Class Syllabus

May 21- June 27

I
Gender

5/23-6/4

II
Violence

6/6-6/11

III
Sexuality

6/13 -



1. Introduction

    Sex and Aggression -- the Biological Background
    (Mon, 5.21)

Quotes
• Maccoby & Jacklin
• Drew Barrymore
•
Camille Paglia
•
Elayne Boosler

A. Biology

Readings
• V, ch. 9, 'The biology of violence.'

Viewings
• * 2001: Monolith Murder
• * Lawnmower Man
• Hollow Man
• * The Birds: Jungle Gym Scene
[See Also Wolf, Wolfen, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde]

Quote
•
Dennis Miller

B. Sex Differences
Readings
• Eleanor Maccoby & Carol Jacklin - 'Summary and conclusions' from The Psychology

of Sex Differences (Stanford, 1974), 349-355.

• Erving Goffman -' Genderisms,' Psychology Today, Aug. 1977, 19-23.
• Simone de Beauvoir - `Introduction' from The Second Sex (Vintage,1974), xv-xxiv.

• (optional) Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice (Portia's courtroom scene).

Viewing
• Victor/Victoria

*Tootsie.

 

I. GENDER


2. Psychological Theories: Learning and Development
(1.31)

A. Roles
Readings
• Carol Gilligan - 'Woman's place in man's life cycle,' Harvard Educational Review,

1979.

• William Pollack - `Inside the world of boys: Behind the mask of masculinity'

from Lost Boys: Rescuing our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood (Holt 1998), 3-19.

Viewings
•
* Something Wild
•
*Tootsie 
•
* Forces of Nature
• *Rebecca (no video)
• We Remember Marilyn
[See also Forces of Nature]

Quotes
•
L. Tiefer
•Chrissie Hynde

B. Learning

Readings
• Janet Sayers - from Sexual Contradictions (Routledge 1992)

Viewings
• River Runs Through It [Plot Summary]
• Shine [Plot Summary]
• * Boys Don't Cry [Fight in bar] 
• * Boyz 'n the Hood

C. Development
Readings
• Lawrence Kohlberg & Dora Ullian - 'Stages in psychosexual roles.'
• (optional) John Broughton - `Women's rationality and men's virtues,'

Social Research, 1983.

Viewings
•
Alice in Wonderland
• Tumbleweeds
• * Welcome to the Dollhouse [Rape Threat, Rape Threat Part 2]

3. Psychoanalytic Theories: Freud and Lacan
(Wed, 5.30)

A. Freud
Readings
• Sigmund Freud - `On the consequences of some anatomical differences

between the sexes,' S.E.

• Karen Horney - 'The flight from womanhood: the masculinity-

complex in women as viewed by men and women' from Feminine Psychology (Norton 1967), 54-70.

• (optional) Janet Sayers - `Freudian theory,' from Sexual Contradictions.
• (optional) John Hesley & Jan Hesley - `What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' from
Rent Two Films and Call Me in the Morning (Wiley 1998), 157-160.

Viewings
• *What's Eating Gilbert Grape [Gilbert's Family , Store in Trouble , Cheating Heart ]
• Bagdad Cafe [Whoring daughter]
• *Boogie Nights (no audio) [Dirk's Bedroom]
• *Welcome to the Dollhouse [Grade Grubbing]
• *Little Odessa 
• *Affliction
• *The Grifters 
• * The Birds [ Mother's Approval]
• "Sopranos" III-10

Quote
• Karen Horney

B. Lacan
Readings
• Jacques Lacan - `The meaning of the phallus,' from Juliet Mitchell & Jacqueline

Rose (eds.), Feminine Sexuality (Norton 1983).

• Janet Sayers - `Lacanian perspectives' from Sexual Contradictions

(Tavistock, 1986), 79-96.

• (optional) William J.Richardson's paraphrase of the Lacan article
• (optional) SM: `Asserting phallic mastery,' and `The limits of Lacan,'

SM, 83-103 & 89-94.

Viewing
• * Parenthood
• * Mulan
•
* Robocop
•Lawn Dogs
•* High Art [Change of Plans , Lucy's Apartment]
•
sex, lies and videotape [Conversation in bar]
• Capadonna MTV Video

Quote
• Client in psychoanalytic therapy

NO CLASS on MEMORIAL DAY

4. Jung and Object Relations Theory
(Mon, 6.4)

A. Jung
Readings
• Carl Jung - `The syzygy: animus and anima,' from The Portable Jung
(Viking, 1971),148-162.
• Susan Pollack & Carol Gilligan - 'Images of violence in TAT test stories,'

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982, 42 (1), 159-167.

