Course Syllabus
ENGL4956 Advanced Topic Seminar: Animal Worlds in the Middle Ages
Fall 2015
Wednesday 4:30-6:55
Stokes 207S
Prof. Robert Stanton, Stokes 385S
Office Hours: Monday 2:30-3:30 or by appointment
This course explores troubled boundaries between human and non-human subjects and objects in the literature, culture, and art of the Middle Ages. While human beings defined the nature and role of animals, those terms, as well as the institutions that mediated them, constituted what being human meant. We will read philosophy, history, theology, saints’ lives, fables, lyrics, epics, sagas, romances, laws, visions, and mystical/devotional texts alongside works in the emerging field of critical animal studies to begin to answer key questions about economic roles, cultural constructions, and the formation of ethical structures in the service of sharing lives and worlds.
Grading Scheme:
| Response Papers (600 words) | 20% |
| Short Paper (1500-1750 words) | 20% |
| Long Paper (4000-4500 words) | 35% |
| Seminar Presentation | 10% |
| Discussion Leading/Reading Questions/Class Participation/Animal News Now! | 15% |
Course Texts:
Kari Weil, Thinking Animals: Why Animal Studies Now? (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
Karl Steel, How To Make A Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011.
Here is an evolving course bibliography, which I encourage you to add to or tinker with (it's editable by everyone). Most of the texts we will read are in modern English translation, but some will be in Middle English. For those not familiar with the language, the Harvard METRO site is a great place to start.
Attendance Policy:
This is a small seminar, so being physically and intellectually present for each class is extremely important. You may have one unexcused absence without penalty ("unexcused" means without a doctor's note or a communication from the dean). Two unexcused absences will result in grade reduction, and three or more unexcused absences may result in a grade of F.
Academic Integrity:
The Boston College academic integrity policy defines cheating as "the fraudulent or dishonest presentation of work" and plagiarism as "the act of taking the words, ideas, data, illustrations, or statements of another person or source, and presenting them as one's own." For more information, read the full academic integrity policy.
Disability Services:
If you are a student with a documented disability seeking reasonable accommodations in this course, please contact Kathy Duggan, (617) 552-8093, at the Connors Family Learning Center regarding learning disabilities, or Paulette Durrett, (617) 552-3470, in the Disability Services Office regarding all other types of disabilities.
Schedule (subject to change):
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September 2 |
Introductory; PowerPoint of a thumbnail sketch of Critical Animal Studies; Weil, Chapter 1: "A Report on the Animal Turn" (3-24); Franz Kafka, "A Report to an Academy" |
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Animals as Concept, Category, and Image |
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September 9 |
Ancient Animality Primary Sources: Darren Richard Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 7-29, 78-96. Plato: Weil, Ch. 2: "Seeing Animals" (25-50) Cary Wolfe, "Moving Forward, Kicking Back: The Animal Turn." postmedieval 2 (2011): 1-12. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Inventing with Animals in the Middle Ages.” Engaging with Nature: Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt and Lisa J. Kiser. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. 39-62. (introduction to Derrida by Marie-Louise Mallet) Plato, Republic, 10.16, 619B-621D (pp. 511-21) |
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September 16 |
The Christian and Physiologus Traditions Primary Sources: Rachel Christian: Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. New York: Zone Books, 1998. 22-57. |
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September 23 |
Saintliness and Sympathy Primary Sources: Tim Endelechius, “On the Deaths of Cows” Laura Hobgood-Oster, Holy Dogs and Asses: Animals in the Christian Tradition. Urbana and Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2008. Ch. 4: “Counted among the Saints: Animals in Medieval Hagiography.” 63-80. Lisa Kiser, “Margery Kempe and the Animalization of Christ: Animal Cruelty in Late Medieval England.“ Studies in Philology 106 (2009): 299-315. Susan Crane, Animal Encounters, Ch. 1: "Cohabitation." 11-41. Optional Readings: Virgil, Georgics, Book 3 (pp. 177-217) |
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September 30 |
Class Cancelled |
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Useable Animals |
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October 7 |
Food Primary Sources: Natalie Note: for help reading Middle English, refer to the Harvard METRO site (especially "Central") and this brief guide Plutarch: The Eating of Flesh Karl Steel, How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2011. Ch. 5: “Pigs, Butchers, and the Ends of Humanity.” 179-220. Geraldine Heng, "The Romance of England: Richard Coer de Lyon, Saracens, Jews, and the Politics of Race and Nation." The Postcolonial Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. New York: St. Martin's, 2000. 135-71. Erica Fudge, “Two Ethics: Killing Animals in the Past and the Present.” Killing Animals. The Animal Studies Group. Chicago and Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2006. 99-119. Rob Meens, “Eating Animals in the Early Middle Ages: Classifying the Animal World and Building Group Identities.” The Animal Human Boundary: Historical Perspectives. Ed. Angela Creager and William Chester Jordan. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2002. 3-28. |
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October 14 |
