AN5450 Fall 2011
Instructor: Dr. Bilinda Straight
Moore Hall 1001; Tel: 387-0409
email: Bilinda DOT straight AT wmich.edu
Web Page: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bstraigh
Pain, Ecstasy, Touch and Culture
To be sensuous is to suffer (Karl Marx)
Pain – has an Element of Blank –
It cannot recollect
When it begun – or if there were
A time when it was not –
It has no Future – but itself –
Its Infinite contain
Its Past – enlightened to perceive
New Periods – of Pain.
(Emily Dickinson)
Here is the secret: the end is an animal.
Here is the secret: the end is an animal growing by
accretion, image by image, vote by
vote. No more pain hums the air,
as the form of things
shall have fallen
from thee, no more pain, just the here and the now, the jackpot, the
watching, minutes exploding like thousands of silver dollars all over your
face your hands but tenderly, almost tenderly, turning mid-air, gleaming,
so slow, as if it could last,
frame after frame of nowhere
turning into the living past
(Jorie Graham)
Since the 1980s anthropology has been increasingly focused on bodies, materiality, sensuousness, and the gritty stuff of lived being-in-the-world. In this course, we will survey an eclectic group of readings about pain (including where it crosses with pleasure) historically and cross-culturally. The possibilities for this topic are so diverse that this course leaps unapologetically temporally and geographically in an effort to take creative comparative risks. We will begin with the nearly ubiquitous assertion that pain (and pleasure) are inscrutable, unrepresentable, and inaccessible to witnesses even as they are undeniable to those who experience them. This has made pain and pleasure rich themes for literature and the arts, philosophically and metaphysically provocative for religious traditions, and intransigent problems for medical sciences. How do individuals and social groups assign meaning to pain? How do painÕs meanings change over time? How do we represent the unrepresentable and what are the ethical imperatives that demand, constrain, or deny painÕs (or pleasureÕs) representation?
Required
Course Readings
Melanie Thernstrom. 2010. The
Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans,
Healing, and the Science of Suffering. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Articles downloadable as indicated or available through WMU Libraries
e-reserves. For downloadable articles, you will need to log into the university
proxy server with your Bronco ID unless you are on campus on a university
computer. E-reserve course password is ÔpainÕ (of course).
Grading (See Grading Key for complete
instructions)
Attendance/Participation 15% Discussion
Board 20%
Class
Facilitation 10%
Preliminary
Bibliography 20% Final
Essay 30%
Attendance/Participation
(15% of grade): In a class of this kind and size, your presence
and participation are essential to the quality of the experience for others as
well as yourself. Your attendance grade will be based on the number of days you
are absent, calculated as points missed on a one-hundred percent scale.
e-learning
Discussions (20% of grade). Each week, you will write approximately 150-300
words summarizing the weekÕs readings, which you will post to the elearning
Discussion Board no later than 8 AM Monday morning (you can post any time up
until then, including the weekend, the middle of the night, etc.). Then,
between Monday at 8AM and Tuesday at NOON, you will post a comment of
approximately 150-300 words that engages with at least one fellow studentÕs
summaries. Your summaries should summarize main points and demonstrate you have
read all readings. It is encouraged, but not required, to raise a question for
consideration in class.
Preliminary
Bibliography (20% of grade): This will be an essay and annotated
bibliography of sources you are using in your paper. Begin with an introduction that includes the thesis statement or
argument you will be pursuing in your paper. Discuss the kinds of material
(essays, books, popular media, local fieldwork you will use to pursue your
argument. Next, provide a one-paragraph summary for each of 4 or 5 sources, and a sentence or two of how they should be
useful to your paper. Include full bibliographic information for each of
these sources. Course readings should be used for your paper where
appropriate but do not count towards this assignment. You must use at least
one book. Web sources are not allowed (except for downloaded articles from
scholarly journals available online). If your topic is on something on the
internet itself (following chat rooms on a particular topic, or analysis of
online media) this is your data, not your bib sources.
Class
Facilitation (10% of grade): Each student will contribute to the liveliness
of one weekÕs class discussion by bringing in ÔsomethingÕ that complements
and/or illuminates that weekÕs readings. This could be an illustrated fact, an
image, a film clip, a text clip, and so on. Bring it in on a thumb drive so it
can be overhead for everyoneÕs viewing. A sign-up sheet will pass around on the
first and second days of class.
Final Essay
(35% of grade): This will be a 10-12 page research essay for
undergraduates, 15 pages for graduate students. (I will read up to 20 pages.)
It can be on a topic of your choice, but must be relevant to the course
readings. If you have difficulty in coming up with a topic, please feel free to
see me. Include a bibliography for anything you cite. When you cite, quote, or
paraphrase in text, put an in-text citation in parentheses (authorÕs last name,
date, page number if a direct quote).
