This quarter, we investigate the way animals shape our understanding of the human species and the challenges that non-human animals present to our ways of knowing and being in the world. How can one live responsibly alongside other species during the Anthropocene? In what ways do animals populate our imaginative responses to cultural and ecological crises? How can we bring the unique tools of the Humanities to bear on issues facing our society and our planet, and empower new ways of thinking?
Animals, People, and Power
What is an animal? How much of what we know about the natural world actually comes from reality, and how much is a projection of human concerns onto other living things? When we represent animals in art, literature, or scientific discourse, what kinds of boundaries between “humanity” and “animality” are drawn? Why are those boundaries so often transgressed or transformed? What kind of cultural or political work is performed when we compare animals to people, or people to animals?
Spring quarter’s lecturing faculty from Film and Media Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Comparative Literature will discuss animals both miniscule and monstrous through literature like Kafka’s Metamorphosis, philosophical works, science fiction, wildlife documentaries, and films including King Kong, Jurassic Park, Chicken Run, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Drawing on the many 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 Animals, People, and Power and will communicate their findings to both academic and broader online public audiences.
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LECTURING FACULTY
Glen Mimura (Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies and Asian American Studies)
Brianne Donaldson (Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain Studies)
Gabriele Schwab (Chancellor’s Professor of Comparative Literature)
REQUIRED MATERIALS S2021
Beauchamp, Tamara, ed. Humanities Core Handbook 2020–2021. XanEdu, 2020. ISBN: 9781711493381
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Translated by Susan Bernofsky, Norton Critical Editions, 2015/16. ISBN: 9780393923209
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Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Translated by Susan Bernofsky, Norton, 2014. ISBN: 9780393347098
SPRING 2021 LECTURE CALENDAR
Students in Humanities Core enroll in a lecture and in a corresponding writing seminar. This calendar (subject to change) provides general information about the lecturing faculty, readings, writing assignments, and special events.
To access the prerecoreded lectures and event links, go to the Canvas site for lecture.
For information about your writing seminar, including PDF links, go the Canvas site for your seminar.
| Date | Lecture | Readings/Viewings | Events |
| Wk 1 | |||
| 3/29, 3/31 |
Prof. Mimura: Child’s Play: Animals and Animation |
Watch: Park and Lord, Chicken Run [online] Read: Halberstam, “Animating Revolt, Revolting Animation” The Queer Art of Failure (pp. 27–29, 37–42, 47, 175–177) [PDF] |
Monday, March 29, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Viewing party (for course students): Chicken Run |
| 3/31, 4/1 |
Prof. Mimura: Films, Animals, Representation: Film Analysis I |
Read: Buhanan, “Film Analysis” in Humanities Core Handbook (pp. 97–106) Read: Beauchamp, “Determining the Topic of a Humanistic Research Project” in Humanities Core Handbook (pp. 211–19) |
|
| Wk 2 | |||
| 4/5, 4/6 |
Prof. Mimura: Films, Animals, Representation: Film Analysis II |
Read: Handey, “My Nature Documentary” [PDF] | Friday, April 2, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Viewing party (for course students): King Kong (2005) |
| 4/7, 4/8 |
Prof. Mimura: King Kong and the Colonial Encounter |
Watch: Jackson, King Kong [online] Read (optional): Rony, “King Kong and the Monster in Ethnographic Cinema” (pp. 157–160, 170–172, 175–189) [PDF] |
Friday, April 9, 6:30-9 p.m. Viewing party (for course students): Jurassic Park |
| Wk 3 | |||
| 4/12, 4/13 |
Prof. Mimura: Jurassic Park and the Anthropocene |
Watch: Spielberg, Jurassic Park [online and streaming on the library resource Swank] | |
| 4/14, 4/15 |
Prof. Mimura: Monsters, Colonial Modernity, Film |
Explore: Pink Chicken Project [online] | Friday, April 16, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. Humanities Core UROP Symposium (Award-winning students reflect on their research projects from 2020) |
| Wk 4 | |||
| 4/19, 4/20 |
Prof. Donaldson: Difficult Rebirth: Animals in Classical Indian Thought |
