SHARE WITH STUDENTS: A few seats left! German 100 – Animal Affinities for Fall 2019!
We have a few seats left in German 100 for Fall 2019! Taught by Prof. Patrick Fortmann, this course meets MWF 2-2:50 and fulfills the Understanding the Creative Arts OR Exploring World Cultures Gen Ed category. Taught in English!
From frightening beast to beloved companion, from God’s creature to man’s commodity, and from lab specimen to ‘fur-person,’ the position of the animal in its relation to man is anything but stable. Indeed, the animal owes its fluidity not to a conflicted nature but only to the comparison with man. What it means to be human is commonly defined by drawing distinctions from the animal. Various fields, such as religion, philosophy, science, law, and anthropology, have each defined the boundary in the past. For every comparison, however, there needs to be common ground. The recognition of humanity’s animal side has challenged the boundary that used to separate the domains both species inhabit, thus turning the study of animals into one of the most fiercely argued debates in contemporary science and culture. At a time when many fields examine their epistemologies of animality anew, this course studies animality in literature and film. Questions considered include: which beasteologies does literature develop? How do we account for the prominence of ape, dog, horse, cat, and frog? Is there a canon of zoography (extending from, say, Ovid to Kafka)? To what degree do animal texts break away from anthropocentrism? Are texts suggesting animalistic ways of writing? Do texts anticipate or perpetuate epistemological shifts in human animal relations? How do certain texts conceptualize these relations? Which hopes and anxieties do they inspire?
Drawing on the rich German tradition, we will study texts by Rilke, Ebner-Eschenbach, Storm, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Th. Mann, Franz Kafka, and films by Werner Herzog.