Arguing with Animals

I'm teaching a second level composition class this semester and I've designed the course to focus on animals in rhetoric. It's a speaking intensive class (which means students get to practice speaking ... a lot) so I thought it'd be interesting to call it: "Arguing with Animals." Over the next semester, I intend to post here about the texts and lessons, since teaching these courses are such all-consuming endeavors. I've scanned .pdf copies of most of the texts and I'll put links to copies: people who want to read along and comment, are most welcome to do so.

Here's my course description:

"Animals utter different voices; none can speak—for this is the characteristic of man, for all that have a language have a voice, but not all that have a voice have also a language." (Aristotle, The History of Animals)

This speaking-intensive composition course focuses on animals and "animal-issues." Over the course of the semester, we will read diverse texts that feature animals in a range of rhetorical contexts. The first section of the course, "Animal Encounters," invites you to think about how various authors use language to describe encounters with all manner of non-human animal life. Next, in "Animal Rights," we will examine how rhetoric has been used to petition on behalf of and against animal welfare. The third section of the course, "Topical Animals," will allow us to practice using animals in argument in a series of debates. Finally, we will think about how animal depictions have often been used to govern the boundaries of what we call "the Human." Through informal speaking activities, debates, formal presentations, and writing projects, we will speak and write about what it means to interpret animal voice and silence through human language.