Viewings
•
*Something Wild (Abducted by Luln)
• Julia
• Victor/Victoria

B. Klein
Reading
• Gillian Skirrow - Hellivision (gender and fantasy in video games. In Colin McCabe

(ed.), High Theory/Low Culture (Manchester, 1986), 115-142.

Viewings
• Alien
• Army of Darkness
• * Fantastic Voyage

C. Chodorow
Readings
• Nancy Chodorow - 'Oedipal asymmetries and heterosexual knots,' Social Inquiry,

1976, 4, 454-468.

• (optional) Janet Sayers - 'Post-Freudian psychoanalysis' from

Sexual Contradictions (Tavistock 1986), 33-78.

Viewings
• Tumbleweeds
• Anywhere But Here
• *Boogie Nights (no audio) [ Dirk and Mother]
• Exotica
• High Art
• * sex, lies and videotape

II. VIOLENCE


Quotes
•
Rawley Silver
•John Dollard
• Donald Winnicott
• Carl Jung
• Karen Horney
• Melanie Klein
• Selma Fraiberg
• Langston Huges
• Christopher Huvos
• Michel Serres
• Robin Morgan
• Stephen King

5. Psychological and Psychodynamic Approaches
(Wed, 6.6)

Readings
• Albert Bandura & Gerald Walters - from Social Learning and Development
• Jean Laplanche & J.-B.Pontalis `Aggressiveness' from The Language of

Psychoanalysis (1973), 17-21.

• Donald Winnicott - `Aggression in relation to emotional development' (1950-55) in

Through Pediatrics to Psychoanalysis (Brunner/Mazel, 1992).

• John Broughton - "JFa" interview.

• (optional) Daniel Clowes - Ghost World (comic book).
• (optional) John Broughton - `Theses on violence' (unpubd).

Viewing
• * Hope and Glory
• * Raging Bull 
• * Psycho (Shower scene)

6. Aggression and Gender
(Mon, 6.11)

Readings
• William Shakespeare - Othello, Act , Scene 2.
• Timothy Beneke - `Rapist: Chuck' from Men on Rape (St Martins, 1982), 71-81.
• William Pinar - 'The gender of violence' from The Gender of Racial Politics and

Violence in America (Land 2001), 815-824.

• Jessica Benjamin - 'Rational violence and erotic domination,' Feminist

Studies, 1980, 6 (1).

• Ginger Goldner, Peggy Penn, Marcia Sheinberg & Gillian Walker - "A feminist

relational view of battering" (from `Love and violence: gender paradoxes in volatile attachments' in Mary Gergen & Sara Davis (eds.), Toward a New Psychology of Gender, pp.575-60 (Routledge, 1996), pp.575-579 optional.

• Review "JFa" material
• (optional) Jean Baker Miller & Janet Surrey `Rethinking women's anger' in Judith

Jordan (ed.), Women's Growth in Diversity (Guilford 1997), 199-216.

• (optional) Royster murder reports, New York Times
• (optional) John Broughton -Interview re `Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' 12/98.
• (optional) Pinar - 'Straight men rape women' and 'Straight men rape men,' ibid.,

834-847.

Viewing
(Female Rape)

•
Clockwork Orange
• The Accused
• *Welcome to the Dollhouse [Rape Threat Part I, Rape Threat Part II ]
• Marnie
• * Basic Instinct

(Male Rape)

•
Deliverance
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Boys Don't Cry

(Abuse)

•What's Love Got To Do With It
• Godfather 2

(Aggression)

•
Girl, Interrupted
•
 Something Wild
• Spellbound (Hitchcock)
• * Thelma and Louise (Scott) [Explosion, Pulled Over]
•
What Planet Are You From? (Mike Nichols 2000).

Quotes
•
Tina Turner
• NWA
• Adam Jukes
• Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo & Michael Messner
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer
• Jean Baudrillard
• Othello
• James Gilligan
• P.J. Harvey

III. SEXUALITY

 

Quotes
• John Ashbery
• Joan Riviere
• Kenneth Burke
• Jack Nicholson
• New York Times
• Kaia Wilson

7. Masculinity: Straight or Gay
(Wed, 6.13)

Readings

• 'Homophobia and the fear of unmanliness,' SM, 16-22.

• Ronin Ro - 'All they found was his wallet,' and 'Mom, one day I'm

gonna live in ahouse with a second storey,' from Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records (Doubleday 1998), 1-20.

