120026 AR Eidolon - Chasing the Ideal: Gendered Configurations in Literature, Myth, and Theory (19th - 21st c) (2007W)

Eidolon is the Greek word for "image, idol, double, phantom": in this course we will consider these meanings in the perspective of feminist theory and explore their multilayered application e.g. in psychoanalytical theory (the Imaginary/the vertigo), in literary theory (the image/ the metaphor), in art and theology (the icon/the idol). Special focus is directed on theories of the poststructuralists Jessica Benjamin and Julia Kristeva and their analysis of the ideal's function in patriarchal constructions of gender. Both take up the myth of "Narcissus and Echo" to illustrate that gender is culturally constructed on ideals (of masculinity and femininity) that turn out to be vertigos which free men and limit women.
Within this theoretical framework we will explore literary texts from various genres concentrating on configurations of an ideal which aims to fix, to form, or to transform gender-identities and gender-relations between women and men. We will address issues such as: the ideal configured as man's mirror image in art (the phantom-woman in Browning and Woolf); the construction of a female saviour-ideal through memory - as an icon to define a heterosexual love-relation (James and Pinter); the monstrous potentiality of the ideal emerging in the narcissistic creations of Shelley's male and Spark's female overreacher.

Requirements: regular attendance and portfolio-notes, participation in critical discussions, oral presentation of a chosen topic (10 mins), final written exam.

For further information see: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/melanie.feratova-loidolt