Autumn 2011
English 575: Animal Stories
(Special Topics in Literary Forms and Themes)
Tu-Th 3:30 - 5:18
Denney Hall 250
Instructor: David
Herman
Office: 409 Denney (office hours T-Th 2:15 - 3:15, 5:30 - 6:00,
and by appointment)
Phone: 292-6123; e-mail: herman.145[at]osu.edu
Web address for this syllabus:
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENG575.html
COURSE
DESCRIPTION
This course explores how narratives told in a variety of media,
including film, comics, and literature in print, depict the
experiences of nonhuman animals--in ways that can lead to a
reassessment of the relationships among human and nonhuman worlds.
Focusing on the post-Darwinian period, and drawing on
Freud's, Darwin's, and others' ideas to establish foundations for
our work in the class, we will investigate a range of strategies that have been
used to narrate the lives of animals. Some animal stories figure complex
interspecies relationships by portraying human characters as intensely
concerned with--or even transformed into--nonhuman beings, such as
beetles, ants, and salamanders. Other stories seek to project
interpreters directly into (a model or imagined version of) the
distinctive worlds experienced by other life forms. Still other
texts focus on human-nonhuman hybrids--partly human characters who
also have attributes of other species--to suggest the permeability
of species boundaries. Examining these subgenres of animal
stories, we will position our narrative case studies along a
continuum of storytelling strategies; the continuum in question
stretches from animal allegory and anthropomorphism, at one end,
to attempts to imagine the actual texture and ecology of nonhuman
experiences, at the other end.
In addition to engaging with a variety of animal stories, we will
explore work in narrative theory, cognitive science, and the
emergent, interdisciplinary field of critical animal studies. This
new field draws on research
in the social and natural sciences as well as the humanities to
reconsider assumptions
about the primacy of the human--and also institutions and
practices based on such assumptions. Putting our narrative case studies into dialogue with this
research, the course also aims to provide you with new tools for
appreciating, analyzing, and writing coherently and persuasively about
animal stories told in a variety of media. More generally, the
class is designed to help you acquire or sharpen interpretive
skills that will assist you in your lifelong practice of reading.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Available at SBX
and other area bookstores:
- Byatt, A.S. Angels and
Insects (Vintage, 1994); ISBN 0679751343
- Coetzee, J.M. The Lives of
Animals (Princeton UP, 2001); ISBN 069107089X
- Fudge, Erica. Animal
(Reaktion Books, 2004); ISBN 1861891342
- Gonzales, Laurence. Lucy (Vintage
Books,
2010);
ISBN
0307473902
- Kuper, Peter. Metamorphosis
(Broadway Books, 2004); ISBN 1400052998
- London, Jack. The Call of
the Wild [1903] (Signet Classics, 2010); ISBN
0451531590. London's text can also be downloaded here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/215
- Morrison, Grant, and Frank Quitely. We3 (DC Comics/Vertigo, 2004); ISBN
9781401204952
- Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty
[1877] (Oxford UP, 2008); ISBN 0192727982. Sewell's text can
also be downloaded here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/271
- Woolf, Virginia. Flush: A
Biography [1933] (Mariner Books, 1976); ISBN
9780156319522
To be screened in class:
Babe (1995), directed by
Chris Noonan
District 9 (2009),
directed by Neill Blomkamp
Available on the internet and via electronic reserve:
A number of texts are either available
on the web or have been placed on e-reserve at the library and can
be accessed via the Carmen site for our course. The e-reserve
items are marked "[ER]" in our course schedule below; please click
here for a full list of and
complete bibliographic citations for these items.
Texts placed on print reserve at the
Science and Engineering Library (SEL):
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to
Narrative. 2nd edition only. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2008.
Herman, David, Manfred Jahn, and
Marie-Laure Ryan, eds. Routledge
Encyclopedia
of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 2005.
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary
Poetics. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002.
Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology.
2nd edition. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Ryan, Marie-Laure, ed. Narrative across Media: The
Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P,
2004.
Other Web-based
Resources:
ICAS (Institute for
Critical Animal Studies), including a link to the Journal for Critical Animal
Studies (full-text articles)
Humanimalia: A
Journal of Human/Animal Interface Studies (full-text
articles)
Animal
Studies Bibliography maintained by Linda Kalof, Steven
Bryant, and Amy Fitzgerald of Michigan State University
Animals and
Society Institute, including a link to archived issues of Society
and
Animals:
Journal
of Human-Animal Studies (full-text articles)
Hühn, Peter, John Pier, Wolf
Schmid, and Jörg Schönert, eds. The Living Handbook of Narratology
Jahn, Manfred. Narratology: A Guide to the Theory
of Narrative
Uexküll, Jakob von. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals
and Humans [access via library]
COURSE
REQUIREMENTS
There are 5 basic requirements for
this course, spelled out in more detail below: (1) completing the
assigned readings and participating regularly in class
discussions; (2) posting agenda-setting questions on the Carmen
site for our course; (3) submitting a reading journal on three
different occasions during the quarter; (4) writing two carefully
organized, persuasively argued, and stylistically polished essays;
and (5) taking a comprehensive final exam at the end of the
quarter.