It looks like this: (Straight 1997) for citation or paraphrase,
(Straight 1997: 37) for direct quote. You should always cite when you are
drawing upon someoneÕs research or ideas. If you conduct any of your own
interviews, you should create pseudonyms for your respondents and cite
quotations from those interviews like this (Miller interview, 2002).
Late Work: NO LATE
WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED—(any exceptions made for documented reasons will be
docked one letter grade).
Academic
Integrity: You are responsible for making yourself aware of and understanding
the policies and procedures in the Undergraduate Catalog (pp. 268-269)/Graduate
Catalog (pp. 26-27) that pertain to academic integrity. These policies include
cheating, fabrication, falsification and forgery, multiple submission,
plagiarism, complicity and computer misuse. If there is reason to believe you
have been involved in academic dishonesty, you will be referred to the Office
of Student Conduct. You will be given the opportunity to review the charge(s).
If you believe you are not responsible, you will have the opportunity for a hearing.
You should consult with me if you are uncertain about an issue of academic
honesty prior to the submission of an assignment or test.
Bilinda
StraightÕs
Grading
Key
All quantitative semester grades are multiplied by the percentage of
the spread they represent. Thus, if you have a 90 on attendance/participation,
multiplied by 20% of the spread, gives you 18. All grades thus calculated are
added together to equal the total percentage out of one hundred. Your semester
grade is then calculated as per the key below. Using this key and instructions,
you can keep track of your own grade as the semester progresses, but always
feel free to ask me for assistance in calculating it.
Grade Scale for Final Grades
97-100 A+
94-96 A
87-93 BA
84-86 B
77-83 CB
74-76 C
67-73 DC
60-66 D
below 60 E
Course Schedule
Week 1 (9/6) INTRODUCTION AND SYLLABUS
Week 2 (9/13) ENGAGING THE SENSES
Duke Madenfort (1975)
The Arts and Relating to One Another in Sensuous Immediacy. Art Education
28(4): 18-22. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192027
David Howes (2003) Chapter 2, Coming to Our Senses: The Sensual Turn in Anthropological Understanding. Pp. 29-58 In Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Available as ebook in WMU Libraries (https://catalog.library.wmich.edu/vufind/Record/2288368).
Paul Stoller (1997) Chapter 1, The SorcererÕs Body. Pp. 4-23
In Sensuous Scholarship.
Philadelphia: University of Pennyslvania Press. E-reserve. GN345.S851997
Week 3 (9/20) SKIN HISTORIES, DIVINING
APPEARANCES
Nina G. Jablonski. (2004) The Evolution
of Human Skin and Skin Color. Annual
Review of Anthropology 33: 585-623. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064866
Groebner,
Valentin. 2004. ÒComplexio/Complexion: Categorizing Individual Natures,
1250-1600.Ó
Pp. 361-383 In Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal (eds.) The Moral
Authority
of Nature.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. E-reserve. BD581.M78
2004
Alison Shaw (2003) Interpreting Images:
Diagnostic Skill in the Genetics Clinic. The Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 9(1): 39-55.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3134753
Week 4 (9/27) READING CUTS
Enid Schildkrout (2004) Inscribing the
Body. Annual Review of Anthropology
33: 319-344. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064856
Rachel Gear (2001) All Those Nasty Womanly Things: Women
Artists, Technology and the Monstrous-Feminine. WomenÕs Studies International Forum 24(3/4): 321-333. To access,
log into the library system. Go to: doi:10.1016/S0277-5395(01)00184-4
Then paste in this permanent link: doi:10.1016/S0277-5395(01)00184-4
Katharine Park (2006) Chs 1 and 2, Secrets of Women. Gender,
Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection. Pp. 39-120. New York: Zone
Books. E-reserve QM33.4.P37 2006
Week 5 (10/4) THE PLEASURES OF TOUCH
Elizabeth Harvey (2011) The Portal of Touch. The American Historical Review 116(2): 385-400. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ahr.116.2.385
Yi-Fu Tuan (2005) The Pleasures of Touch. Pp. 74-81 In Constance Classen (ed) The Book of Touch. Berg. E-reserve.
Penelope Deutscher (2005) Desiring Touch in Sartre and Beauvoir. Pp. 102-105 In Constance Classen (ed) The Book of Touch. Berg. E-reserve.
Week 6 (10/11) SACRED PLEASURES AND PAINFUL ECSTASIES Pt. 1
Caroline Walker Bynum (1987) Chapter 9, Woman as Body and as Food. Pp. 260-276 In Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press. E-reserve. BR 253 .B96 1987.
