AIP 327 The Body in American Culture: Colonial Period to the Gilded Age (CP, REP, UP)
This interdisciplinary course explores the powerful role of the body in American culture from the Colonial Period to the rise of modernism. It seeks to identify, explore, and debate the various ways in which the American “body” was constructed by political, sociological, religious, scientific, and artistic forces. Sample topics include: the therapeutic practices of Native American healing; the Spanish Conquest of Central America and the widespread destruction of the population via smallpox and other diseases; the Puritan view of witchcraft—the sinful body; the Transcendental body and the influences of Eastern spirituality on America’s first native-born philosophy; the contested identity of the enslaved body in antebellum America; women’s bodies—white bodies and bodies of color—within the American cultural consciousness; the increasingly important role of physical education, especially with regard to women; the liberation of the body during the early modern period through such choreographers as Isadora Duncan, Ruth Saint Denis, and Martha Graham; the politics of the female body as explored by contemporary African-American women artists. We will capitalize on the resources of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and New-York Historical Society. Students will also attend at least one early modern dance performance in New York.