chatham UNIVERSITY
School of Sustainability and the Environment
Engaging Animals: Situating Human-Animal Relations in Sustainability
Instructor
Contact Information
Classroom
Office Hours
Dr. Crystal Fortwangler
Dilworth 116; 412-365-1782
TBD
by appointment
Formal Catalogue Description
This course considers human-other animal engagements and how these affect sustainability. We
first make sense of what “engaging animals” means, focusing on human-animal relations at
different scales and levels cross-culturally, and then consider sustainability, biodiversity and
food systems. We end with a student-led symposium on a specific human-animal relationship in
relation to sustainability.
Course Description
This course considers how humans think about and engage other animals (and how animals
“think” about and engage us, or adapt to our presence), and how this helps or hinders efforts to
create a more sustainable world (and even how these engagements can re-shape our
understanding of sustainability). We first make sense of what “engaging animals” means –
considering various ontological, epistemological, and cultural understandings held by people
around the world that shape how they view other animals, and also how animals help constitute
human to human relationships. We take a comparative approach, examining how other animals,
for example, can be considered as food, a proxy for “nature” or "a threat to nature", roadkill,
entertainment, family members, spiritual or religious guides, creators, companions, laborers,
tolerated guests, symbionts, parasites, nuisances, and sometimes even enemies. Humans too
have different roles in other animals’ lives – some animals thrive in the presence of humans,
others struggle. And the boundary between “human” and “non-human” itself is complex.
Of interest are the ways in which human relationships with other animals shape (and are shaped
by) the concept of biodiversity (and related concepts that encourage the maintenance of viable
systems to support diverse species) and food practices and systems. Importantly, we focus on
power dynamics in policy arenas that preference certain societal ways of thinking about and
engaging other animals, and what this means for human communities and other animals in
particular places, and also sustainability in general.
By focusing on examples involving human-animal relations at different scales and levels crossculturally, we consider the impact of such relations as they pertain to the pursuit of
sustainability. By exploring specific human - animal interactions, such as those involving human
communities and microscopic animals, rats, birds, ungulates, orangutans, domestic pigs, green
iguanas, African elephants, gray whales, rainbow trout, and roadkill we can highlight
fundamental themes that appear as part of such relationships. For example, how societies assign
animals to taxonomic, utilitarian, ethical, and/or ecological domains (and why how we
understand the world matters – what does “science” or “traditional knowledge” mean to
societies and how is it used, for example), what we qualify as “animal”, how we determine food
preferences and taboos, and weave moral codes into animal stories, why some societies
domesticate animals and other animals and humans “co-domesticate”, what rights humans
believe other animals should have (and how we “feel” about animals), how societies attempt to
regulate ecosystems through animal use, ways that animals adapt to human presence (or decline
in it), why any given animal is valued in different ways by different societies, how species
protection policies are often controversial and are linked to specific moral perspectives, and why
some people think it is ok to genetically modify animals for consumption or place animals in
zoos or protected areas, and others do not. In each case we will situate these discussions into a
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
broader conversation about sustainability, and focus one session on the ways in which humananimal relations are adapting to climate change.
Students will apply their knowledge and understanding of human-animal relations by
organizing a semester-end symposium that seeks to interpret the relationships between humans
and bees, choosing a specific focus for the symposium that highlights the themes of the course
(and particularly sustainability) and allows students an opportunity to showcase their own work
on human-bee relationships and bring in expert voices to contribute to the conversation.
Theories and approaches in the humanities, social sciences, and ecology inform the course as do
place-based, local perspectives and explanations. Of special focus are recent works in
“multispecies ethnography”, an increasing area of study in which human-other species
relationships are fore grounded. Our information about these relationships will be drawn from
ethnographic accounts, comparative studies, academic accounts, films, personal stories, and
interviews.
Student Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
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Identify how humans think about and engage other animals and how animals “think”
about and engage us, or adapt to our presence, and determine how this helps or hinders
efforts to create a more sustainable world.
Recognize the ways in which humans and other animals influence one another and
illustrate how this is situated within broader ways that humans influence their
environments and that their environments influence them.
Distinguish and compare various ways in which humans conceptualize, interpret, value,
and engage “other animals” by examining how historical and material circumstances,
societal relations and cultural identities reflect and inform human understanding of the
living and non-living world around us.
