Who Looks at? A Course with Animals

Abstract

Two semesters ago I proposed a course around texts of different genres and moments, with the condition that they include representations of the animal, or directly animals. Each year the course is dedicated to literary forms and techniques. The fact that the readings refer to animals could be interpreted as a whim. But I do not think whims are irrelevant. Probably it happens the other way around: whim, curiosity, zigzagging exploration could be stimulating reading acts tin order to question installed premises which in literature are frequent, largely because they are easily adopted. And yet, it was not a whim; it was an invitation to perform a test, imprecise in its results, as I will explain