Animals in Literature and Culture

Animals, wrote anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, are good to think with. They are good to write with as well; almost all works of literature include animals, their importance varying from the merely peripheral to the absolutely central. Among other narrative functions, animals serve as essential metaphors for understanding the human animal. In this course we will read a wide variety of fiction, poetry, children's literature, philosophy, science, history, and cultural theory from Ancient Greek sources (in translation) to the present. We will consider theoretical, ethical, religious, psychological, linguistic, and political issues pertaining to animals and their representation in literary texts. lect./disc.