Use examples to illustrate or explore key ideas and think conceptually and critically
about the human condition and our relationships with animals.
Organize and carry out a symposium open to the university and public on a specific
human-other animal relationship in the context of sustainability.
Program Objectives addressed by this course:
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Form #2B
Explain how environmental, societal, and economic well-being are interrelated, and the
implications of that relationship on individual and social decisions
Compare and contrast multiple ways in which human societies interact with the
environment and how they view sustainability or related concepts
Explain how different individuals and groups select the information they use to inform
their decisions
Access appropriate sources of knowledge necessary to apply the principles of
sustainability in a variety of settings
Plan as part of a team a public or university-wide lecture, film, symposium, or workshop
related to sustainability
Evaluate starting premises, assumptions and viewpoints for ethnocentric bias or other
forms of bias as it pertains to the study and pursuit of sustainability.
Demonstrate ability to use history, ethics, culture, and empirical data to document and
evaluate food systems
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Grading and Assessment
Leading Class – 20%
Students will lead discussion for one of five possible class sessions (weeks 5-9).
With a partner students will critically evaluate assigned pieces, moving beyond a
basic review and analysis to consider themes of the week in relation to additional
human-animal relationships (in other words you will explore literature/films
beyond what we have read on the topic and think about ways to apply that
literature/material to different situations). Students should raise critical
questions, provide comparisons to other situations, and then direct the rest of the
class in discussion (and incorporate student comments on the material into your
presentation). You will be graded on presentation content and style (and a 2 page
summary piece that captures the essence of your discussion) but more
importantly how you advance our conversation about the topic beyond what was
assigned. You should circulate themes/discussion areas in advance of class.
Commenting on and Discussing Class Material – 20%
Students should submit comments and thoughts about course material assigned
for each class *in advance* of our meeting time (you can pass on one week). The
comments should be 1-2 paragraphs and be substantial in thought. You need to
read / view the material and think about it before we meet in class. Additionally,
each student should read and respond to at least one other posting, and be
prepared to provide additional questions, comments, and thoughts in class.
You will receive a grade on these for each piece that you submit. The grade is A,
A-, or B+. At the end of the semester, I’ll assign a cumulative grade that reflects
your work. In my opinion, this type of assignment is one of the most useful as it
ensures that we stay together as a class and that everyone is participating (and
has read the assigned pieces). We will set aside time for discussion on the written
comments each class, expanding on them and considering various perspectives.
You might offer responses to questions or comments, share your perspective,
respectfully engage me and other students, and bring important examples to
share with us.
Participating in group discussion can be a daunting task – but rest assured we
aren’t asking you to jump in with brilliant thoughts at a moment’s notice. If fact,
there is no need to talk at all in a given session – you can raise interesting
questions to me during breaks or suggest a new direction for conversation. Or
you might want to think about the topics and email me later (or visit me in office
hours). But think – you need to think, engage the topic, put your mind to it. I
need to know that you are doing this – either in classroom discussion, through
email or office visits. You want me to know you are critically thinking. Another
key point here is that you participate in the conversation – not dominate it.
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Two Essays – 30% (15% each)
You will write two essays, 4-6 double-spaced pages each.
1. The first essay is two-part. On the first day we meet, you will write your
thoughts during class time how you “think about and engage” animals. This is not
graded individually but in conjunction with the second part of the essay, which is
due at the end of the semester when you submit an essay reflecting on human –
other animal relationships, examining if or how your understanding of this has
changed or endured, what strikes you as peculiar about your initial thoughts as
you joined the course, how you position yourself vis-à-vis other animals, how
readings or films influenced your thinking over the semester, etc. You should
specifically reflect on the thoughts you wrote at the beginning of the semester
(and include a copy of those attached to the essay you submit end of semester).
2. The second essay will be based on information gathered and observations
made on a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo. The trip will be part of a session on
orangutans. At the zoo, we will observe interactions between human “visitors”
and orangutan “residents” and learn about research efforts coordinated through
the zoo on how orangutans cope with changes in their habitat (primarily the
result of palm oil production).
Engaging Animals Symposium – 30%
Students will organize a public symposium that explores the relationships
between humans and bees and what this means for sustainability. Students will
work with the instructor to focus on a goal for the symposium, choosing a specific
focus for the symposium that highlights the themes of the course (and
particularly sustainability) and allows students an opportunity to showcase their
own work on human-bee relationships and bring in expert voices to contribute to
the conversation. This will be an event held at Eden Hall and we expect people
from within and outside the university to participate and attend.
