The Poetics of Dehumanization

An examination of a constellation in Western literature that specifically deals with a liminal state between humanity and animality, examining different approaches to the problem of humanity and non-humanity through some of the major works in the modern Western literary canon. The class explores the different ways in which dehumanization takes place in these texts, and how these texts also suggest a re-humanization, a regaining of one's lost humanity. Readings include: Shakespeare, Heine, Baudelaire, Tolstoy, Nietszche, Mallarme, Kafka, Rilke, Celan, and more.