TALKING ANIMALS �in Global Literature and Environmental Studies
GLITS 315 B/ ENVIR 495 F
SLN 14374
5 credits
No prerequisites
Writing credit
Want to explore stories and science about how animals communicate? Want to investigate what animals have to say?
Spring Quarter
2024
T/TH 2:30—4:20
TALKING ANIMALS �in Global Literature and Environmental Studies
Humans have been imagining what animals tell each other and what they would say to us if they could from the first cave paintings to the viral pet videos of today. There have also been times when humans have insisted that animals are incapable of any kind of communication. This course explores the literary, political, and scientific significance of nonhuman talking animals. Students can expect to learn what animals and their languages represent in diverse cultural contexts, develop expertise in interdisciplinary research and writing, and gain experience with global literature and science communication. We’ll encounter storytellers from Greece, Spain, Russia, England, Uruguay, Argentina, and Zimbabwe; we’ll read competing definitions of what communication is; and we’ll read pathbreaking scientific research about the astonishing communicative capacities animals possess—which humans are only beginning to understand.