The objective of this seminar is to explore the modalities of violence in a range of forms and contexts. We will explore how violence, and its representation, function as a site where our relations with ourselves, our relations with others, and our interactions with society can be productively, and creatively, revised.

We will begin our discussion of violence and representation with Catherine Chalmers' photography and video exhibition, "Executions."  Chalmers works with insects and animals (in this case, cockroaches), to encourage human beings to explore our relationships with the beings with whom we share our planet.

Section 1: A history of Violence

POWER: Franz Kafka's “In the Penal Colony” (1919) focuses on the description of a gruesome and slow execution device. This story will give us the opportunity to reflect on state-sanctioned violence, the role of writing, and the function of the body. 

TRAUMA: Alain Resnais' acclaimed 1959 film focuses on a love affair between a Frenchwoman and a Japanese man, each of whom was traumatized by the events of WWII. This film will give us the opportunity to discuss how historical violence demands and eludes representation and how trauma drives people together and apart.

TESTIMONY: The Nat Turner insurrection of 1831 was the bloodiest slave revolt in American history. "It was hardly in the power of rumor itself, to exaggerate the atrocities which have been perpetrated by the insurgents: whole families, father, mother, daughters, sons, sucking babes, and school children, butchered, thrown in heaps, and left to be devoured by hogs and dogs, or to putrify on the spot," reported a witness. The leader of the insurrection, Nat Turner, was captured and imprisoned, where he was interviewed by Thomas R. Gray, a white man, who published the "Confessions" in 1831.

We will never know what went on between the black rebel leader and the white journalist. Each had their motives: Turner's, in speaking; Gray, in writing. Close analysis of this historical document will help us see the stakes that went into constructing this testimony. 

Section 2: Violence Between Fantasy and Reality

AESTHETICS: Maus II: And here my troubles began is the second volume of Art Spiegelman's acclaimed graphic novel, Maus, in which the author portrays himself interviewing his father about his experience in the Holocaust. In this, second, volume, Art reflects on the implications of telling his father's story of survival. The graphic novel medium demands that we reflect on each element of Spiegelman's artistry: what shape the words have, how big the images are, how they are set against a background (or not).

IDENTITY: William Styron's novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, published in 1967, was met by great acclaim in the literary establishment. At the time, the Nat Turner insurrection was not well known, and many felt that Styron had shed welcome light on this historical event by bringing it to life with his prose.  However, some scholars felt that by telling the story of the insurrection, and by writing in the first-person, Styron had stolen an important part of Black history and identity. In the context of recent revelations of white people who pass as Black (Rachel Dolezal and, more recently, Jessica A. Krug), the violence of appropriating an other's story, history, and experience remains a timely and vexed topic.

VIOLENCE ON SCREEN: First published in The Village Voice in 1993, Dibbell's account of the events in a multi-player computer game or MUD called LambdaMoo raises questions about the reality of violence in the virtual world.

Section 3: Test Case: Violent Fiction 

AMERICAN PSYCHO: THE NOVEL, THE CONTROVERSY, THE FILM American Psycho, the third novel by author Bret Easton Ellis, has been described as one of the most violent novels ever published. The novel earned its author death threats and remains notorious for its descriptions of rape, torture murder, mutilation, cannibalism, sexism, homophobia, and racism. It is also very funny.  

Section 4: Violence: Interdisciplinary Contexts

Working in groups, you will test the concepts explored in this class and extend them to a range of contexts that you choose with members of your group.