Barometz, Dodo, Jubjub, Heffalump! Bizarre Animals and British Literature: A Special Relationship

<strong>Centre for English Studies </strong> a talk by <strong>Prof. Christoph Heyl</strong> on <strong>Barometz, Dodo, Jubjub, Heffalump! Bizarre Animals and British Literature: A Special Relationship</strong> <strong>on 25th February</strong> Some of the most successful English books of all time teem with strange, extremelystrange or even downright bizarre animals – just think of Lewis Carroll'sAlice inWonderland or A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Once you start looking for such animals inEnglish literature, you find more and more of them, especially in books that appeal toboth adults and children. It seems that, in from the 19th century onwards, Englishliterature became a preferred habitat for bizarre beasts. People obviously liked to readabout them, and their presence still contributes to the enduring popularity of many books. Why did English authors and English readers develop this extraordinary preoccupation with strange animals? How did these bizarre beasts migrate into English literature, and where did they come from to begin with. To find answers to these questions, Christoph Heyl invites you to embark on an entertaining journey back in time. In the course of this journey, you will encounter intrepidexplorers and pirates of the seventeenth century, vegetable lambs (!), early collectorswho spent enormous sums on weird and wonderful exotic flora and fauna, a very deadbird from Mauritius that enjoys a remarkable literary after-life, Charles Darwin andvarious invisible monsters. This talk will be illustrated with numerous images. Prof.Christoph Heyl is Chair of English Literature and Culture at the University of Duisburg-Essen, one of Germany's biggest universities.He studied English and History at the Universities of Frankfurt (Germany)and Reading (England). He then spent several years in London where he was affiliated to the German HistoricalInstitute. He taught Humboldt University (Berlin) and a number of other German universities before he was appointed to theChair of British Literature and Culture at the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2011. Christoph Heyl is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Much of his work is interdisciplinary, revealing connections between literature, cultural history, the visual arts and music. His research covers a wide range of periods and topics. He has published onliterature, art and everyday life in eighteenth-century London, collectors and collections in the seventeenth century, crime and crime fiction, urban disasters such as London'sGreat Plague and Great Fire, current political and cultural developments in Scotland,seventeenth-century cosmetics, literature and the senses of smell and hearing, the futureruins of London and music in the eighteenth century (from Scottish bagpipe music toHändel's oratorios). In 2013, he published an interdisciplinary handbook of urban studies (as co-author and editor). He is currently working on a study on emigrants and refugees in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London (in literature and cultural history).