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Seminar
SoSe 23: Introduction to Animal studies
Alix Ricau
Comments
In the last two decades, the interdisciplinary field of Animal Studies has undergone significant developments. As human activity seems to have caused the world to enter its sixth mass extinction, the urge to rethink our relationship to the nonhuman has never been more pressing. The ‘animal turn’ (Ritvo 2007) that affects both social and natural sciences calls for a deep reconsideration of the ways in which human societies construct, categorize and devalue other animals. In the field of literary studies, this translates into the introduction of an ‘animal lens’ (Specht 2016) that highlights the aspects and functions of the omnipresence of nonhuman animals in our cultural landscapes.
This seminar will provide an overview of the recent developments of animal studies in three blocks. First, we will address the theoretical, ethical and political challenges raised by the discipline; we will then study a corpus of texts offering insights on the historical developments of a number of collective representations of animal lives common to the Global North; and, last but not least, we will question the entanglement of these literary framings and the ways in which animal lives are being discussed, regulated and marketed in the European public sphere.
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Suggested reading
In preparation for the first session, please read the following passages of DeMello’s Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies (Second edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021 / available online on Primo): pp. 3-6; pp. 10-19.
Further readings will be posted on Blackboard.
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12 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Mon, 2023-04-17 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-04-24 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-05-08 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-05-15 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-05-22 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-05 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-12 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-19 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-26 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-07-03 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-07-10 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-07-17 14:00 - 16:00