When Species Meet: Human/Non-Human Encounters in Literature and Culture

At least since the so-called animal turn, literary and cultural studies have been interested in encounters between human and non-human animals. In this course, we are going to explore such interspecies encounters in poetry, fiction and film. We will concentrate on Canadian and Irish texts and will consider the particular relations between human beings and non-human animals in these two countries’ cultural histories. In our reading of a variety of texts, we will also take into account various dimensions of such encounters (e.g., symbolical, metaphorical, cultural, political and very literal readings).

We are going to proceed from critical theory – the essential reading for this class will be Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet, but we’ll also throw in some excerpts from Jacques Derrida’s writing here and there – to then discuss poetry, short fiction, one novel and one film on this basis.

We’ll try to find answers to many questions, such as:

How  can we read such encounters, what can we learn from them?
What do they reveal not only about the relationship between non-human and human animals, but also about human belief systems (e.g., in human exceptionalism, humanity’s different understandings of ecology) or about the role of animals in different societies and cultures?
How and in which contexts are non-human animals ‘used’ to differentiate between human beings; what does ‘the animal’ have to do with nationalism, colonialism, but also with (bio-) technology, for instance?  
Why/how/in what way do these texts invite us to encounter new perspectives and to notice different interpretations/observations beyond anthropocentrism?
Why is it important to not only take an anthropocentric approach to such encounters – as difficult as this may be?

Please note that this class relies on your ideas and your contributions to our discussions; you’re invited to co-determine and shape the directions our discussions and sessions will take. Please also make sure to double-check if you can attend all sessions of this compact seminar. Apart from one short organisational meeting on Wednesday, 9 October, all meetings take place on Fridays and Saturdays at Campus "Unteres Schloss." If you already know that you won’t be able to attend class on one or two of these dates, please choose a different seminar.