And so we end the semester.
Heading into this semester, I expected we would learn a lot about animals and human-animal hybrids in this class. However, I did not expect the amount we learned about purely being human. I really liked the first collection of short stories we read, The Bloody Chamber. I liked how the traditional fairy tales took an uncanny and untraditional turns. The stories were really readable, and brought the characters of familiar fairy tales and myths into a whole new light. I especially liked "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" and "The Tiger's Bride" because these two really forced me to reevaluate whether humans are the desired lifeforms or animals are the desired lifeforms. I also really enjoyed Zoo City because it seemed like a novel I would pick up and read for pleasure on my own. The storyline was extremely compelling and I fell in love with Zinzi and her sloth. Even though it was graphic and hard to read at times, it really made me consider who I viewed as "animalled" in my own life.
I did not care as much for Maus. I think reducing the Holocaust to cats versus mice simply did not work. It reduces all Jews persecuted in the Holocaust to mice, and does not let any of them identify with any other cultural ties they might feel more connected to. Also Art Spiegelman really annoyed me as the story went on because it seemed like he just did not care for his elderly father. I mean, this guy raised him! You should just help him! The metaphor just broke down when they were still mice in America. Earlier they showed Americans liberating concentration camps as dogs. Whose to say none of those Americans were of Jewish heritage, because I bet you some were.
Anyway, it has been a great semester, and I am looking forward to how everyone creatively portrayed their semester tomorrow.