The final quarter of Animal/Culture investigates how humans are entangled with animals from beginning to end, from earliest childhood into the contemplation of environmental collapse.
Students will be introduced to interpretive frameworks like ecological criticism and queer studies as lecturing faculty explore the role of animals in the cultural imaginary of the anthropocene. We will discuss the uncanny and monstrous aspects of animals in modernity by examining animated films, blockbuster movies, children’s literature, comics, fan fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and wildlife documentaries. We will learn how interdisciplinary and creative practitioners work with animals to investigate hybridity, mutation, trans-species cognition, and the possibility of coexistence. Drawing on the many writing and research skills they have learned over the course of the year, students will produce a capstone research project centered on their own interests in the study of Animal/Culture and will communicate their findings in multiple modes and to academic, professional, and public audiences.
Writing
Prompts
Research
Help
Writing
Center
UCI
Support
LECTURING FACULTY
Eyal Amiran (Professor of Comparative Literature and Film & Media Studies)
Gabriele Schwab (Chancellor’s Professor of Comparative Literature)
Glen Mimura (Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies and Asian American Studies)
DIRECTOR
Nasrin Rahimieh (Howard Baskerville Professor of Humanities, Comparative Literature)
REQUIRED MATERIALS
Beauchamp, Tamara, ed. Humanities Core Handbook: Animal/Culture 2019–2020. XanEdu, 2019. ISBN: 9781593999667
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Translated by Susan Bernofsky, Norton Critical Editions, 2016. ISBN: 9780393923209
SPRING 2020 LECTURE CALENDAR
Students in Humanities Core enroll in a lecture and in a corresponding writing seminar. This calendar (subject to change) provides information about the lecturing faculty, readings, writing assignments, and special events such as Friday Forums. The reading assignment for each lecture should be completed before the lecture. The password for downloadable pdfs will be provided to enrolled students. When lecture slides are available for a particular lecture, a link to download them will be provided.
For information about your writing seminar, please sign in to EEE+ GrandCentral and follow the link to your seminar’s Canvas site.
To access the prerecoreded lectures, which will be made available by 9am each Monday and Wednesday, go to the Canvas site for the lecture in which you are enrolled.
| Date | Lecture | Readings | Events |
| Wk 1 | |||
| 3/30, 3/31 | No lectures Monday or Tuesday. Seminars will meet remotely as determined by instructor. | ||
| 4/1, 4/2 |
Prof. Amiran: Wild Things . (Prerecorded lectures will be available on the Canvas sites for lectures.) |
In seminar:
Optional: |
|
| 4/3 | Friday Forum with Prof. Amiran, 11-11:50am: An opportunity to talk with lecturing faculty, ask questions and share ideas. (See lecture Canvas sites for Zoom information.) | ||
| Wk 2 | |||
| 4/6, 4/7 |
Prof. Amiran: Child Animals: Gender in Winnie the Pooh . |
First meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password). Contact: Dr. Morse (smorse@uci.edu). | |
| 4/8, 4/9 |
Prof. Amiran: Nonsense Animals: Food and Language . |
||
| 4/10 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 3 | |||
| 4/13, 4/14 |
Prof. Amiran: Krazy Kat: Blackness and the Law . |
|
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) |
| 4/15, 4/16 |
Prof. Amiran: Surrealist Animals . |
|
|
| 4/17 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 4 | |||
| 4/20, 4/21 |
Prof. Amiran: The Uncanny Yeti . |
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) | |
| 4/22, 4/23 |
Prof. Schwab: Becoming Insect: Precarious Selves and Species Boundaries . |
|
|
| 4/24 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 5 | |||
| 4/27, 4/28 |
Prof. Schwab: Insect Design, Communication, and Warfare: Craig Child’s Animal Dialogues . |
|
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) |
| 4/29, 4/30 |
Prof. Schwab: Mutant Insects: Trans-species Legacies of Radioactive Contamination . |
|
|
| 5/1 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 6 | |||
| 5/4, 5/5 |
Prof. Schwab: Legacies of Hiroshima and the Specter of Annihilation . |
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) | |
| 5/6, 5/7 |
Prof. Schwab: Trans-species Engineering: Haraway’s “Camille Stories” . |
|
|
| 5/8 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 7 | |||
| 5/11, 5/12 |
Prof. Schwab: Human-Insect Societies: Miyazaki’s Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind . |
|
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) |
| 5/13, 5/14 |
Prof. Mimura: |
|
|
| 5/15 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 8 | |||
| 5/18, 5/19 |
Prof. Mimura: |
|
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) |
| 5/20, 5/21 |
Prof. Mimura: |
|
|
| 5/22 |
Friday Forum 11-11:50am Special opportunity: Submit your own creative fiction to the Camille Project by Sunday, 5/24 |
||
| Wk 9 | |||
| 5/25, 5/26 |
Memorial Day Holiday, May 25 No lectures Monday or Tuesday. Tuesday seminars will meet as usual. |
||
| 5/27, 5/28 |
Prof. Mimura: |
||
| 5/29 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am | ||
| Wk 10 | |||
| 6/1, 6/2 |
Prof. Mimura: |
|
Meeting of the HumCore Reading Group, 3pm on Zoom (our usual password) |
| 6/3, 6/4 |
Prof. Mimura: Conclusion: Monsters, Colonial Modernity, Film . |
Recommended UCI Humanities Event: ‘Yonder they do not love your flesh’: Mourning, Anti-Blackness, and Claiming All of Us. 12pm, June 3, online. | |
| 6/5 | Friday Forum 11-11:50am: This week, a dialogue about current events |
Your (one) final exam is scheduled according to your seminar time.
Image: Pink Chicken Project. Pink Chicken with Future Stratum of the Anthropocene. 2019. https://www.pinkchickenproject.com
