From fable and bestiary to contemporary fiction and theory, this course explores how writers imagine, use, challenge, and listen to animals. We will read across periods and genres to ask how animals become symbols, companions, kin, workers, research subjects, and beings with their own agencies and needs. Along the way we will consider questions of representation, ethics, voice, labor, captivity, care, and food. We will also think about how literary form shapes what can be said about more-than-human life. The course is designed to develop creative and critical practice together. Students will move through a shared sequence of low-stakes assignments that build skills in observation, close reading, research, description, imitation, and revision. The quarter culminates in a final creative project informed by course texts, class discussion, and a modest amount of outside research.
3 units · Letter (ABCD/NP) · GER: WAY-A-II
From fable and bestiary to contemporary fiction and theory, this course explores how writers imagine, use, challenge, and listen to animals. We will read across periods and genres to ask how animals become symbols, companions, kin, workers, research subjects, and beings with their own agencies and needs. Along the way we will consider questions of representation, ethics, voice, labor, captivity, care, and food. We will also think about how literary form shapes what can be said about more-than-human life. The course is designed to develop creative and critical practice together. Students will move through a shared sequence of low-stakes assignments that build skills in observation, close reading, research, description, imitation, and revision. The quarter culminates in a final creative project informed by course texts, class discussion, and a modest amount of outside research.
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.