Rachel Wheeler (2003). Women and
Christian Practice in a Mahican Village. Religion
and American Culture: A Journal of Center for the Study of Religion and
American Culture 13(1): 27-67. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rac.2003.13.1.27
Liza Bakewell (1993) Frida Kahlo: A
Contemporary Feminist Reading. Frontiers:
A Journal of WomenÕs Studies 13(3): 165-198. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346753
Week 7 (10/18) SACRED PLEASURES
AND PAINFUL ECSTASIES Pt. 2
James A. Benn (1998) Where Text Meets
Flesh: Burning the Body as an Apocryphal Practice in Chinese Buddhism. History
of Religions 37(4): 295-322. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176400
Ira Konigsberg (1997) ÒThe Only ÔIÕ in
the WorldÓ: Religion, Psychoanalysis, and ÒThe DybbukÓ. Cinema Journal 36(4):
22-42. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225611
Zeb Tortorici (2007) Masturbation,
Salvation, and Desire: Connecting Sexuality and Religiosity in Colonial Mexico.
Journal of the History of Sexuality 16(3): 355-372. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30114188
Week 8 (10/25) THEORIZING SACRED AND
RITUAL PAIN
Ariel Glucklich (1998) Sacred Pain and
the Phenomenal Self. The Harvard Theological Review 91(4): 389-412. Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509857
Maureen Flynn (1996) The Spiritual Uses
of Pain in Spanish Mysticism. Journal of the American Academy of Religion
64(2): 257-278. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1466102
Michael Houseman (1998) Painful Places:
Ritual Encounters with OneÕs Homelands. Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute 4(3): 447-467. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3034156
Week 9 (11/1) PORNOGRAPHY OF PAIN, PAIN
AND PORNOGRAPHY
Dianne Chisholm (1997) Obscene
Modernism: Eros Noir and the Profane Illumination of Djuna Barnes. American Literature 69(1): 167-206.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928172
Karen Halttunen (1995) Humanitarianism
and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-American Culture. The American Historical Review 100(2): 303-334. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2169001
Week 10 (11/8) TORTURE
E. Valentine Daniel. (1993) Chapter 5, Embodied Terror. Pp. 135-153 In Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropology of Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ebook: http://site.ebrary.com.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/lib/wmichlib/docDetail.action?docID=10035863
Diane Marie Amann (2005) Abu Ghraib. University of Pennysylvania Law Review 153(6): 2085-2141. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4150658
W.J.T. Mitchell. (2005) The Unspeakable and the Unimaginable: Word and Image in a Time of Terror. ELH 72(2): 291-308. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029975
Jeremy Waldron (2005) Torture and
Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House. Columbia Law Review 105(6):
1681-1750. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4099502
Week 11 (11/15) PAIN, WAR, TRAUMA
Elaine Scarry (1985) Injury and the Structure of War. Representations 10: 1-51. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043799
Arlene Stein (2009) ÒAs Far as They Knew I Came From FranceÓ: Stigma, Passing, and Not Speaking About the Holocaust. Symbolic Interaction 32(1): 44-60. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.2009.32.1.44
Michael Nutkiewicz (2003) Shame, Guilt, and Anguish in Holocaust Survivor Testimony. The Oral History Review 30(1): 1-22. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3675348
Week 12 (11/22) THEORIZING THE BODY IN
PAIN
Elaine Scarry (1985) Introduction. Pp. 3-23 In The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University Press. E-reserve. BJ1409.S35
Esther Cohen (2000) The Animated Pain of the Body. The American Historical Review 105(1): 36-68. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2652434
Cassandra Crawford (2009) From Pleasure
to Pain: The Role of the MPQ in the Language of Phantom Limb Pain. Social Science & Medicine 69:
655-661. To access, log in to WMU Libraries, go to: http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/
and paste in: doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.02.022
Week 13 (11/29) THE BODY IN PAIN:
REPRESENTING THE UNREPRESENTABLE
Elizabeth Klaver (2004) A
Mind-Body-Flesh Problem: The Case of Margaret EdsonÕs ÒWitÓ. Contemporary
Literature 45(4): 659-683. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3593545
Melanie Thernstrom The Pain Chronicles. Read about the first half.
Week 14 (12/6) THE BODY IN PAIN: LIVING
WITH PAIN
Lynn Schlesinger (1996) Chronic Pain,
Intimacy, and Sexuality: A Qualitative Study of Women Who Live With Pain. The Journal of Sex Research 33(3):
249-256. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813585
Arthur Kleinman (1988) Chronic Pain: The Frustrations of
Desire. Pp. 88-99 In The Illness
Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition. New York: Basic
Books. E-learning. RC108.K571988
Melanie Thernstrom The Pain Chronicles. Read the rest.
Week 15 (12/13) EXAM WEEK. First half of exam period: Continued Discussion of Thernstrom. Second half: Expressing the Inexpressible, problems in subjectivity, writing, and practice.