Pathologies of the self

Since the rise of the germ theory of disease in the mid-19th century, being sick has meant being invaded – the integrity of the body violated by hostile microscopic forces.  To vanquish these forces is to be "cured," and "waging war on disease" has become a deeply embedded trope in Western culture: we fight against cancer and diabetes, autism, depression, and even social anxiety, though these conditions have nothing to do with germs.  Rather, they represent a different and perhaps more frightening model of illness - that which originates within the self, through some derangement of the body or mind.  This model poses a deeper threat to the cohesion of the individual and society, since the potential for deviance is always present and impossible to monitor.  In the literature of the 19th and early-20th century these two metaphors are often mixed, resulting in an array of characters - from Sherlock Holmes to Gregor Samsa - who are at war with a part of themselves deemed pathological by society.
 
This course will survey literary and historical representations of these "pathologies of the self," beginning with the question of what constitutes "normalcy" and the role of social and medical authority in designating bodies or behaviors as "pathological."  We will focus on the mind-body problem as it emerges from literature on TB, hysteria, depression, autism, and the contemporary culture of psychopharmaceuticals.  How have writers imagined the origins of the pathological?  How has disease become entangled with identity, both in fiction and in everyday life?  How does the category of mental illness further trouble the distinction between body and mind, physiological and psychological, in the 21st century?
 
Primary readings will be selections from Mann's Magic Mountain, Foucault's Technologies of the Self, and Georges Canguilhem's The Normal and the Pathological.  Additional readings, mostly short articles, can be agreed upon by the class, but will likely include Martha Farah on neuroethics, Joe Dumit’s work on Big Pharma, and chapters from Laura Otis’s Membranes, as well as short stories from Kafka, Schulz, Chekov, and S. Weir Mitchell.  This is a lot of stuff, we will narrow it down based on your interests, hopefully pairing a scholarly article with a work of fiction on most weeks.
 
The structure of the course is not at all a formal 'reading seminar' - you may have read these books already, or not have time to read them all - but rather a creative side-by-side reading of fiction, history, and theory.  Sessions will begin with a short intro and move on to group discussion.  I'm no authority on any of this, so please bring whatever you know or want to know to the table.