Medieval Animals, Human and Other

How did medieval people separate themselves from other (non-human) animals? Was it the ability of humans to talk, use tools, exercise rationality or something else? We will consider these questions in the first unit of this class, in which we’ll look at cases of what Agamben calls “the anthropological machine”—the ways in which humans have distinguished themselves from other species. Why do some bestiaries (catalogues of animals) include human animals but not others? How did medieval people understand Genesis and the notion of ‘dominion’ given to humans over the rest of creation? In the next unit, we will turn to talking animals, both in medieval philosophical texts and in literature. Do they speak differently from human animals? Do humans speak differently when speaking of them (for example, do texts about parrots or other bird mimics start to ‘parrot’ other texts?). We next turn to cases of metamorphosis (human to animal or vice versa) and hybridity (in which a single body is both human and animal). What do these texts reveal about what is proper to the human and how does the body play a role in shoring up species identity? In a final unit, we turn to assemblages—conglomerations in which human and nonhuman animals act together. We will look both at chivalry (knight+horse) and at medieval lovers, who are often surrounded by birds.