Module overview
What can animals teach us about the human and non-human? What do the creative forms we use to describe them show us about human form and the other? In this module, you will read a range of poetic and critical material which explores the porous boundaries between person, pet, and predator, and consider animals from the domestic cat to charismatic megafauna. Your journey will take you from ecocriticism and bioethics to circuses, zoos, and the wilderness. The module will include a range of poetry, from Anglo-Saxon riddles to nonsense poetry, and also give you the opportunity to write your own. Over the course of the module, the range of critical, human, and animal encounters aims to reshape the way we consider language, being, and our relationship with the world.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- a range of poetic forms and techniques
- the historical and ethical contexts for our depiction of the non-human in literature
- the philosophical questions raised by studying human and non-human relations
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- design and implement your own intellectual and creative projects
- develop creative confidence
- explore and identity patterns across a range of different textual material
Cognitive Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- respond creatively to questions of historical and current importance
- develop intellectual and creative links between culture and ethics
- debate philosophical questions drawing upon cultural knowledge
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- draw on philosophical and ethical arguments in literary analysis
- plan and develop a research essay on poetry
- use poetry analysis as a prompt for creative work
Syllabus
This module will explore a range of formal, technical and philosophical questions raised by the depiction of animals in poetry. Weekly readings will allow you to make connections across poetry collections, within specific poetic movements, and between poems, theoretical texts, and wider ethical questions. While the focus will be predominantly be on modern and contemporary writing, we will also explore the role of animals in medieval bestiaries and Renaissance allegory. Throughout the module, we will encourage you to develop creative, critical, and philosophical responses to the texts. Indicative poets you will encounter on this module include William Cowper, Elizabeth Bishop, Edward Lear, Marianne Moore, and Danez Smith.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching methods include
- Seminars
- Learning support hours
- Individual consultations
Learning activities include
- Independent study, including reading and writing
- Group discussion
- Peer appraisal of writing
This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible contact hour, 5 in total, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour may include (but need not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions. In this module, these hours will be particularly focused on supporting and workshopping your creative responses.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Completion of assessment task | 30 |
| Follow-up work | 10 |
| Wider reading or practice | 53 |
| Teaching | 27 |
| Preparation for scheduled sessions | 30 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Mike Malay (2018). The Figure of the Animal in Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan.
Alisdair Cochrane (2010). An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan.
Tom L. Beauchamp and R.G. Frey, (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics. Oxford University Press.
Laurence Buell (1995). The Environmental Imagination. Harvard University Press.
Cheryll Glotflety and Harold Fromm (1996). The Ecocriticism Reader. University of Georgia.
Onno Oerlemans (2018). Poetry and Animals: Blurring and Boundaries with the Human. Columbia University Press.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Portfolio | 100% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Portfolio | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Portfolio | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External