♫"Don't send my cat to Harvard," the dying mother said....♫

Thanks to Joss for raising Lolcat to its highest level of consciousness ever. Harvard University, it seems, has been offering a course on Talking Animals, which last spring began to cover this new form of expression:

*English 199t. Animals That Talk
Catalog Number: 7511 Enrollment: Limited to 18.
Marc Shell
Half course (spring term). Th., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Who speaks for those who do not speak? This seminar on animal ventriloquism focuses on literary works where animals talk like human beings (Brer Rabbit, Porky Pig) or speak with humans (Poe’s raven, Balaam’s ass). We consider works where human beings talk like animals or speak with animals (Dr. Doolittle, King Solomon) or think that’s what they do. Texts include cartoons (Bugs Bunny), plays with animal disguises (Midsummer Night’s Dream), folktales with animal metamorphoses, and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Though not in this year's catalog, the course did get coverage last April on Christopher Lydon's Open Source show/blog/whateveritis:  

Marc Shell teaches a class at Harvard on talking animals in culture high and low, from Poe’s Raven to Pepe Le Peu. His thesis is that giving animals speech and then making them talk funny is all about distinguishing who is like us and who is not. Not just who is human and who is not, but also, who is a native English speaker and who is, say, a Mexican immigrant. I was shocked to go through the list of classic Warner Brothers cartoon characters and realize that almost every one of them, from Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn, to Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, have some kind of outrageous accent or speech impediment.

        

The lolcats are not that far off. Each picture’s caption, which is usually like a little speech bubble, is almost always messed up in some way. Bad spelling, bad grammar, misused words, etc. In other words, the lolcats are funny because they don’t know how to “speak good English.” So to speak. For some reason, it’s a lot funnier to picture a cat saying, “I can has cheezburger?” than it is to picture it saying, “Can I have a cheeseburger?” Eschewing for the moment that these are cats and that they can’t…talk…at all.

Well, famed Harvard alum Ted Kennedy can hardly talk at all anymore and that doesn't stop HIM. Maybe Professor Shell will have him in as a guest lecturer next year:



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Right. Off to become a productive member of society for a few hours.