This course surveys literary representations of metamorphosis,  beginning with Classical selections from Homer and Ovid, moving forward to 19th century Gothic texts that imagine monstrous transformations of the human flesh, then on to 20th century magical realist texts such as Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and finally, to conclude, the postcolonial novels such as Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People. In observing how the theme of transformation has been taken up by different authors from a variety of historical subject positions, students will come to understand the diversity of aesthetic and political resources this theme provides, and also how the cultural imagination of metamorphosis has changed over time. To facilitate this study, students will read secondary analysis of the course’s primary texts, passages from historical scientific texts, and canonical and recent analyses of the body coming from a range of theoretical fields, including feminist/queer theory, posthumanism, and the environmental humanities.