Fictions of the Non/Human (HEN209/HEN309)
Semester 2 / 2016

Texts

form y separately published work icon The Hunter Alice Addison , Wain Fimeri , Daniel Nettheim , ( dir. Daniel Nettheim ) 2011 Sydney : Porchlight Films , 2011 Z1767310 2011 single work film/TV thriller (taught in 1 units) 'Martin David, a modern-day soldier of fortune, rendezvous in Paris with a mysterious man, Jacek Koman, who hires him to travel to Tasmania and attempt to locate a Tasmanian Tiger (or thylacine) - although the animal is believed to be extinct, there are rumours that one has been sighted - and its DNA, whether the animal is dead or alive, represents a fortune to vested interests.'
Source: Stratton, David. 'At the Movies'. http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s3312287.htm (Sighted 13/10/2011)
y separately published work icon Under the Skin Michel Faber , New York (City) : Harcourt , 2000 Z1016775 2000 single work novel mystery science fiction (taught in 2 units)

'Isserley is a female driver who picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny, peering child-like over the steering wheel. Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she hears passengers reveal who might miss them if they should disappear.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Only the Animals Ceridwen Dovey , Melbourne : Penguin , 2014 7149680 2014 selected work short story (taught in 4 units)

'In a trench on the Western Front a cat recalls her owner Colette's theatrical antics in Paris. In Nazi Germany, Himmler's dog seeks enlightenment. A Russian tortoise once owned by the Tolstoys drifts in space during the Cold War. In the siege of Sarajevo, a bear starving to death tells a fairytale; and a dolphin sent to Iraq by the US Navy writes a letter to Sylvia Plath.

'Ten animal souls tell extraordinary stories about their lives and deaths, caught up in human conflicts of the last century and its turnings. Together they form an animal's eye view of humans at both our brutal, violent worst and our creative, imaginative best. Exquisitely written, playful and poignant, Only the Animals is a remarkable literary achievement by one of our brightest young writers. It asks us to find our way back to empathy not only for animals, but for other people, and to believe again in the redemptive power of reading and writing fiction.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Disgrace J. M. Coetzee , London : Secker and Warburg , 1999 6173241 1999 single work novel (taught in 11 units)

After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.' (Publisher's blurb)

Oryx and Crake, Atwood

Trumpet, Kay

Beasts of No Nation, Iweala

Rust And Bone (film) directed by Jacques Audiard

Lobster (film) directed by Yargos Lanthimos

Let the Right One In (film) directed by Tomas Alfredson

District Nine (film) directed by Neil Blomkamp

Description

This unit interrogates the construction of the "human" in cultural texts through an examination of its constitutive relationship with the nonhuman. Through a selection of contemporary literary and visual texts, students will be invited to engage with a range of critical frameworks such as animal studies, critical plant studies, theories of race and critical whiteness, queer theory, disability studies, posthumanism and the environmental humanities.

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