This optional module problematizes the notion of ‘the human’ from a range of critical and philosophical standpoints. It asks whether technological developments, from artificial intelligence to virtual reality, have decentred our traditional understandings of consciousness, perception and embodiment, and if new political and social formations undermine any meaningful sense of shared human experience. It also interrogates the moral and epistemological bases for significant relationships between humans and other species, and asks what, if anything, humans can learn from non-human agents. These questions inform a critical engagement with a selection contemporary works of global literature.
The module will be taught in a series of two-hour seminars. These fortnightly sessions are flexible so as to allow detailed exploration of both literary texts and critical and theoretical material which engage with the limits and possibilities of being human, and with relations between humans and other species, and may include presentations by the module leader, short student presentations and peer-led discussions.
| Definitive UNISTATS Category | Indicative Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching | Seminars | 22 |
| Guided independent study | 278 | |
| Total (number of credits x 10) | 300 | |
Assessment for this module comprises two elements:
The first (30%) is a 2,000-word ‘conference paper’ which will be delivered in seminar and submitted for assessment. Topics, to be chosen in conjunction with the module leader, allow students to explore the literary representations of and/or theoretical approaches to humanity and animality.
The second (70%) is a 4,000-word critical essay which will focus on one or more key concerns of the module and will allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the diverse, and often challenging ways authors have construed humans, animals and their interactions, and how theoretical material complicates our definitions of the human and the animal, as well as the epistemological, moral and political implications of interspecies relationships.
In addition to weekly seminar discussion and formal presentations, drafting and preparation of the critical essay will provide explicit opportunities for formative feedback.
| Learning Outcome | Assessment Strategy |
|---|---|
| Demonstrate a critical understanding of the cultural forces that have contributed to understandings of sex and sexual identity at particular historical moments | Assessed formatively by class discussion and in-class presentation of conference paper. Assessed summatively by a critical essay and shorter conference paper. |
| Offer sophisticated analyses of literary texts within the context of theoretical debates surrounding sex and sexuality. | Assessed formatively by class discussion and in-class presentation of conference paper. Assessed summatively by a critical essay and shorter conference paper. |
| Present their academic work in progress clearly and effectively to both peers and tutors | Assessed formatively by class discussion and in-class presentation of conference paper. Assessed summatively by a critical essay and shorter conference paper. |
| Description of Assessment | Definitive UNISTATS Categories | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| CWK | 2000 word conference paper | 30 |
| CWK | 4000 word essay | 70 |
| Total (to equal 100%) | 100% | |
It IS NOT a requirement that any major assessment category is passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module
- William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
- Jackie Kay, Trumpet (1998)
- J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1999)
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)
- T.C. Boyle, When the Killing’s Done (2011)
- Karen Joy Fowler, We are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2014)
Braidotti, Rosi, The Posthuman (London: Polity, 2013)
Breu, Chritopher, Insistence of the Material: Literature in the Age of Biopolitics
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
Calarco, Matthew, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to
Derrida (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009)
Cavell, Stanley et al., Philosophy and Animal Life (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2009)
Clarke, Bruce, Posthuman Metamorphosis: Narrative and Systems (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2008)
Coetzee, J.M., The Lives of Animals (Princeton University Press, 2001)
Davies, Tony, Humanism (London: Routledge, 2008)
De Boever, Arne, Narrative Care: Biopolitcs and the Novel (London: Bloomsbury,
2014)
Derrida, Jacques, The Animal that therefore I am (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2008)
Haraway, Donna, When Species Meet (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press,
2007)
Hayles, Katherine, N. How we became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)
Lemke, Thomas, Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction (New York: New York
University Press, 2011)
More, Max, and Natasha Vita-More, The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and
Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the
Human Future (Oxford: Wiley, 2013)
Prosser, Jay, Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1998)
Stryker, Susan and Stephen Whittle (eds), The Transgender Studies Reader
(London: Routledge, 2006)
Wolfe, Carey, Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2003)