The Idea of the Pet in Literature and History

Catalog description

Animal companions are signs of our modernity. They can confirm our humanity, or call it into question. This course studies modern pet keeping and the human relation to animals. We will begin with the eighteenth-century pet keeping fad, and turn to a focus on the literature of pets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, moving from questions of how literature can represent animals to discussions of the social dimensions of petkeeping and the ethics of animal rights. The course will include a discussion of the modern veterinarian's relationship with the companion animal and its owner, and a class forum on the ethics of the treatment of animals. Readings will include works by William Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf, Jack London, Albert Payson Terhune, and Paul Auster. (ENGL-PST)