FRSEM-UA 563: Colonizing Creatures: Humans and Other Animals, Past and Present
TIME: Tuesday 12:30-3:00
LOCATION: To be announced
Zeb Tortorici
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
13-19 University Place, 4th floor
zt3@nyu.edu
Office Hours: To be announced
However you look at animals, even if the
animal is up against the bars, less than a foot
from you, looking outwards in the public
direction, you are looking at something that
has been rendered absolutely marginal.
-John Berger
Description:
Did you know that in New York City in the early twentieth century “pygmies” from New Guinea and Africa
were put on display in the Primate section at Bronx Zoo, attracting tens of thousands of visitors weekly and
also sparking major ethical debates? This shocking fact serves as an entry point to examine the fraught
relations between humans and other animals in the past and in the present (locally and globally). Our
readings this spring will focus theoretically, historically, and methodologically on the ways in which the
“human” and the “animal” have been defined over time and place, with significant ramifications for all
involved. Topics to be discussed include medieval and early modern monstrosities; religious rites involving
animals; the commodification of animal parts; bestiality and other violent intimacies; animal domestication
and breeding; zoos, circuses, and animal displays; vivisection and animal experimentation; meat
consumption and the debates surrounding “animal rights”; museums and taxidermy; pests, rodents, and
insects; the rise of animal protection and anti-cruelty laws; and, the advent of “animal studies” as an
academic discipline. In our attempt to engage “real” animals—living, sentient beings—and their archived
remnants, this course involves excursions to the Bronx Zoo, the American Museum of Natural History, and
(if possible) a New York-based taxidermy studio.
Course Materials:
Blackboard will be used throughout the course to distribute some of the course materials. There, you will
find announcements, updates and changes to this syllabus, and links to related sites. A selection of related
texts will be placed on reserve at Bobst for you to consult in the development of your presentations or papers.
The required texts are (please only use the indicated editions):
H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Erica Fudge, Animal
Grading:
Final research paper (12pp):
Essays 1-3 (5pp):
Participation (incl. response papers and presentations):
35%
45%
20%
In-class presentations:
Each student will give approximately two presentations throughout the semester on one of the assigned
readings. Presentations should not last more than fifteen minutes and should summarize critically the key
points of the reading. Although it is not required, if you would like to use multimedia equipment, please
advise me at least five days in advance so that I may request it. Please consider your schedule carefully
before signing up to present a reading since it cannot be made up in the event of your absence. I will be
happy to provide feedback to you regarding your presentation during my office hours. While individual
presentations will not receive a letter grade, they will factor into your participation grade.
Essays and Final Paper:
One of the chief objectives of this course will be to help you develop your academic writing by reading texts
carefully, by discussing your ideas in class, and by writing fairly regularly throughout the course. The three
essays will allow you an opportunity to put into practice some of the techniques demonstrated in class, as
well as work toward developing your final paper.
Essays should be at least 5 pages, double-spaced, and written with a conventional, 12-pt. font and standard
margins. The final paper should be the same, but 12 pages in length. You should develop your essay as a
critical response to one or more of the readings. It needs to call upon outside academic sources and use the
appropriate methods of citation (MLA, Chicago, etc). You are free to write about a topic of your choice
within the context of the class. In developing your topic, feel free to return to your response papers or those
of your classmates in shaping your argument.
Excellent essays demonstrate a judicious use of evidence and analysis in the development of an argument,
while calling upon an appropriate academic style of writing to present its ideas in a logical and organized
fashion. Descriptive, “book-report” essays or essays that are hyper-critical or which reveal careless analysis,
regardless of the quality of their style or organization, will not fulfill the assignment and should be re-written.
Response Papers:
Response papers should be at least one page (double-spaced) and should offer your initial impressions with
respect to the readings. Each student will write a total of four during the semester according to their
placement in one of the three groups—A, B, C—each of which is assigned to different weeks in the
following schedule of classes.
