The Question of the Animal

Catalog description

This course is built around the question of the animal as a difficulty posed to representation and thought at a time when animals have largely disappeared from humans' living environment, but proliferate as strange protagonists, specters or figures of ambiguity in literature and philosophy. We will consider a range of texts and films that "cast" the animal critically, that is, as a body that strains or scrambles meaning (interruption, irony, illegibility, haunting) and forces us to reconsider the work of language and narrative (indeed, of the "human"). Authors include Kafka, Coetzee, Hofmannsthal, Kofman, Chevillard, Darrieussecq, Derrida, Agamben, de Fontenay, Herzog. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors and seniors.