Literary Canines and the Question of Dog

What’s dog got to do with it? Human-canine relationships are complicated things, and writers have represented that relationship as well as the figure of dogs in many ways. This course explores selections of writing about or featuring dogs, from fictional stories to lyrical poems and sentimental memoirs. We will also consider some of the extensive literature on the science of dogs and the sociology of human-canine relationships. Our discussions will consider generally two major topics: (1) the place of dogs in a human world, at the edges of humanity but powerfully a part of it, and (2) dog language and communication, especially as explored through the senses and literary language.

Our central texts will be Roger Grenier’s The Difficulty of Being a Dog and The Bark editors’ collection of writing Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World’s Oldest Friendship, featuring authors such as Alice Walker, Ann Patchett, Mark Derr, Patricia McConnell, Jon Katz, and Rick Bass. We will also read short stories, poems, and excerpts of longer works by Franz Kafka, Shirley Jackson, Harlan Ellison, Virginia Woolf, Jack London, John Grogan, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Cesar Millan, and Donna Haraway.