We will meet during class a number of times to plan the symposium, which will
be held during the last week of November. Students and the instructor will work
together to create a plan to carry out the symposium – determining the goal,
format, content, participants, and outcomes. The majority of the second part of
the semester will be dedicated to this assignment, including some of our course
meeting time. Each student will have a specific contribution to the symposium,
which may vary considerably in content but should be equivalent in effort – and
match student skills and interests (students can work individually or as part of a
team). These contributions need to be approved in advance and directly
contribute to the goal of the symposium (to be determined as a class). These
might include multi-media projects, traditional academic presentations,
creative/artistic sessions, presentation of research results (such as a survey about
perspectives on bees), presentation of a content analysis of newspaper articles on
bees, discussion of how human-bees relationships appear in films, and so on. The
possibilities are endless but must reflect the goal of the symposium.
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Grade Scale: Your total points will be assigned a letter grade based on the following
scale:
A 93-100%
A- 90-92%
B+ 88-89%
B 83-87%
B- 80-82%
F 0-79%
Class Policies
Attendance is required. You should not be late to class or miss it unless there is an
emergency or circumstance beyond your control.
Computers welcome as long as not intrusive to others or distract you away from us.
No cell phones, no texting, no electronic media.
Recordings not allowed without explicit permission.
Please allow 24 hours for response to email.
Chatham University Honor Code: Chatham University students pledge to
maintain the Honor Code, which states in part: “Honor is that principle by which we
at Chatham form our code of living, working, and studying together. The standards of
honor at Chatham require that all students act with intellectual independence,
personal integrity, honesty in all relationships, and consideration for the rights and
well being of others.”
Information about the Honor Code is available in the Student Handbook.
Cheating and Plagiarism: Cheating is defined as the attempt, successful or not, to
give or obtain aid and/or information by illicit means in meeting any academic
requirements, including examinations. Plagiarism is defined as the use, without proper
acknowledgement, of the ideas, phrases, sentences, or larger units of discourse from
another writer or speaker.
Disability Statement: Chatham University is committed to providing an environment
that ensures that no individual is discriminated against on the basis of her/his disability.
Students with disabilities, as defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
(ADA) and who need special academic accommodations, should notify the assistant
dean of the PACE Center as soon as possible. The PACE Center will work with students
and the course instructor to coordinate and monitor the provision of reasonable
academic accommodations.
Non-Registered Students Policy: In accordance with University policy, only
officially registered students may attend this class and all other classes offered at the
University after the drop/add period. Please confer with your academic advisor if you
need assistance with the registration process or you need additional information.
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Schedule
Week One: Introduction: Humans and Other Animals
Week Two: “Animal” Classifications
Week Three: Why Ontology and Epistemology matter
Week Four: Preparing for Symposium
Week Five: Collection of specific human- other animal examples to highlight certain
type of interaction – still determining how to best organize
Week Six: Collection of specific human- other animal examples to highlight certain
type of interaction – still determining how to best organize
Week Seven: Collection of specific human- other animal examples to highlight
certain type of interaction – still determining how to best organize
Week Eight: Collection of specific human- other animal examples to highlight
certain type of interaction – still determining how to best organize
Week Nine: Adaptation to changing human-animal relations: Climate Change
Week Ten: Preparing for Symposium
Week Eleven: Preparing for Symposium
Week Twelve: Preparing for Symposium
Week Thirteen: Symposium (Human-Bee relations)
Week Fourteen: Human –Other Animal Synthesis
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Possible Readings and Films:
Kay Anderson, “Animals, Science, and Spectacle in the City,” pp. 27-50 in Animal
Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands, Jennifer
Wolch and Jody Emel (eds.), London: Verso, (1998)
Marc Boglioli, A Matter of Life and Death: Hunting in Contemporary Vermont, (2009)
Robert Brightman, Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships.
