AMST236-12S1 (C) Semester One 2012
From Bambi to Kong: The Animal in American Popular Culture

Description

This course examines the influence of environmental, indigenous, African-American and gender politics on American popular cultural representations of animals and nature. Topics include the representation of human-animal relationships in cinema and television (in particular, horror and science fiction genres); images of whales in literature, the environmental movement and eco-tourism; dinosaur iconography; primatology in popular culture; and cultural practices such as hunting, pet-keeping, factory farming, and zoos.

Learning Outcomes

Course objectives:
• to trace the influence of competing ideas and narratives about nature and animals, and the human relationship with nature and animals, in a range of past and contemporary popular cultural genres, with a special focus on horror, science fiction and fantasy film;
• to analyze the ways in which popular representations of the ‘natural’, the ‘animal’ and the ‘human’ shift in relation to specific historical periods, cultural and economic events; are constructed in particularly gendered and racialized ways (and in opposition to ideas about ‘culture’); and are variously represented in political discourses (e.g. environmental, feminist etc);
• to survey the impact upon popular cultural representations of social movements (e.g. the environmental movement) that seek to redefine the relationship between humans and nature, and humans and animals

Pre-requisites

Restrictions

Equivalent Courses

For further information see School of Humanities.