Hunting Primary: Kelsey The Hunting Book of Gaston Phébus: read an introduction here, browse some great facsimiles here and here, and look at a translation of the Middle English version (browse the introduction and foreword - by Teddy Roosevelt! - and read Chapter 1) Matt Cartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996. Ch. 4: “The White Stag.” 52-75. Ryan Judkins, “The Game of the Courtly Hunt: Chasing and Breaking Deer in Late Medieval English Literature.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112 (2013): 70-92. Karl Steel, “Biopolitics in the Forest.” The Politics of Ecology, ed. Randy Schiff and Joseph Taylor. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2015. Optional: |
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October 21 |
Before the Law: Animal Trials Short Paper Due Paul Schiff Berman, "Rats, Pigs, and Statues on Trial: The Construction of Cultural Narratives in the Prosecution of Animals and Inanimate Objects," New York University Law Review 69 (1994): 288-326. Piers Beirne, "The Law is an Ass: Reading E.P. Evans' The Medieval Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals," Society and Animals 2 (1994): 27-46. Peter Dinzelbacher, “Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32 (2002): 405-421. Optional: |
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October 28 |
Humanimals: Dogs, Wolves Primary: Rachel Sir Gowther : read this summary, the Introduction, and ll. 1-144, 265-372 Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, "Gowther Among the Dogs: Becoming Inhuman, Ca. 1400." Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler. New York and London: Garland, 1997. 219-44. Sharon Kinoshita and Peggy McCracken, “Bodies and Embodiment: Characters.” Marie de France: A Critical Companion. New York: D.S. Brewer, 2012. 143-72 (focus on Bisclavret section) Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “The Werewolf’s Indifference.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 34 (2012): 351-6. Karl Steel, "Cynocephali: How a Dog Becomes Human." How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2011. 136-150. Optional Reading: Kalpana Rahita Seshadri, HumAnimal: Race, Law, Language. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2012. Ch. 5: "The Wild Child: Politics and Ethics of the Name." 141-79. Optional Reading: Karl Steel, "With the World, Or, Bound to Face the Sky: The Postures of the Wolf-Child of Hesse." Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects. Washington, DC: Punctum Books, 2012. 9-34. |
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November 4 |
Humanimals: Horses, Birds Primary: Adam Marie de France, Yonec, Laustic, Milun Jeffrey Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003. Ch. 2: "Chevalerie." 36-77. Here is a higher-quality image of the "horse machine" on p. 52, and one of Geoffrey Luttrell on horseback (p. 69). Susan Crane, "Chivalry and the Pre/Postmodern," postmedieval 2 (2011): 69-87. Sharon Kinoshita and Peggy McCracken, “Bodies and Embodiment: Characters |
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November 11 |
Humanimals: Monsters Primary: Darren Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, fitts 1 and 4 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, Book 10, Chapter 3 (pp. 183-185, available on Google Books preview, or pp. 172-175 of this translation) Alliterative Morte d'Arthur: read introduction and ll. 841-1221. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, "The Promise of Monsters." The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous. Ed. Asa Simon Mittman and Peter Dendle. Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. 449-464. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999, pp. 62-80 (on Eglamour), 152-159 (on the Alliterative Morte) Grendel Grendel Grendel (1981) [skip to 4:45]
Beowulf and Grendel, dir. Sturla Gunnarson (2005): Beowulf, dir. Robert Zemeckis (2007): Grendel marauding, (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) Beowulf's mother (Links to an external site.) [I had some humorous access issues with this video, but you can see Mrs Grendel on this classy website (Links to an external site.) as well]
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| November 18 |
Humanimals: Pets and Death Primary: Kelsey Sir Eglamour of Artois: read this summary, the introduction, and lines 283-588. Lorraine Daston and Gregg Mitman, "Introduction," in Daston and Mitman, ed., Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 1-14. |
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November 25 |
Thanksgiving - No Class |
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December 2 |
Humanimals: Fables Long paper abstract due Animal News: Kelsey Aesop, Fables. We won't be dealing with Aesop in any detail, but browse around this online collection (sections 1-4, listed alphabetically). Aesop is the source of many fables in the medieval collections. R. Howard Bloch, "The Wolf in the Dog: Animal Fables and State Formation," Differences 15 (2004): 69-83. Peter W. Travis, "Aesop's Symposium of Animal Tongues," postmedieval 2 (2011): 33-49. Susan Crane, "The Trouble with Fable," Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2013), 42-48. Tom Tyler, "If Horses Had Hands…," Society and Animals 11 (2003): 267-81. Optional: Howard Needler, "The Medieval Fable among Other Medieval Literary Genres," New Literary History 22 (1991): 423-429. Optional: Jill Mann, From Aesop to Reynard: Beast Literature in Medieval Britain (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009). Ch. 2: "Marie de France: The Courtly Fable." Ch. 6: "Reynard in England." Ch. 7: "Henryson: The Epicized Fable." |
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December 9 |
Seminars |
Final Paper Due: Dec. 16, noon, on Canvas
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
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