Think of the response paper as an opportunity to guide or prompt class discussion, or as a springboard for
your own ideas. HOWEVER, DO NOT USE THEM TO SUMMARIZE THE READINGS, SINCE WE
HAVE ALL READ THEM. Some approaches that may help you with the assignment are 1) to ask some
question of the text that you are commenting, 2) to describe an interesting contradiction or tension in the text,
3) to suggest ways of generalizing the ideas presented in the reading in order to apply them elsewhere, 4) to
describe relevant similarities or differences between the text in question and some other text that we have
read in class, 5) to propose some additional examples or counter-examples that enhance the text’s argument,
or 6) to respond to the observations of a classmate in a previous class.
Each student should post their response papers on Blackboard by 12:00pm on the Monday before class.
In general, you will not receive a specific grade on your response paper, but they will factor into your final
participation grade. If for scheduling reasons, you cannot prepare a response paper for the date indicated,
you are welcome to arrange on your own to switch temporarily with one of your classmates in one of the
other groups. Please plan carefully, as make-ups are not possible.
Attendance Policy:
Since each meeting is the equivalent of an entire week of class, you can only miss one class without having it
lower your grade. Each additional absence beyond the first will lower your final average by a third of a letter
grade, e.g. with two total absences, a B would become a B-, or with three total absences, a B would become a
C+, etc.
Academic Integrity:
Academic dishonesty is a very serious concern. Any instances of plagiarism, or using someone else’s work,
will be handled according to the procedures set out by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. All such offenses
will be referred to the Department Chair and the Office of the Dean. You may read more about these policies
here: http://cas.nyu.edu/page/academicintegrity
I. Defining the Animal
Week 1
Course introduction
John Berger, “Why Look at Animals?” in About Looking (Vintage, 1992): 3-28
Harriet Ritvo, “Animal Planet,” Environmental History 9:2 (2004): 204-220
Erica Fudge, Animal (Reaktion Books, 2004), pgs. TBD
Frans de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a
Primatologist (Basic Books, 2001), 179-212
Week 2
Group A
Science, Language, and Power
Michel de Montaigne, “An Apology for Raymond Sebond”
René Descartes, from the “Letters of 1646 and 1649”
Anita Guerrini, Experimenting with Humans and Animals: From Galen to Animal
Rights (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pgs. TBD
II. Monsters, Animals, and Empire
Week 3
Group B
Old World Monsters, New World Encounters
The Travels of Sir John de Mandeville (1356), pgs. TBD
E.P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (1906),
pgs. TBD
José Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1590), pgs. TBD
Bernardino de Sahagún, Book 11 (“Earthly Things”) of Florentine Codex: General
History of the Things of New Spain, trans. Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O.
Anderson (University of Utah, 1963)
Week 4
Group C
Essay 1 Due
Linnaeus and Pre-Linnaean Systems of Classification
Susan Scott Parrish, “The Female Opossum and the Nature of the New World.”
William and Mary Quarterly 54:3 (1997): 475-514.
Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of
Modern Science (Routledge, 1989), pgs. TBD
III. Animals as Pets, Food, and Text
Week 5
Group A
Affective Ties
Eduardo Kohn, “How Dogs Dream: Amazonian Natures and the Politics of
Transspecies Engagement,” American Ethnologist 34:1 (2007): 3-24
Harriet Ritvo, “Prize Pets,” in The Animal Estate: The English and Other
Creatures in the Victorian Age (Harvard University Press, 1987): 82-123.
Yi-Fu Tuan, “Animal Pets: Cruelty and Affection.” In The Animal Studies Reader
Aaron Skabelund, “Can the Subaltern Bark? Imperialism, Civilization, and Canine
Cultures in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” in Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L.