1.
Class
participation and attendance. To be successful, this
class--in reality, a workshop on approaches to studying various
kinds of animal stories--needs to be a collective endeavor. To
that end your attendance and participation are crucial. You will
get more out of each class if you have done the assigned reading
and are prepared to discuss it. For the same reason, more than two
unexecused absences will lower your grade for the course by one
whole grade: for example, from a B to a C. Furthermore, after four
absences you will receive a failing grade for the class.
2.
Posting
agenda-setting questions on Carmen. To facilitate your
preparation and enhance discussion, each student will be required
to post two well-thought-out, carefully articulated discussion
questions on the Carmen site for our course. (You will post one agenda-setting
question for two different class meetings.) Your questions should be posted by
5:00 p.m. on the day
before the class meets. By the same token, check our Carmen site
before coming to class and give some thought to the questions that
have been posted. Click here for the
schedule for the Carmen posts.
In
formulating your questions, focus on issues that strike you as
important ones to consider--and that you would like to see the
class as a whole address--in our discussions of the assigned
readings. Feel free to post a question about either one of our
narrative case studies or a critical source--or both!
3.
A (digital) reading journal.
Three times during the quarter, selecting a specific scene from
two different narratives we will have read before your journals
are due, you will write 1-2 paragraphs (per narrative) in which
you put those scenes into dialogue with the critical sources we
are also reading during that same period. Due dates for submitting
your journal entries are 10/8, 11/5, and 12/3; these dates are
also listed in the course schedule below. Note: be sure to save a
copy of these journal entries because one (or more) of them might
very well turn out to be the seed for one of your essays for the
course.
For the journal due 12/3, one of the texts you
use must be District 9.
4.
Two
essays. These essays are to be submitted via the dropbox
function on our Carmen site, no later than 12 noon on the days
they are due. The first essay is
to be 1000 - 1,250 words and is due Thursday, October 20. The second essay is to be 1,500 - 2,000
words and is due the last day of class, Thursday, December 1.
Topics for each essay will be distributed well in advance of its
due date. In the meantime, for general guidelines concerning how
to compose and format your papers, click here.
Grading rubrics for your essays can be found below.
These papers
must represent your own work; all cases of suspected plagiarism
will be reported, in accordance with university rules, to the
Committee on Academic Misconduct. Plagiarism and cheating are
serious offenses at OSU and will be reported to the appropriate
officers of the university. Plagiarism is the representation of
another's work or ideas as one's own; it includes unacknowledged
quotations as well as paraphrases of someone else's words or
ideas. Penalties may range from failure of the particular
assignment, to failure of the course, or worse. For more about
OSU's Code for Student Conduct, click here.
5.
A final examination. The final exam is scheduled for
Tuesday, December 6, 3:30 - 5:18, and will contain (a) brief
definition questions; (b) identification questions asking you for
paragraph-long responses in which you identify the text from which
a passage is taken and comment on its significance within that
text as well as more generally; and (c) a longer essay question
asking you to explore broader issues raised by the class.
Completing
Assignments:
All assigned readings must be read
before the date listed on the syllabus. If an emergency arises and
prevents you from turning in your assignment on time, please
contact me as far ahead in advance as possible. In the absence of
any previous consultation with me, work handed in late will be
graded down, normally one letter grade for each day that it is
late.
BASIS FOR FINAL
GRADES
In-class participation and posting
of discussion questions on Carmen = 15%
Reading journals = 15%
First essay = 20%
Second essay = 25%
Final exam = 25%
Grading rubric for
papers:
"A" papers feature compelling arguments, closely analyze passages
or engage carefully with other features of the text, are written
in clear prose, and teach me something valuable about the subject
of the paper.
"B" papers share many of these same qualities, but require more
development conceptually or stylistically.
"C" papers feature mediocre arguments and/or writing skills, and
lower grades will be below-average ("D") or seriously deficient
("E") in these respects.
OTHER POLICIES
Cellphones and laptops:
Please make sure that cellphones,
Blackberries, etc. are turned off before you enter the
classroom--no texting or e-mailing during class meetings, please.
Also, although it's fine to use laptops or tablet computers to
take notes during our class meetings, I would greatly appreciate
your not using your computer to surf the web, update your Facebook
site, etc. Again, the more collaborative and interactive our class
discussions are, the more effective the course will be.
Special needs:
Anyone who feels s/he may need an
accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact
me privately to discuss your specific needs. Anyone with such
needs should also be aware of the Office for Disability Services
in room 150 Pomerene Hall (614-292-3307; TDD 292-0901), which
provides services for students with documented disabilities.
