Department: English
Description: Figures, movements, or genres in World Literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Camus, Mishima, Solzhenitsyn. Multiple enrollments allowed if content is different.
Credit Hours: 3
Graduate Level Course: This course is approved for graduate credit
Dates: 08/19/2024 - 12/07/2024
Location: Adlai E. Stevenson Hall 410 (STV 410)
Instructor: Rebecca Saunders
Class Notes: Just Animals: (Hum)Animality and the Construction of Justice From Aeschylus to Agamben, philosophy and literature have called on the figure of the animal to delineate justice, most commonly to secure the reasoned morality of the human in opposition to the unthematized instincts of animals. While certain species, like Plato’s faithful guard dogs, have been models of the just, the indistinct term “animal” (Derrida’s aptly designated animot) has remained a standard trope for immoral and depraved behavior, the darkly incomprehensible stuff of criminality, mass atrocity, and sociopathology, disturbingly beyond the reach of moral reason: the animal as synonymous with the inhuman. Drawing on the interdisciplinary field of animal studies, criminology and theories of law, this course will interrogate these associations through literary texts and film—from Brazil, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, and the U.S.—that have contributed to formulating conceptions of justice. NOTE: All books must be purchased in the specified translation/edition. While some texts are available on Kindle, print books are strongly recommended.
Textbook Special Instructions: All books must be purchased in the specified translation/edition. While some texts are available on Kindle, print books are strongly recommended.