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Instructor Class Description

Time Schedule:

Stacey C. Moran
CHID 390
Seattle Campus

Colloquium in the History of Ideas

Basic theoretical issues in the comparative history of ideas as a disciplined mode of inquiry; examination of representative historical figures and problems. Primarily for majors.

Class description

Course Title: Cyborgs, bugs, and troglodytes: the matter and meaning of metamorphosis

This seminar-style course uses metamorphosis as an analytic to explore the productive inter-relations between discourse and matter, and language and bodies. Kafka turns into a bug, Jekyll morphs into Hyde, and in our posthuman world, we have already become cyborgs. What are we to make of transformations of this kind? Students will read five stories of metamorphosis alongside theoretical texts culled from a variety of academic fields in order to consider not only bodily change, but also broader questions of change and innovation in science and technology, identity and subjectivity, politics and culture. Students will write two essays for the course. Readings include: Ovid, Apuleius, Kafka, Stevenson, Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari, Lakoff and Johnson, Haraway.

Student learning goals

General method of instruction

Recommended preparation

Class assignments and grading


The information above is intended to be helpful in choosing courses. Because the instructor may further develop his/her plans for this course, its characteristics are subject to change without notice. In most cases, the official course syllabus will be distributed on the first day of class.
Last Update by Stacey C. Moran
Date: 05/29/2012