ONLINE SEMINAR
June 29 | Power, Rights and Personhood: Who Gets to Be Human?
How do we know what a person is? What characteristics qualify someone for the rights and responsibilities that come with that status? What sets them apart from someone whose personhood is compromised or ambiguous, and why are those the differences that are important? In a world that responds so inconsistently to human suffering, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we take some people’s humanity more seriously than others’. How do we swallow this bitter pill? Narrative traditions address these patterns of systemic difference by reinforcing or challenging them (and often both simultaneously). We will look at classic and contemporary works that embrace this complexity, including animal fables, Shakespeare’s Tempest, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, an extraordinary graphic novel about his parents’ struggle to survive in concentration camps.
When: Six weekly sessions on Mondays, starting June 29 at 8 p.m. Eastern
Duration: 2 hours per session
Cost: C$350 plus 13% HST (approx. US$250 plus 13% HST)
Group Size: 12-participant limit
How: We will be using Zoom online meeting software; you will receive instructions on how to download Zoom free after registration. For your privacy, all our Zoom seminars are password-protected and are never recorded.
All online seminar payments are nonrefundable. Select your registration below; please use the Toronto Pursuits credit option only if you are a registered participant of Toronto Pursuits 2020 who wants to put your deposit or previous payment toward an online seminar.
Description
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LEADER
Emanuelle Burton teaches and writes at the intersection of literature, ethics and the history of ideas. She is the organizer of Transformations of Canon, which brings together experts in religion and fandom to think about narrative transformations of canonical texts, and she is working with computer scientists on a science fiction–based ethics curriculum. In those pockets of spare time, she is writing a book on Aristotelian moral development in the Chronicles of Narnia for the University Press of Mississippi.
READINGS
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
(The Arden Shakespeare, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1408133477
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley,
ed. J. Paul Hunter
(W. W. Norton & Co., 2012)
ISBN-13: 978-0393927931
The Sandman in the Golden Pot and Other Tales by E. T. A. Hoffmann, trans. Ritchie Robinson
(Oxford World’s Classics, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-0199552474
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, 1 & 2 by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon, 1996)
ISBN-13: 978-0679406419
(single-volume hardcover)
OR
ISBN-13: 978-0679748403
(two-volume boxed set)
“Dolly” by Elizabeth Bear
And several texts that can be accessed online; see registration materials for details.
We encourage you to use these editions, but they are not required.
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How do we know what a person is? What characteristics qualify someone for the rights and responsibilities that come with that status? What sets them apart from someone whose personhood is compromised or ambiguous, and why are those the differences that are important?
Ancient texts of many traditions describe human beings as creatures apart from nature, like gods or even themselves a kind of god. Yet alongside this notion of personhood as absolute, there has always existed a social reality of stratification: Some men feast while others starve in the street. In a world that responds so inconsistently to human suffering, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we take some people’s humanity more seriously than others’. How do we swallow this bitter pill? Narrative traditions address these patterns of systemic difference by reinforcing or challenging them (and often both simultaneously). We will look at classic and contemporary works that embrace this complexity, including animal fables, Shakespeare’s Tempest, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, an extraordinary graphic novel about his parents’ struggle to survive in concentration camps.
From Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale
Our readings will take us a step beyond the known world—into fantasy, myth, science fiction and horror—to consider the imaginative languages that equip us, for better and for worse, to differentiate ourselves from one another. Through our discussions, we will explore the terms on which personhood is conferred on (or denied to) particular kinds of people, and how the literary worlds we visit explain or enforce the social order that exists within—offering us, by extension, a fresh lens on our own world and a chance to consider whether we can change the terms.
All online seminar payments are nonrefundable.
Image credit: Bonnie Dean on Flickr
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Additional information
| Choose registration type | Standard registration, Toronto Pursuits 2020 credit |
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