The Writing Center:
All members of the OSU community
are invited to discuss their writing with a trained consultant at
the Writing Center. Go to http://www.cstw.org
or call 688-4291 to make an appointment.
COURSE SCHEDULE
The following is a tentative
course schedule. Depending on the actual pace at which we proceed
during the quarter, we may have to make adjustments to the
syllabus as we go.
September
Foundations for the Study
of Animal Stories
Th 22 Introduction to the class; read Berger, "Why Look at Animals?" [ER];
Le Guin, "The White Donkey" [ER]; the first two pages (pp. 24-25) of
McHugh, "Animal Farm's
Lessons for Literary (and) Animal Studies" [ER]; Rohman,
introduction to Stalking the
Subject [ER];
and Ryan, "Narrative" [ER]
>>Recommended
reading: Darwin, chapter
III of The Descent of Man
[ER]; Freud, chapters III and VII of Civilization
and Its Discontents
T 27 Benston, "Experimenting at the Threshold" [ER]; Fudge,
introduction and chapter 1 of Animal; Le Guin, "The Wife's Story" [ER]; Herman and Vervaeck, "Ideology" [ER]; Nelles, "Beyond the
Bird's Eye" [ER]
>>Recommended reading: Prince, "Narratology" [ER]; Herman, chapter 1 of Basic
Elements of Narrative <http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/30/14051415/1405141530-2.pdf>
Th 29 Fudge,
chapters 2, 3, and conclusion of Animal; Kafka, "Report
for an Academy"; Harel, "De-allegorizing Kafka's Ape" [ER]
October
T 4 Coetzee, The Lives of Animals (read the introduction and
"Reflections" as well as the main part of Coetzee's text)
>>Recommended reading: Nagel, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
[ER]
Th 6 Kafka, Metamorphosis [ER]; also
read Deleuze and Guattari,
"Becoming-Animal" [ER]; Norris, "Kafka's
Hybrids" [ER]
SUBMIT FIRST READING JOURNAL
via the dropbox function on Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday,
October 8
Animal
Stories across Media and Genres: Animal Comics, Animals in Film,
and Animal Narratives Adopted by Younger Readers
T 11 Read Kuper, Metamorphosis; also read
Mairowitz and Crumb, graphic adaptation of Metamorphosis [ER]; Herman
"Storyworld/Umwelt" [ER]
>>Recommended reading: Gardner and Herman, introduction to Graphic Narratives and Narrative
Theory [ER]
Th 13 Read Reklaw, Thirteen Cats of My Childhood;
also read Braidotti, "Animals, Anomalies, and
Inorganic Others" [ER]; Herman, "Zoonarratology" [ER]
>>Recommended reading: Keen, "Fast Tracks" [ER]
T 18 Sewell, Black Beauty;
also read McHugh, "Literary Animal Agents" [ER]; Nussbaum, "The
Moral Status of Animals" [ER]
Th 20 First part of class: continue discussion of Black Beauty; second part:
screening of Babe; FIRST
ESSAY DUE
T 25 First part of class: discussion of Babe, McHugh's "Bringing up
Babe" [ER], and Adams'
"The Sexual Politics of Meat" [ER]; second part of class: start discussing London's The Call of the Wild
Th 27 The Call of the Wild
continued; also read Burroughs, "Real and Sham Natural History"
[ER]; London, "The
Other
Animals"
>>Recommended reading: Tyler, "If
Horses
Had Hands" [ER]
November
Modernist,
Postmodernist, and Contemporary Animal Stories
T 1 Woolf, Flush;
also read Stevenson, "Modernist Narrative" [ER]
Th 3 Flush continued; also read Lessing, "The Old Woman and Her Cat" [ER]; McHale, "Postmodern Narrative"
[ER]
SUBMIT SECOND READING
JOURNAL via the dropbox function on Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday, November 5
T 8 Read the
following items by Le Guin: on e-reserve [ER]: "Mazes" and "She
Unnames Them"; on the web: "The
Author of the Acacia Seeds"
(http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html);
to be distributed via e-mail: "The Direction of the Road" and
other material by Le Guin; also read Payne, "Dark Brothers and
Shadow Souls" [ER]
Th 10 Morrison and
Quitely, We3; Heise,
"The Android and the Animal" [ER]; Whatmore, "Hybrid Geographies" [ER]
T 15 Butler, "Jealous Husband";
Cortázar,
"Axolotl";
opening
discussion
of
Byatt, Morpho Eugenia
(in Angels and Insects)
Th 17 Continue discussion of Morpho Eugenia
T 22 Gonzales, Lucy
Th 24 No class: Thanksgiving Holiday
T 29 Gonzales, Lucy
December
Th 1 Screening of District
9; SECOND ESSAY DUE
SUBMIT THIRD READING
JOURNAL via the dropbox function on Carmen by 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday, December 3
Final exam in Denney Hall (room 206) on Tuesday, December 6, 3:30
- 5:18