Mar 29, 2024  
Course Catalog 2022-2023 
    
Course Catalog 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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FYSP 177 - The Uncanny in Cross-Cultural Perspective

FC SSCI WINT
4 credits
What is The Uncanny? It is more easily felt than explained: an eerily human automaton, a “liminal space” you could have sworn you’ve been to before, someone who looks just like you quickly disappearing around a corner. For Ernst Jentsch and Sigmund Freud, it was the unheimlich, the feeling that within the familiar and “everyday” there was something deeply buried and disturbing. Something that, if uncovered, could completely rearrange one’s understanding of the world. The Uncanny is a powerful concept in both literature and the social sciences, where it has been used by postcolonial theorists such as Dipesh Chakrabarty to unsettle the grip of Western thought on worlds of diverse and untranslatable ways of knowing. This class will explore The Uncanny as both a horror trope and an opening for cross-cultural critique.



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