•William Pinar - 'Boy culture during the lynching era,' Homophobia,'

'Black men: A crisis of black masculinity?,' 'Black masculinity today,' Demasculinized superstuds,' and 'Compulsive masculinity,' from Gender of Racial Politics and Violence in America (Lang 2001), 384-390, 848-860, 876-888, & 906-923.

•William Pinar - 'The crisis of white masculinity,' 'The end of

romantic friendship,'and 'Hysteric white men,' from The Gender of Racial Politics and Violence in America (Lang 2001), 321-348 & 411-416.

• (optional) John Broughton - `Anality and gender in the Gulf War' (unpubd.)

Viewings

(Macho)

•
* Affliction
• * Star Wars
• * The Quick and the Dead
• *Robocop 
• *Gladiator
• * Three Kings 
• *The Cell
• *Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex

(Sexism)
•
La Strada
•
Lulu
•*
Reservoir Dogs
•
Celebration
•
* The Sweet Life
• *
Journey to the Center of the Earth
• * Thelma and Louise [Explosion]
• * What Planet Are You From? (not available)
• Wayne's Word
• * Nurse Betty
• Beyond the Clouds
• Bridget Jones' Diary
• G.I. Jane
• Who's Talking Now?
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex

(Competition)
• Keeping the Faith

(Homophobia)
• American Beauty
• Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
• * Boys Don't Cry
• Before Night Falls
• Looking for Mr Goodbar
• Hate, Homophobia and Schools

(Homosocial)

• Ken Russell - Women in Love
• Ridley Scott - Bladerunner
• Martin Scorsese - Raging Bull, Casino
• Smoke
• Interview with the Vampire (Jordan)
•
* Gladiator

(Gay)
• Poison
• Pulp Fiction
• Happiness
• Heidi Chonicles
• Edward 2
• Before the Night Falls
• Maurice
• Live and Die in L.A.
• The Trial of Oscar Wilde
• Peter's Friends
• Unzipped
• * Rock Hudson's Home Movies
• * Velvet Goldmine
• Wings of Desire

 

8. Heterosexism and Female Homosexuality
( )

Readings
• Wilhelm Reich - `Compulsive heterosexuality,' from Sex-Pol (1936), 34-39.
• Adrienne Rich - `Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence'

in Ann Snitow (ed.), Powers of Desire (Monthly Review Press,1983), 177-205.

• Judith Butler - 'Imitation and gender insubordination', from Diana Fuss (ed.),

Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories/Gay Theories (Routledge, 1991), 637-648.

• (optional) Diane Diasse - Hothead Paisan
• SM, 134-167
Review Daniel Clowes - Ghostworld.

Viewings


(Codependency)
• All in the Family
• Keeping the Faith
• Nurse Betty
• Bridget Jones' Diary

(Reverse Sexism)
• Great Expectations
• Disclosure

(Reich)
• Visit to Organon

(Lesbian)
• Boy's Don't Cry
• Being John Malkovich
• *High Art [Change of Plans , Lucy's Apartment]
• Bound
• * Heavenly Creatures
• Relax, It's Only Sex (P.J. Castellaneta, 1999)
• * Chasing Amy
• Mercy
• Sirens
• Friends and Neighbors (Ben Stiller/Catherine Keener)

(Homosocial)
• Glengary Glen Ross
• * Pulp Finction
• * Reservoir Dogs
• Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer
• Deliverance
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Quotes
• Disneyana
• Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
• E. Bene
• Ellen Degeneres

IV. VIOLATIONS & TRANSGRESSIONS

 

Quotes
• Lennon/McCartney
• Kenneth Burke
• Marianna LaFrance
• Wallace Stevens
• Judith Butler

9. Identity Conflict, Gender Instability, and Heterosexual Failure
( )

Readings
• Amina Mama - 'Psychodynamics' in adult subjectivity' and 'Black femininity' from

Behind the Masks (Routledge 1996), 188-204 (168-187 optional).

•Klaus Thewelweit - 'Foreword' (Barbara Ehrenreich) from Male Fantasies, Vol. 1

(Minnesota 1987), xvii-xxii, and 'Battle and the body' from Male Fantasies, Vol. 2 (Minnesota 1989), 176-223

• Carol Clover - 'Her body, himself: gender in the slasher film,' from

Men, Women and Chainsaws.

