GERST 6525

Violence in Literature

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

What are the emotive forces that drive, inform, enable, disrupt, violate or energize narrative structures and the stories we tell? Critics from Sorel, Benjamin, Schmitt, Arendt to Derrida, Zizek and Balibar have elaborated the complex spectrum of violence in theory, literature, philosophy and politics. Topics of discussion include: is violence geared to specific literary genres? What are violent emotions? Can violence ever be positive? Can violence ever be legitimate? What is the relationship between violence, power and cruelty? How can we delineate the semiotics and contexts of violence: from war to medicine, from pain to pleasure? Theoretical texts will be accompanied by literature: Kafka, Kleist, Sebald et al; literatures of war, crisis and uproar.

When Offered Spring.

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