death and burial, primarily in novels, short stories, and poetry. We will consider theoretical questions surrounding the unburied, the politics of burial, and biopolitics, whereby some populations are allowed to die while others are made to live. To what extent are death and burial engendered, racialized, nationalized, even digitized? With these questions in mind, we will examine works including Toni Morrison’s Home, Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, Jean Rhyss’ Wide Sargasso Sea, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. We will also consider episodes of Black Mirror in which immortality is purchased, and in some cases coerced, through postmortem digitization.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

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