Read: Jaini, “Indian Perspectives on the Spirituality of Animals” [PDF] Explore: The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (India, 1960) [PDF] |
|
| 4/21, 4/22 |
Prof. Donaldson: Irrational Soul: Animals in Classical Western Thought |
Read: Aristotle, Excerpt from Politics [PDF] Read: Porphyry, Excerpt from On the Abstinence from Animal Food [PDF] Explore: US Animal Welfare Act [PDF] |
|
| Wk 5 | |||
| 4/26, 4/27 |
Prof. Donaldson: Descartes’ Animal Machines to Modern Animal Rights |
Read: Oswald, “The Cry of Nature; Or, An Appeal to Mercy and Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals” [PDF] Read: Singer, “Practical Ethics” [PDF] Explore: USDA Annual Laboratory Usage Report (2020) [PDF] |
|
| 4/28, 4/29 |
Prof. Donaldson: Expanding Ethical Perspectives: Animals and Gender |
Read: Adams, “The Rape of Animals, the Butchering of Women” [PDF] View: Media images of absent referent as related to species, gender, and race at https://caroljadams.com/examples-of-spom Explore: USDA Livestock Data (June 2020) [PDF] Read: Animal Ethics website, “Virtue Ethics and Care Ethics” |
|
| Wk 6 | |||
| 5/3, 5/4 |
Prof. Donaldson: Expanding Ethical Perspectives: Animals and Race |
Read: Walker, “Am I Blue?” [PDF] Read: Ko, “By ‘Human,’ Everybody Just Means ‘White’” [PDF] Watch: “Nonhuman Rights Project Aims to Grant Legal Personhood Status to Some Species” [website] Explore: How are pigs differently represented in two sources: Pigs, Farm Sanctuary [website] and Pigs, Pork Checkoff [PDF] |
|
| 5/5, 5/6 |
Prof. Donaldson: Expanding Ethical Perspectives: Animals and Race |
Read: Vallely, “Being Sentiently with Others” [PDF] View: McArthur, Photographs on any topic in the WeAnimals photo archive [website] |
|
| 5/7 | Special Event: Shri Parshvanath Lecture on “Ethical Innovations: Alternatives to Animal Testing” featuring Dr. Kathrin Herrmann (Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at Johns Hopkins University), May 7, 12–1:15 p.m. UCI Center for Medical Humanities | ||
| Wk 7 | |||
| 5/10, 5/11 |
Prof. Schwab: Becoming Insect: Body and Self in Kafka’s Metamorphosis |
Read: Kafka, Metamorphosis (Norton, 2016) [Bookstore] Read: Raffles, “Kafka” from Insectopedia [PDF] |
|
| 5/12, 5/13 |
Prof. Schwab: Insect Brains, Insect Genes, Insect Societies: Craig Child’s Animal Dialogues |
Read: Childs, “Praying Mantis,” “Mosquito,” and “Wasp” from The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters [PDF] Read: Morse, “Developing Titles, Introductions, and Conclusions in Research Writing” in Humanities Core Handbook (pp. 220–31) |
Special Event: UCI Illuminations Lecture by Carl Safina, Writer and Conservationist, May 13, 6–7 p.m. UCI Illuminations |
| Wk 8 | |||
| 5/17, 5/18 |
Prof. Schwab: Mutant Insects: Trans-species Legacies of Radioactive Contamination |
Read: Raffles, “In the Beginning,” “Chernobyl,” and “Difference” from Insectopedia [PDF] Read: Alexievich, “Monologue about What Radiation Looks Like” from Voices from Chernobyl [PDF] View: Hesse-Honneger, Completed studies of Fukishima, South Vietnam, Chernobyl, Switzerland, Europe, and United States [website] |
|
| 5/19, 5/20 |
Prof. Schwab: Legacies of Hiroshima and the Specter of Annihilation |
Read: Schell, “A Republic of Insects and Grasses” (pp. 78–96) [PDF] Read: Lifton, Appendix to Indefensible Weapons [PDF] |
Celebration of Humanities Core Arts on Friday, May 21, 11am-12pm on Zoom (meeting ID 99837393550) |
| Wk 9 | |||
| 5/24, 5/25 |
Prof. Schwab: Trans-species Engineering: Haraway’s “Camille Stories” |
Read: Haraway, “The Camille Stories: Children of Compost” from Staying with the Trouble [PDF] | Tuesday, May 25, 6:30-9 p.m. Viewing party (for course students): Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind |
| 5/26, 5/27 |
Prof. Schwab: Human-Insect Societies: Miyazaki’s Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind |
Watch: Miyazaki, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind [online] | |
| Wk 10 | |||
| 5/31, 6/1 | Memorial Day Holiday, May 31 No lectures Monday or Tuesday. Tuesday seminars will meet as usual. |
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| 6/3, 6/4 | End-of-year Live Conversation on Animals, People, and Power with Professors Rahimieh, Mimura, Donaldson, Schwab, et al. [Zoom on June 2 & 3 11:00 -11:50 a.m., link on Canvas] |
Your (one) final exam will be administered during a 48-hour window from Monday, June 7 – Wednesday, June 9.
Image: Detail of screenshot from Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
