Subject Area: English
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: Media, Culture and Technology

Widespread in the humanities at the moment is a rethinking of what it means to be human. This course will look at how literature and film use the nonhuman subjectivity of animals, monsters and machines to shape our understanding of the human. By examining the changing presentation of animals, monsters and machines in a range of texts from the seventeenth century through to the beginning of the twenty first century, the course will show how aesthetic practices such as literature and film extend and test our sympathetic imagination by allowing us to inhabit subject positions that we are normally unable to inhabit. Students taking the course will develop a sense of the ethical, social, political and philosophical value of literature and film.