Course Description:
This generic course is devised to focus on specific topics in the field of sexuality studies each time it is offered. It is designed as such rather than providing a general survey of the field because sexuality studies covers such diverse topics that the survey way of doing it will disperse the students’ attention so much that the course will be more suitable for undergraduate than postgraduate level.
The focus of this semester will be the intriguing connections underlying sex and death. Sidelined in our age when sexuality is celebrated for the pleasure it brings, these connections were in fact well-propagated in the pre-modern time, both in the East and the West. The course will thus start with those traditional views, and then move on to certain contemporary theories that nevertheless dare to look upon such “taboo” issues. It will end with more concrete discussions on specific practices and literary texts that not only illustrate but further complicate the theories developed so far.