Seminar Texts

• Adams, Carol. “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings. Eds. Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald. Gordonsville, VA: Berg Publishers, 2007. 171-181. Print.
• Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” In The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. 1992. 110-118. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Print.
• Coetzee, J.M. The Lives of Animals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Print. (Read the novel excerpts and any two of the five responses at the end).
• Kafka, Franz. “Report for an Academy.” 1917. Web.
• Piotr Dumala, Little Black Riding Hood, 1983, 5 min
• Tex Avery, Red Hot Riding Hood, 1943, 7 min
• Fleischer Brothers Studio, Dizzy Red Riding Hood, 1931, 7 min
• Alison DeVere, Black Dog, 1987, 17 min

Framing Questions:
Respond to each of the following questions with a paragraph.

1. This week’s readings and screenings bring together questions of animal and human rights and touch on a number of complex ethical concerns, including the implications of eating other animals, how dietary codes can reinforce gender roles, connections between the objectification of women and that of animals, and the different meanings of predation. Draw a Venn diagram that shows how these issues (and any others you identified in this week’s readings and films) are interrelated and how the authors and filmmakers connected them.
2. This week’s readings and films employ a variety of rhetorical devices and frameworks to explore complex cultural issues. Using at least two of the texts, compare and contrast their effects on your understanding of and relationship to a particular issue. Aside from whether you agree with its rhetorical position, what text/film did you find most compelling (emotionally engaging, persuasive, memorable) and why?
3. What do you see as the intersection(s) of human animal rights and non-human animal rights? How might this inform the way you represent the animal you have been studying? How can you imagine using animation and creative writing to explore this further?
4. Coetzee’s protagonist Elizabeth Costello argues that the jaguar’s consciousness is kinetic rather than abstract and that “when we direct the current of feeling that flows between ourself and the animal into words we abstract it forever from the animal” (51). What are the implications of this for human animals, for non-human animals, and for the possibility of connection between these two groups? Draw examples from various creative and critical texts and animated works to develop and support your ideas.
5. Kafka, Coetzee and Carter all employ creative writing to address critical concerns. How does the use of a fictional framework serve their rhetorical aims? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this choice? Use examples from the texts.
6. What are the different rhetorical messages expressed in the various versions of “Little Red Riding Hood,” including Carter’s “The Company of Wolves?” What rhetorical devices are used and how did they affect you?

Due:
Seminar, Week 7—9:00am, Thursday, May 17.

Formatting Requirements: