Meets the following requirements: HS   

This course examines the origin and aesthetics of violence in western culture.  We begin with the question:  what are the long-term human effects of a civilization dominated by the image of a murdered god?  We develop the focus on representations of violence in classical and contemporary literature and film.  For theory we read Aristotle's Poetics, Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, Ren, Girard's Violence and the Sacred.  We study classical tragedy (Oedipus Rex, The Bacchae, Medea) along with Shakespeare's Macbeth, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho.  Discussions are supplemented by a film series clarifying the debate over contemporary film violence by placing it in mythic context.  Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Ride the High Country, and Clockwork Orange are among works studied.  Student reports bring us up-to-date on current issues and cases of domestic and serial violence, as well as the politics of censorship, the representation of violence in visual art, the issue of pornography and the myth of the victim hero.  To clarify the issue of real versus represented violence we make a class field trip to the Bangor Auditorium for a professional wrestling match.

Level:  Intermediate.  *HS*