Ethics and Extinction

Catalog description

Course explores the ethical dimensions of extinction from numerous perspectives and genres: ethnographic, historical, philosophical/ethical and religious texts; fiction and film; artistic representations; public protests and rituals; and current news stories. We consider case studies of iconic creatures that have gone extinct or are in danger of doing so, and consider the ethics of saving or reviving species through hi-tech conservation and “de-extinction” strategies. We will expand our ideas of extinction by considering the silencing of nature’s soundscapes (sonic extinction), and the entangled loss of animal and human languages to extinction. We will also look at emerging narratives about human extinction posed by AI systems.