SHUM 4604

Original Skin: Reading Skin in Philosophy and Theology

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

This seminar focuses on the question of skin as legible sign or narrative, a reading that resonates within philosophy, theology, and the arts. Philosophers often disembody meaning, but feminist and queer theory have intersected with philosophy to insist on the importance of what is (as Jeanette Winterson writes) "written on the body"—inscribed on and as the skin. In theology, some readings of the Hebrew Bible see skin as a barrier between human and divine; others read skin color as a sign of divine dis/favor; still others worry about wounds and other stigmata. We will look at ways that skin is "marked" as readable, and at modes in which this is valued or disvalued, how it stigmatizes or registers as blank.

When Offered Fall.

Permission Note Enrollment limited to: 15 students. Intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

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