In this course, we will examine what it means to “be human” and how this problem has been approached in literature and other media. Through analysing a broad selection of texts, from the classics to the present day, we will consider the human as a mutable category, exploring the slippery borders between human and monster, human and animal, human and alien, and human and machine. We will discuss biological, religious, philosophical, mythic, and scientific conceptions of human character and purpose. We will be particularly interested in works that draw attention to those that have been excluded from the category of the human, unsettle the boundaries of the self (psychic and physical), and ask us to engage with what Aristotle called, “being qua being” or, the study of what it is to be.
The course will consider the binary opposition between self and other -- vampires, ghouls, zombies, and all those things that go bump in the night. However, our readings will also bring us face to face with not the other but ourselves. Transformation or metamorphosis will be a central theme throughout the course as we study the ways in which the human is an unstable or hard to define category.
- Teacher: TST Faculty Alex Peat