| H A&S 253C / 222E Humans and Other Animals |
|
|
Overview
The last few hundred years of Western history have forced non-humans animals off much of their traditional range, both environmentally and psychologically. Animals now inhabit only the margins of our communities, our daily awareness, and our understanding of our own identity. This dispossession continues in spite of all we know from biology about the animal roots of human nature and the ecological ties that bind us. What would a rediscovery of these ties look like, though? Does the path lie through politics and the spirit—animal rights and vegetarianism, say—or through the flesh, as in the bloody intimacy of the family farm?
To address these questions, this class will navigate a path through both the sciences and the humanities: through criticism (Paul Shepard, Mary Midgley, Jean Baudrillard), first-hand reports by naturalists and scientists (Barry Lopez with a pod of beached whales in Oregon, Penny Patterson and Koko the gorilla, conversing in sign language), and fiction by John Berger and J. M. Coetzee. Students will be encouraged to experiment with all the genres we read in their own writing, and to refine their efforts, workshop-style, through conversation and peer review. We will also go on a field trip to the Woodland Park Zoo, and spend some time watching both the animals inside the cages and the ones looking in.
