As a part of their compulsory Critical and Literary Theory module, English Literature undergraduate students of Sheffield University will now be required to study the ‘Art of Masturbation’. The course will include a study of ‘pleasure, self-scrutiny and auto-eroticism’, reported the UK Independent.
English tutor Dr. Fabienne Collignon, leading the ‘Art of Masturbation’ lecture, told The Tab
“The lecture will be on Walt Whitman, Rob Halpern and the deconstruction of masturbation. The last week is called pleasure, self-scrutiny and auto-eroticism. I ended up calling it that because there’s an affinity between literary pleasure, critical self-scrutiny and auto-eroticism.”
The course aims to introduce writers, concepts and approaches fundamental to the contemporary literary theory. “Hardcore: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the visible”, ‘Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation’ and ‘Walt Whitman: The Spermatic Imagination’ are some titles on the recommended reading list for the lecture.
More than 200 literature students will be taking the course, and some of them seemed a bit worried about how graphic the lectures would be.
“Let’s hope there’s no practical work involved,” Laura Bell, a student told The Tab.
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