• Geoffrey Hartmann - 'Decline in "North by Northwest"
• William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice.
• (optional) John Broughton = 'Theses on violence' (unpubd)

Viewings

(Hetero failure)

• Chicken run
• Pelican Brief
• The Cell
• The Sopranos (III-10)
• Wings of Desire
• What Planet Are You From?
• American Beauty
• Strangers on a Train
• Viewing (Cross-dress)
• Pee Wee's Great Adventure
• Wind in the Willows
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex
• Dressed to Kill
• Silence of the Lambs

(Transgender)
• Myra Breckenridge
• Year of 13 Moons (Fassbinder)
• Juggling Gender (Tami Gold, 1992)
• Priscillia: Queen of the Desert
• Paris is Burning
• Kiss of the Spider Woman
• * Silence of the Lambs (Demme) (not available)
• * Tootsie (Pollack)
• Year of Living Dangerously
•Glen and Glenda
•
Victor/Victoria

(Intersex)
• ET
• Androgynous Pat

(Betrayal)
• The Crying Game (funfair)
• Betrayal
• Silent Rapture

(Slasher)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• I Spit on Your Grave

Scenes: Bisexual

Basic Instinct (Verhoeven); Sunday, Bloody Sunday; Nowhere; Heavenly Creatures; Chasing Amy; Velvet Goldmine

Scenes: Transgender

Rocky Horror Picture Show (Tim Curry); Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Steve Oederkerk); World According to Garp; Twin Peaks; Boogie Nights; Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (Allen); Total Recall (Verhoeven); Pee Wee's Great Adventure (Burton); Just Like a Woman (Fassbinder); Kiss of the Spider Woman; The Holy City and Santa Sangre (Jodorowski); The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (black man finds inner woman, 1.08).

V. CULTURAL VIOLENCE

Quotes

• Michael Hoffman
•
Marcuse
•
Robert Paul Wolff
•
Philip Abrams
•
C. Wright Mills
•
Hannah Arendt
•
R. Slotkin
•
Abdul Jabbar Muhsin
•
Ella Sharpe
•
David Caroll
•
Celeste Olalquiaga
•
Blanchot
•
J.W. Fulbright
•
V. Propp

10. Gender and Violence in the Media (Mon, 6.18)
Readings

• Jyotsna Kapur - 'Out of control: television and the transformation of childhood in late capitalism,'

in Marsha Kinder (ed.), Kids' Media Culture (Duke 1999), 122-136.

• Slavoj Zizek - 'The thing from inner space,' in Renata Salecl (ed.) - Sexuation (Duke 2000),

216-240 & 255-258.

• Andrew Ross - 'The gangsta and the diva,' from Nicholas Mirzoeff (ed.), Visual Culture

Reader (Routledge 1998), 344-349.

• Review of Goffman's 'Genderisms' from sex roles readings, above

• (optional) Eliot Daley - 'Is TV brutalizing your child?' Look, 1969, Dec. 2nd, reprinted in David

Riley (ed.), Freedom of Dilemma: Critical Readings in the Mass Media (Scott Foresman 1970), 50-54.


Viewing

(VGs and VR)

• Mortal Kombat
• Strange Days
• Ghost in the Machine
• Virtuosity

(Effects on children)

• Hope and Glory
• Witness
• The Beach
• Forbidden Games

(Mean World)

• Peter Pan
• Jungle Book
• Mulan
• Bearenstain Bears Learn About Strangers
• * Welcome to the Dollhouse (don't talk to strangers lecture) [Grade Grubbing, Rape Threat Part I , Rape Threat Part II, Spitball ]
• Driver's Ed Scare Films, Vol. 1 (0.02).

Quotes
• Protesters picketing Time Warner to protest "Cop Killer"
• Chrissie Hynde

11. Schools, Gender and Violence (Wed, 6.20)
Readings
• Jane Kenway & Sue Willis - 'Power' from Answering Back: Girls, Boys and Feminism in the

Schools (Routledge 1998), 96-113.

• Jennifer Pastor, Jennifer McCormick, & Michelle Fine - 'Makin homes: an urban girl thing,'

in Bonnie Leadbeater & Niobe Way (eds.), Urban Girls (NYUP), 15-34.

• Pierre Bourdieu - 'Preventing and producing violence: a critical analysis of responses to

school violence,' Harvard Educational Review, 1995 65 (2), 189-212.

Viewing
• The Meaning of Life (Pt 2: 'Growth and Development' - domination of wife, via domination of students to waging war)
• Dangerous Minds
• Dead Poets Society
• * Welcome to the Dollhouse [Grade Grubbing , Rape Threat Part I , Rape Threat Part II , Spitball ]
• If...
• * Basketball Diaries
• Free (Susan Cowles)
• Hate, Homophobia, and Schools

Quotes
•
Jules Henry
• Anna Freud & Dorothy Burlingham
• Third Eye Blind

 

Presentation of Final Papers