Description: Seminar, three hours. Designed for College Honors students. Exploration of various aspects of pathological human behavior and how they are portrayed in classic literary works. Spans disciplines of comparative literature (French, German, American Gothic, modern, English), medicine/psychiatry, and history. Major themes include fear and oppression; murder and infanticide; despair and suicide; barbarism and repression; hatred and revenge; incest and shame; jealousy and paranoia; madness and psychosis; sociopathy and evil. Elucidation of themes through texts, and discussion of each text in its historical and social context. Examination of pathological behaviors in context of their medical and psychiatric framework when they correspond to clinical diagnostic entity. Texts used as springboard to elaborate on recurrent themes in history of human civilization. P/NP or letter grading.

Units: 0.0