Comparative Literature 40
Femmes Fatales, Lady Killers, and Babes in Arms... (4 units, LG)
Selby Schwartz
TuTh 9:30-11:00, 182 Dwinelle Hall, CCN: 17281**Note New Seminar Title, Description and Instructor**
Among the most darkly fascinating literary and dramatic characters are the murderesses, whose crimes put them dead center in the debate on sex, gender, violence, and taboo. At center stage, there is Medea’s act of “domestic violence,” a vengeance killing of her own children; closer to the empathies of the audience, Russell Banks’ novel of an accidental schoolbus catastrophe evades snap judgements of blame and justice. The high-heeled crimes of film noir passion can be matched against other intense and disturbing portraits, like Artemesia Gentileschi’s bloody, furious Judith & Holofernes, or Cindy Sherman’s grotesque Fairy Tale photography series.
We will use texts from theater, cinema, dance, poetry, photography, painting, and prose novels to discuss the questions which arise from the intersection of guilt and gender. On the flip side of sex & death, too, we can find humorous and quirky portrayals of the macabre: Arsenic and Old Lace showcases two sweet old ladies with a cellar full of permanent guests, and Foxfire is the wildly careening story of a teenage girl gang. Modern dance plays with classical tragedy when it choreographs newly fluid meaning into the storylines, including gender-switching (Mark Morris’ burly, broad-shouldered Dido) and re-mythicizing (Martha Graham’s visceral Medea).
The ways in which these characters reveal themselves will draw us into very different narrative modes, especially as we explore first-person voices, disjunction & blackout, flashback & premonition, and the unorthodox empathies these tactics induce. We will also stretch the categories in order to look at suicides, at mesmerized or “innocent” murderesses, and at some of the archetypes of destructive female forces-the Indian goddess Kali, the succubus, the siren, and Salomé, among others. In addition, we will discuss the flippant pop attraction of Armed Babes, as it crops up in cult flicks like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill.
Selby Schwartz has enlivened her idiosyncratic graduate program in Comparative Literature and Medieval Studies by teaching classes such as "Ecstatic Bodies," "Striptease and the Text," "Games and Gambling," and "Femmes Fatales." She studies women's voices in medieval Italian and Old Occitan poetry--particularly when those voices are raised in sharp, witty dialogues--and explores their modes of performance and manuscript preservation. Teaching is one of her favorite things to do in the morning; she has been honored with an Outstanding GSI Award from UC Berkeley.