Walker, ed., JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life (University
of Michigan Press, 2005): 195-243
Week 6
Group B
Animal Death, Food, and the Politics of Sight
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and
Taboo (Routledge, 1966): 30-58
Timothy Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the
Politics of Sight (Yale University Press, 2011): 1-161
Week 7
Archives
Sarah Kay, “Legible Skins: Animals and the Ethics of Medieval Reading,”
postmedieval: a journal of Medieval Cultural Studies (2011): 13-32
Zeb Tortorici, “Archives and Animalicity.” In Susan Nance, ed., Animals and
History (forthcoming, Duke University Press)
IV. Animals on Display
Week 8
Group C
Essay 2 Due
Animal Empires
Randy Malamud, “Exhibiting Imperialism.” In Reading Zoos: Representations of
Animals and Captivity (New York University Press, 1998)
Jake Kosek, “Ecologies of Empire: On the New Uses of the Honeybee.” Cultural
Anthropology, 25: 4 (2010): 650-678
Neel Ahuja, “Abu Zubaydah and the Caterpillar.” Social Text 29:1 (2011): 127149
TRIP: On your own you must visit The Natural History Museum
V. Exhibiting the Exotic
Week 9
Group A
Taxidermy
Rachel Poliquin, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing
(Penn State University Press, 2012), pgs. TBD
Dave Madden, The Authentic Animal: Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of
Taxidermy (St. Martin’s PressL 2011), pgs. TBD
Donna Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New
York City, 1908-1936,” Social Text 11 (1984-1985): 20-64
“A Taxidermist is the Keeper of a Quiet Zoo”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/nyregion/a-taxidermist-is-a-keeper-of-aquiet-zoo.html
Explore this website: http://www.creelandgow.com/
TRIP: We will visit a New York City taxidermy studio as a group
Week 10
Group B
Menageries, Circuses, and Aquariums
Jane Desmond, “Performing Nature: Shamu at Sea World” in Staging Tourism:
Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World (University of Chicago Press, 1999)
Blanchard Pascal, ed. Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial
Empires (Liverpool University Press, 2008), pgs. TBD
Nigel Rothfels, “Touching Animals: The Search for a Deeper Understanding of
Animals.” In Dorothee Brantz, ed., Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the
Study of History (University of Virginia Press, 2010): 38-58
Primary source excerpts from Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume, Ota
Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo (St. Martin’s Press, 1992), pgs. TBD
Jocelyn L. Buckner, “Ota the Other: An African on Display in America.” In
Theatre History Studies (30) 2010, 154-175,299. (2010)
FILM: The Couple in a Cage, Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez-Peña
TRIP: On your own you must visit The Bronx Zoo this week
Week 11
Group C
Colonial Creatures
H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau (read all)
FILM: Blackfish, Gabriela Cowperthwaite (2013)
VI: Other Animal Encounters
Week 12
Group A
Essay 3 Due
Animal Histories
Erica Fudge, “A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals.” In
Representing Animals, Nigel Rothfels, ed. (Indiana University Press, 2002)
Etienne Benson. 2011. “Animal Writes: Historiography, Disciplinarity, and the
Animal Trace.” In Linda Kalof and Georgina Montgomery, eds. Making Animal
Meaning (Michigan State University Press 2011)
Susan J. Pearson and Mary Weismantel, “Does the ‘Animal’ Exist? Toward a
Theory of Social Life with Animals.” In Dorothee Brantz, ed., Beastly Natures:
Animals, Humans, and the Study of History (University of Virginia Press, 2010):
17-37
Week 13
Group B
Animals and Sex
Piers Beirne, “Toward a Sociology of Animal Sexual Assault,” in Confronting
Animal Abuse: Law, Criminology, and Human-Animal Relationships (Rowman
and Littlefield, 2009), 69-96
Michael Brown and Claire Rasmussen, “Bestiality and the Queering and the
Human Animal” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28:1 (2010):
158-177
FILM: Zoo, Robinson Devor (2007)
Week 14
Group C
Local Animals
Colin Jerolmack, The Global Pigeon (University of Chicago Press, 2013), pgs.
TBD
D. Graham Burnett, Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court
Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature (Princeton
University Press, 2007), pgs. TBD
Donna Haraway, “Sharing Suffering: Instrumental Relations between Laboratory
Animals and Their People.” In When Species Meet (University of Minnesota Press,
2008)
Week 15
Animal Rights?
Jonathan Burt, “Animal Life and Death,” in Animals in Film (Reaktion, 2002)
David DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University
Press, 2002)
Final Essay Due
Date TBD