The question of "the animal" has become a recent focus across the disciplines, extending debates over identity and difference to our so-called nonspeaking others. This course will examine a range of theories and representations of the animal to examine how human identity and its various gendered, classed, and racial manifestations have been conceived of through and against notions of animality, as well as how such conceptions have affected human-animal relations and practices such as pet-keeping and zoos. We will seek to understand the desire to tame or objectify animals as well as evidence of a contrasting desire that they remain guardians of inaccessible experience and knowledge. Readings may include Darwin, Poe, Kafka, Mann, Woolf, Coetzee, and Hearne. |