CPRC, (2002)
Rebecca Cassidy and Molly Mullin, Where the Wild Things Are Now: Domestication
Reconsidered, (2007)
Peter Coates, Strangers on the Land: American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive
Species, U of California Press, (2006)
Jeffrey Cohn, Do elephants belong in zoos? Bioscience 56(9): 714-717, (2006)
Loretta Cornier, Kinship with Monkeys: The Guajá Foragers of Eastern
Amazonia. Columbia University Press, (2003)
Charlotte Cote, Spirits of our Whaling Ancestors: Revitalizing Makah &
Nuu0chah0nulth Traditions, (2010)
Susan Davis, “Touch the Magic”, pp. 204-217 in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the
Human Place in Nature, William Cronon, ed., New York: W.W. Norton & Co, (1996)
Susan Davis, Spectacular Nature. University of California Press, (1997)
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelihood and political
institutions of a Nilotic people, (1940)
Natasha Fijn, Living with Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia, Cambridge
U Press, (2011)
Bernhard and Michael Grzimek, Serengeti Shall Not Die, Hamish Hamilton, (1960)
Anders Halverson, An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America
and Overran the World, (2010)
Tammy Horn, Beeconomy: What Women and Bees Can Teach Us about Local Trade
and the Global Market, U of Kentucky Press, (2012)
Tammy Horn, Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation, U of Kentucky
Press, (2005)
Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter
Island, (2011)
Donna Haraway. When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press, (2007)
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Stephen Helmreich, Alien Ocean: anthropological voyages in microbial seas, (2009)
Samantha Hurn, Humans and Other Animals: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on HumanAnimal Interactions, Pluto Press, (2012)
Tim Ingold, Selections from The Perception of the Environment: Essays in livelihood,
dwelling and skill, (2000)
Elizabeth Lawrence, “The Symbolic Role of Animals in the Plains Indian Sun Dance,”
Society and Animals, 1(1): 17-37, (2008)
John Knight, Waiting for Wolves in Japan. University of Hawai’i Press (2006)
Shepard Krech, III, The Ecological Indian, (1999)
Claude Levi-Strauss, Totemism. Boston: Beacon (1963)
Celia Lowe, Wild Profusion: Biodiversity Conservation in an Indonesian
Archipelago Princeton University Press, (2006)
Makah Tribe. Makah Whaling Tradition & Recent Makah Whaling.
J. Terrence McCabe, Cattle Brings us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and
Raiding in a Disequilibrium System, (2004)
Herman Melville, “The Grand Armada,” In Moby-Dick: or, The Whale. New York:
Harper and Brothers, (1851)
Mark Morgan and Marlana Hodgkinson, The Motivation and Social Orientation of
Visitors attending a contemporary zoological park. Environment and Behavior 31(2):
227- (1999)
Juni Muskrat, Makah Whaling, WA (Makah) Native Peoples’ Traditions, The Pluralism
Project at Harvard University, (2006)
Paul Nadasdy, Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge, and Aboriginal-State
Relations in the Southwest Yukon, (2003)
Richard K. Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern
Forest, U of Chicago Press, (1983)
Katja Neves-Graça, “Chasing Whales with Bateson and Daniel,” Australian Humanities
Review 35, (2005)
Laura Ogden, Swamplife, University of Minnesota, (2011)
Michael Paolisso, "Blue Crabs and Controversy on the Chesapeake Bay: A Cultural
Model for Understanding Watermen's Reasoning about Blue Crab Management,"
Human Organization, (2002)
Hugh Raffles, Insectopedia, Vintage Books, (2010)
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010
Roy Rappaport, Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People,
(1968).
Harriet Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the
Classifying Imagination. Harvard University Press, (1998)
Sea Shepherd Society. 12 primary reasons for opposing the plan to slaughter whales by
the Makah.
James Serpell, In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships,
(1996)
Michael Shapiro, “A Conversation with the Sea Shepherd’s Paul Watson,” Earth Island
Journal, (2010)
Willie Smits, “Restoring a Rainforest,” TED, (2009)
Richard Tucker, “The Crop on Hooves: American Cattle Ranching in Latin America,” in
Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical
World, Rowman & Littlefield, (2007)
John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto, Breakfast of Biodiversity: The Truth about rain
forest destruction, Food First, (1995)
Jennifer Wolch and Jody Emel, Animal Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in the
Nature-Culture Borderlands, Verso, (1998)
Films
Cane Toads, (1998)
Gorillas in the Mist, (1988) / Lost Film of Dian Fossey (2002)
Whale Wars, (2008-present)
Milking the Rhino, (2009)
Form #2B
Proposal for a New Course
June 2010