LITERARY CREATURES
ENG4LC
Not currently offered
Credit points: 15
Subject outline
Animals loom large in human literature, just as they loom large in human lives, but can humans write or read the experience of other animals? Are animals in literature ever more than symbolic substitutes for humans, or more than the other against which the category of the human is defined? Literary Creatures will investigate literary representations of animals in texts as various as the book of Genesis, Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, Virginia Woolf's Flush and Jacques Derrida's essay about standing naked before his pet cat. It will critically investigate the Western philosophical literature that describes and defines and in some cases polices the human/non-human animal relationship. It will ask you to investigate the assumptions encoded by our lexicon - humans, humane, animal, brutal - and to think about how texts explore the subjectivity of humans and other animals in human language.
Faculty: Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Credit points: 15
Subject Co-ordinator: Alexis Harley
Available to Study Abroad Students: Yes
Subject year level: Year Level 4 - UG/Hons/1st Yr PG
Exchange Students: Yes
Subject particulars
Subject rules
Prerequisites: Enrolment in either AHA-Bachelor of Arts Honours or AHCA-Bachelor of Creative Arts Honours degrees.
Co-requisites: N/A
Incompatible subjects: N/A
Equivalent subjects: N/A
Special conditions: N/A
Learning resources
Readings
| Resource Type | Title | Resource Requirement | Author and Year | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Readings | Angels and Insects | Prescribed | A S Byatt | . |
| Readings | Flush | Prescribed | Virginia Woolf | N/A |
| Readings | On Cats | Prescribed | Doris Lessing | N/A |
| Readings | The Companion Species Manifesto | Prescribed | Donna Haraway | N/A |
| Readings | The Complete Maus | Prescribed | Art Spiegelman | N/A |
| Readings | The Lives of Animals | Prescribed | J M Coetzee | N/A |
| Readings | The White Bone | Prescribed | Barbara Gowdy | N/A |