ENGL5026.01 Fall 2021 Seminar: Building a Better Bestiary: Representing Medieval Animals [Stanton]
Syllabus
ENGL5026 Seminar: Building a Better Bestiary: Representing Medieval Animals
Fall 2021
Monday 2:00-4:25
Stokes 207S
Prof. Robert Stanton, Stokes 385S, stantoro@bc.edu
Office Hours: Zoom 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 (1200-1500 words) | 20% |
| Final Project (4000-4500 words) | 35% |
| Seminar Presentation | 10% |
| Discussion Leading/Reading Questions/Class Participation/Animal News Now! | 15% |
Course Texts:
All readings will be provided on paper handouts or on this Canvas page.
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 (Links to an external site.) is a great place to start.
Attendance Policy:
You are required to attend all classes, but because of the fluid and evolving situation with COVID-19, I will not be assessing any penalties for missed classes. If you need to miss a class, please contact me as far as possible in advance, and be prepared to make up the work of the class.
Mask Policy:
In line with CDC guidance, all students must wear face coverings in the classroom, and I will be wearing one as well. If you forget to bring a mask, I'll have a fresh one to give you.
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. (Links to an external site.)
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 the Disability Services Office (Links to an external site.) (disabsrv@bc.edu) regarding all other types of disabilities.
Schedule (subject to change):
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August 30 |
Introductory; PowerPoint of a thumbnail sketch of Critical Animal Studies
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September 6 |
Labor Day - no class |
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Animals as Concept, Category, and Image |
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September 13 |
Ancient Animality Primary Sources: Max 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. (Links to an external site.) (introduction to Derrida by Marie-Louise Mallet) Plato, Republic, 10.16, 619B-621D (pp. 511-21) |
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September 20 |
The Christian and Physiologus Traditions Primary Sources: Kieran Babylonian: Christian: Book of Job (Links to an external site.) Joyce Salisbury, "Do Animals Go to Heaven? Medieval Philosophers Contemplate Heavenly Human Exceptionalism." Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts 1 (2014): 79-85. [remember this story (Links to an external site.)about something Pope Francis didn't say about pets going to heaven?] 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 27 |
Saintliness and Sympathy Primary Sources: Alexa 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 ( (Links to an external site.)pp. 177-217) |
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Useable Animals |
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October 11 |
Columbus Day - no class (Monday schedule on Tuesday) |
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October 12 (Tuesday) |
Food Primary Sources: Caroline Note: for help reading Middle English, refer to the Harvard METRO site (especially "Central (Links to an external site.)") and this brief guide Plutarch: The Eating of Flesh (Links to an external site.) 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. Nicola McDonald, "Eating People and the Alimentary Logic of Richard Coeur de Lyon." Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance. Ed. Nicola McDonald. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. 124-150. 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. Optional: 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. |
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October 18 |
Bestiaries Animal News: "'I've learned to see beauty instead of a beast': the house pests we've grown to love," The Guardian, October 8, 2021. (Prof. Stanton) The Medieval Bestiary (Links to an external site.) is a very nice site maintained by David Badke in Victoria, British Columbia. Please read the Introduction (Links to an external site.) and then browse the list of beasts (Links to an external site.), pick a favorite, and follow the instructions on the thread. The Aberdeen Bestiary (Links to an external site.) is another famous and beautiful bestiary. Read the introductory material (Links to an external site.) and browse the illustrations, beginning here (Links to an external site.) with a thumbnail overview). Further instructions on the discussion thread. During the second half of the class, we will discuss the following two readings (the Crane was assigned a few weeks ago but we didn't discuss it much). I want each of you to have ONE question about EACH of the two readings. No need to post them, but please have them with you in class. Susan Crane, Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2013. Ch. 3: “A Bestiary’s Taxonomy of Creatures.” 69-100. 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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October 25 |
Before the Law: Animal Trials 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. Anila Srivastava, "'Mean, Dangerous, and Uncontrollable Beasts': Medieval Animal Trials," Mosaic 40 (2007): 127-143. Optional: Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, “Being Human: Bestiality, Anthropophagy, and Law.” Umbr(a) 2003: 97-114. Movie: The Hour of the Pig (The Advocate), 1993 (Links to an external site.) |
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(Links to an external site.)Conversations and Boundaries |
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November 1 |
Humanimals: Dogs, Wolves Primary: Louise Sir Gowther (Links to an external site.) : read this summary (Links to an external site.), the Introduction (Links to an external site.), and ll. 1-144, 265-372 (Links to an external site.) 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 8 |
Humanimals: Horses, Birds Short Paper due Marie de France, Yonec, Laustic, Milun Sharon Kinoshita and Peggy McCracken, “Bodies and Embodiment: Characters Susan Crane, "Chivalry and the Pre/Postmodern," postmedieval 2 (2011): 69-87. |
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November 15 |
Humanimals: Monsters Primary: Helena Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, fitts 1 and 4 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, Book 10, Chapter 3 (Links to an external site.)(pp. 183-185, available on Google Books preview, or pp. 172-175 of this translation) 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. Megan Cavell, "Constructing the Monstrous Body in Beowulf," Anglo-Saxon England 43 (2014): 155-181. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999, pp. 142-152 Grendel Grendel Grendel (1981) [skip to 4:45 if you like]
(Links to an external site.) 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.) Optional: Alliterative Morte d'Arthur: read introduction and ll. 841-1221 (Links to an external site.). 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) |
| November 22 |
Humanimals: Pets and Death Primary: Sir Eglamour of Artois (Links to an external site.): read this summary, (Links to an external site.)the introduction, (Links to an external site.) and lines 283-588. Steel, How to Make a Human, pp. 221-231. |
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November 29 |
Seminars |
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December 6 |
Seminars |
Final Project Due: Monday Dec 13, noon, on Canvas
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
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