SLL3001F: Sex from Sappho to Cyber 2009

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.

• 4 May: 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.
  The unreality of sex in literature and film.
  Reading: Calvino, “Definitions of Territories: Eroticism”
• 5 May: The Vampire - sexuality and symbol
  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
• 6 May: The Vampire - Victorian erotic anxiety.
  Reading: Extracts from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sheridan Lefanu's "Carmilla"
• 7 May: The Vampire - representing women
  Reading: Extract from The Sadeian Woman
• 11 May: The Postmodern Vampire:
  Reading: "Lady of the House of Love"
• 12 May: Sex and the Internet.
  The Internet as a forum for expressions of sexuality; identity, play and role-play.
  Reading: "Very Secret Diary of Saruman the White"
• 13 May: Net.sex/Sexblogging
  Sexual personas, sexuality and identity in chat and blogs.
  Reading: please make sure you've done some Internet browsing and read through several months of at least one sex-blog before these lectures.
• 14 May: Sexblogging
  The reality of the abstract: internet and the body
• 15 May: ESSAY DUE
• 18 May: Sexuality and fan-fiction
  Spaces in the canon; validating personal fantasy.
  (NB please also make sure you’ve also done some Internet browsing and read some random samples of fanfic before these lectures)
  Reading: "Mortal Instruments"
• 19 May: Sexuality and fan-fiction
  The Mary Sue - private desires.
  Fantasy as wish-fulfilment.
• 20 May: Sexuality and fan-fiction
  Slash fiction - embracing the homoerotic. Fan fiction and gender dynamics.

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