Mutilated Bodies, Mutilated Discourse

4.0 credits

“Mutilated Bodies, Mutilated Discourse”invites students to challenge assumptions as they relate to critical issues of agency, race, class, and representation of the body. The course is a critical investigation of the representation of female genital cutting in both African and Western discourses. The controversy over this practice already begins with the act of its naming. Genital cutting, female circumcision, female genital surgery are the names used to designate what some considered as legitimate ritualized practices while others see them as outdated misogynistic rituals. The course provides an understanding of the contexts in which a fragmented transnational sisterhood allows for a proliferation of mutilation discourses on poor and defenseless bodies.