230573 The Art of Dying: Female Talent, Mental Illness and Suicide (S) (WiSe 2008/2009)

• 1962: Screen icon Marilyn Monroe has been found dead in bed at her Los Angeles home.

• On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath's world had become too much for her to take. The depression had overcome. Her body was discovered that morning by a nurse scheduled to visit.

• Around noon on March 28, 1941, Virginia Woolf walked down to the River Ouse, near her weekend house in Sussex. Leaving her hat and cane on the riverbank, she placed some heavy stones in her coat pocket and drowned herself.

• The playwright Sarah Kane, aged only 27, died last week having apparently taken her own life.

In this probably most cheerful seminar of the dark and miserable winter term we will study a range of outstanding British and American female artists who were very gifted and yet -or therefore- suffered from depression. All of these lives ended in an untimely death, presumably self-inflicted.

We will analyze biographies and excerpts from the women's respective work, (re-)consider female erotization and iconization, evaluate women's artistic power in a predominantly male business and polemize a biologically determined disposition to develop mental illnesses. Apart from the artists listed above students are welcome to suggests further writers or actresses to enrich the program.

For 2 LP regular attendance, participation in class discussion and small in-class projects are mandatory, for 3 LP students can give a presentation or write a term paper.