the nonhuman

ENGLISH-UA 735

Course Description: From climate crisis to computer code, data to dust, plastics to plant life, the nonhuman has become a central figure of critical and aesthetic concern in our contemporary world. In this course, we will be exploring the canonical and emerging scholarship that attempts to understand the role of the nonhuman in the human world and the possibility of nonhuman worlds beyond or devoid of the human. Among many significant questions for this course, some we will be considering are: In what ways does the nonhuman complicate or resist representation or description? How does the presence of the nonhuman change how we understand agency? How does the nonhuman intersect with issues of race, class, gender? As the critical discourses surrounding the nonhuman are interdisciplinary, diverse, and rapidly shifting, the goal of this course is to introduce students to the various discourses concerned with the nonhuman. We will do this through explorations of six primary figures, including: environments, nonhuman life and creatures, elements, technology, infrastructure, and objects & the alien. Students will closely engage with critical writing in each of these areas and consider this scholarship alongside texts across narrative genres and media forms, including print narratives, film, games, and more. This course will consider the nonhuman as a philosophical figure, a cultural, social, and political phenomenon, and as a framework to approach and analyze literature, art, and texts.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course, it’s my hope that you will --

• Demonstrate familiarity with the various discourses and schools of thought concerned with the nonhuman.
• Develop and apply a critical, theoretical vocabulary.
• Apply the terms, concepts, and theories learned in class to various texts, experiences, and cultural contexts.
• Develop the ability to think critically about media and genre form, particularly as it relates to the theoretical concerns of the course.
• Engage in creative, experimental, interdisciplinary, critical thinking and production.

Texts: Almost all texts will be linked to the syllabus and accessible digitally, in a shared folder and/or via Bobst. Here are a list of texts students will need to purchase:

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Outer Wilds (available on Steam, Playstation Network, etc.)

Luxuria Superbia (available on Steam, Playstation Network, etc.)

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin

The Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

Assignments: In this class, the following work will be evaluated:

• Traditional Paper 20 points, due June 10
• Object Lesson 20 points, due June 20
• Nonhuman World project 20 points, due July 1
• Final Presentation 20 points due July 6
• Participation 20 points

Beginnings – What, how, why the Nonhuman?

M May 23 – Introductions

 Watch: The Matrix

 Watch: Richard Grusin, "Why Nonhuman? Why Now?"

Environments – What are environments? How do they structure knowledge, being, etc?

T May 24 - Read: Ursula Heise, Introduction from Sense of Place, Sense of Planet

                 Read: Timothy Morton, Introduction from The Ecological Thought

W May 25 – Read: Alenda Chang, ”Games as Environmental Texts”

 Play: Outer Wilds 

M May 30 – No Class, Happy Memorial Day!

T May 31 – Read: Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation

 Read: Stacy Alaimo, Introduction from Bodily Natures

Creatures – What makes a creature? How do we relate to them? What can we learn from them?

W June 1 – Read: Donna Haraway, Companion Species Manifesto & “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” 

                 Listen: The Sythanthrope Preserve 

M June 6 – Read: Anna Tsing, “Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species”

                 Read: Eva Hayward, “FingeryEyes: Impressions of Cup Corals,”

                 Explore: Pinar Yoldas, Ecosystem of Excess More Here and Here 

     Play: Luxuria Superbia or Watch: Playthrough

T June 7 – Read: Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Introduction from Becoming Human, “Losing Manhood: Animality and Plasticity in the (Neo) Slave Narrative”

 Watch: My Octopus Teacher 

Technology – What is Technology? What does it do? What kinds of technology are there? How does it structure meaning?

W June 8 – Read: Marshall McLuhan, selections from Understanding Media

                 Read: Friedrich Kittler, selections from Grammophone, Film, Typewriter 

              Read: Ted Chiang “Story of Your life”

F June 10 – Due: Traditional Paper

M June 13 – Read: N. Katherine Hayles, “Print is Flat, Code is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis”

                  Read: Alexander Galloway, Protocol 

                    Explore: Nick Montfort, “Takoro Gorge”

Objects & the Alien – What is it like to be an object? How do we think the alien? Why is it important to think objects/the alien? What can we learn from objects/the alien?

T June 14 – Read: Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomenology

                  Read: Jussi Parikka and Garnet Hertz, “Zombie Media”

            Explore: 17776, or What Football Will Look Like in the Future 

W June 15 – Read: Eugene Thacker, selections from In the Dust of this Planet

                  Read: Ted Chiang, “Lifecycle of Software Objects,” 

M June 20 – No class, Happy Juneteenth!

                  Due: Object Lesson

Infrastructure –  What is Infrastructure? What does it do? Where is it?

T June 21 – Read: Lisa Parks, ”’Stuff You Can Kick’: Toward a Theory of Media Infrastructures”,

  Read: Nicole Starosielski, selections from the undersea network 

  Explore: Surfacing

W June 22 – Read: Ingrid Burrington, Networks of New York: A Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure 

  Read: Shannon Mattern, “Maintenance and Care”  

S June 26 – Due: Nonhuman Worlds Project Proposal

M June 27 - Read: Tim Maughan, The Infinite Detail

Elements – How do elemental forms structure knowledge and meaning?

T June 28 – Read: J.R. Carpenter, The Gathering Cloud print & digital

  Read: John Durham Peters, selections from The Marvelous Clouds.  

  Listen: Jacob Smith, Lightning Birds: An Aeroecology of the Airwaves

W June 29 – Read: Christina Sharpe, selections from In the Wake

                  Read: Melody Jue, selections from Wild Blue Media

                  Read: M. NourbeSe Philip, selections from Zong!

                  Listen: Drexciya, Deep Sea Dweller

F July 1 – Due: Final Project Update

M July 4 – No Class! Happy Fourth of July!

T June 5 – Read: NK Jemisin, The Fifth Season

                 Read: Kathryn Yusoff, Billion Black Anthropocenes

Endings

W July 6 – Due: Nonhuman Worlds Projects & Final Presentations