Additional Topics or Ideas for Final Project Groups

Theoretical approaches

• Working further with Butler on gender/body
• Working further with Foucault on history of sexuality
• Working further with other body theories in history or culture (Thomas Laquer on the Making of Sex in early modern Europe, for example

Genres

• Work further with any of the genres studied esp. stories, jokes, myths, dress, adornment, gesture in drama...
• Superstitions
• Ballads
• Folksongs
• Tales

  of a particular culture

  of a particular teller

  comparative themes, motifs

   

• Myths

  Medusa

  Changing sex, gender in South Asian lore

   

• Creation myths
• Personal legends and stories (abortion stories, childbirth stories, operation stories, maltreatment stories, lost limbs, miracles; orthodontia; Dream stories; first-time stories about menstruation, etc.)
• Doll-lore

  Barbie lore

   

• Proverbs
• Riddles
• Folk Remedies
• Folk games, folk pastimes

Children's learning body parts games

Children's hand-clapping games

Jump rope rhymes

• Lore associated with Sports (weigh-lifting; practices)
• Children's songs, dirty songs
• Divinations (predicting sex of baby)
• Dance
• Body tricks
• Masks
• Etiquette regarding body

  Taboos on use of various body parts for certain activities (e.g. don't accept a gift with left hand in Africa)

  Taboos on showing, talking about, certain body parts

  Body substances and how to handle them

   

• Euphemisms, Dypsphemisms (circumlocutions for avoiding term, e.g. "making number one"; making term worse, obscene "piss")

Topics

• Menstruation, menopause
• Illness, health

  Abortion stories

  Leprosy stories

   

• Family folklore
• Witches
• Werewolves
• Vampires
• Aging
• Dieting, fat, thinness
• Eating disorders (stories, customs, methods)
• Ethnicity and body (color, eye shape, facial characteristics, other lore -- Nazi codification)
• Bible and folklore of body (Samson's hair)
• Relics and reliquaries using body parts
• SMBD
• Fetishes
• Grotesque body; carnival
• Levitation, out-of-body experiences
• Death and dying
• Reproduction
• Disability, disorder
• Body types (fat person; tall/short person; "freak," dyke body lore; giants; dwarfs;
• Beauty pageants
• Twins
• Family resemblance
• Look-alikes
• Hygiene, body care
• Gaze, objectification of body
• Advertising
• Cosmetics
• Beauty
• Punishment, torture
• Body Pleasures
• Sex toys
• Giants/Dwarves
• Healing

Body parts

• Teeth
• Skin (tanning, freckles, birthmarks)

  More on piercing, tattoos

  Scarification

• Lips
• Body substances/excreta: urine, feces, sweat, tears, blood, finger and toenails, eyelashes, saliva, mucous
• Hands
• Feet (foot-binding; shoes)
• Erotic zones
• Missing limbs, phantom limbs; voluntary amputations (see Atlantic magazine)
• Genitals
• Hair (removing hair; facial hair -- beards, mustaches; coloring; fashions; gendered styles)
• Blood
• Milk
• Breasts
• Mouth

Literature, film, art, pop culture

• Disney treatment of folktale
• Frankenstein, other literature- involving body change, artificial body
• Birthmarks in literature, epics, etc. (Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter")
• Monstrous humans in literature, myth
• Science fiction
• Alice Walker novels on clitoridectomy
• Alice in Wonderland
• Literature focusing on a body part, such as Oedipus (swollen feet); Hedda Gabler (hair; pregnant body)
• Bible stories, parables, other sacred works
• Films dealing with body and food (Tampopo)
• Films, literature dealing with body torture, mutilation (The English Patient)
• Films, plays on "freaks" (The Elephant Man)

• Folkspeech

  Slang terms (pinkie)

  Obscenities (cunt, prick, asshole)

  Folk metaphors using body references (give X a big hand; brown nose)

  Using diglossic terms from a second language or dialect (schnozz, tookus)

   

• Greetings, farewells (cultural; family; secret group; ethnic)

  Kisses

  Hand routines

   

• Customs/rituals

  Weddings

  Initiations (circumcision of males; clitoridectomy)

  Photo customs (baby pictures; favorite poses)

   

• Occupational lore

  Sex worker lore

  Strippers

   

• Magical practices

  Voodoo on body

  Use of body parts for magic