Animals & Society

Catalog description

This course analyzes the ways that animal and human lives intersect. Specifically, it examines how relationships with animals both reflect and shape social life, culture, and how people think about themselves. We will explore the myriad and contradictory positions that animals occupy in society (e.g., as pets, pests) and deconstruct the social origins of these seemingly natural categories. We will also take a grounded look at what actually happens when humans and animals interact, which sheds new light on the nature of human and animal consciousness. Fundamentally, students will learn how the roles that animals take on in our lives, and the ways that we think about and relate to them, are patterned by geography, culture, class, gender, and so on.