Non-human Rights and Wrongs

“Even the creature has rights,” says Campion in HBO's Raised by Wolves. Our course will ask after the past, present and future of rights, including interpreting literature, television and film to imagine who (or what) might one day possess them. Only persons have rights, but the essence of personhood flickers and blurs like a phantom, somehow common to corporations, human beings, boats and cities, among other "things." Like ghost-hunting lawyers we'll trace the word "person" from the Ancient Greek theater mask (prosopon) through Christianity's thought of the Trinity (God as "one substance, three persons") up to contemporary legal cases regarding animal rights such as the 'monkey selfie' case. Key authors include: Kafka, Cixous, Plato, Shelley, Chevillard, Zizioulas. Media screened includes: Blade Runner 2049, Solaris, Caprica. Students from all disciplines are welcome.