Animals and I: Literature, Philosophy and the Question of the Animal

French philosophy–-most notably Deleuze and Guattari’s “becoming-animal” and Derrida’s “the animal that therefore I am”–-has importantly shaped thinking on the animal in the contemporary humanities. In this course we will read (mostly) French texts critical to the field of animal studies, focusing our reflection on the live problematic continually tethering and opposing the animal to the “I”—that is, to the question of the subject, of autobiography, of identity, of thought, of home. Readings include Deleuze and Guattari, de Fontenay, Levinas, Heidegger, Derrida, Despret, Bailly, Martin, as well as key literary texts (Michaux, Kafka, Ponge, Redonnet, Simon, Coetzee, Chevillard). Texts read in translation and course taught in English. Graduate students from a diversity of fields are welcome.