MCL3001F: Sex from Sappho to Cyber 2008

This section of the course covers the non-explicit or unrealistic representation of sexuality, focusing on fantasy, symbol and metaphor (the vampire in fiction), a brief look at film, and various expressions of sexuality on the Internet. These include issues of identity, play and sexual construction in text-based internet interactions, and the narrative possibilities of on-line fan fiction.

Owing to my other commitments I'm only able to teach this course on a Monday and Tuesday, which is why you have six weeks with two lectures in each; Wilhelm Snyman's section runs concurrently, on the Wednesday and Thursday in the same weeks.

  • 14 April: Introduction
    Unreal sex - fantasy and desire
    The gap between sexuality and representation; representing without representing.
    The sexual act indirectly represented as a different kind of act, or on a different level of reality from that of the physical body.
  • 15 April: Textual/Sexual
    The unreality of sex in literature and film.
    Reading: Calvino, “Definitions of Territories: Eroticism”
  • 21 April: The Vampire.
    The figure of the vampire as a non-real and symbolic expression of sexuality
    Seduction, domination, orgasm as death.
    Social context and the erotic of the forbidden
  • 22 April: The Vampire
    Victorian erotic anxiety
    Reading: Extracts from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sheridan Lefanu's "Carmilla"
  • 28 April: Public holiday, no lecture.
  • 29 April: The Vampire
    Representing women
    Reading: Extract from The Sadeian Woman
  • 5 May: The Postmodern Vampire:
    Reading: "Lady of the House of Love"
  • 6 May: Sex and the Internet.
    The Internet as a forum for expressions of sexuality; identity, play and role-play.
  • 12 May: Internet chat and the MUD.
    Sexual personas, sexuality and identity in chat and other interactive forums.
    Reading: "Very Secret Diary of Saruman the White"
  • 13 May: Internet chat and the MUD
    The reality of the abstract: internet and the body
  • 16 May: ESSAY DUE
  • 19 May: Sexuality and fan-fiction
    Fantasy as wish-fulfilment, the internet as a communal space for exerting textual power.
    Slash and the Mary Sue - transgressive space.
    Reading: "Mortal Instruments"
    (NB please also make sure you’ve also done some Internet browsing and read some random samples of fanfic before these lectures)
  • 20 May: Sexuality and fan-fiction

Return to Jessica's teaching page.