Animal Rhetorics

Catalog description

Students will explore the ways various peoples have defined the human as opposed to an animal "other." What it is to be a human, a person and an animal is not static; these definitions change over time and across cultures. They are the results of ongoing acts of persuasion. What is universal, though, is the idea of a boundary between human and animal, and the ways we define either category helps define the other. Animal Rhetorics will feature readings from the history of rhetoric, biology, biosemiotics and philosophy, tracing our definitions of what it means to be a human and what it means to be rhetorical, from pre-history to the present. Assignments will include creative work, presentation and a research component.