SOC 331 Animals, Culture, and Society

Other-than-human animals are an overwhelming presence in our collective and individual lives, yet we human animals often take them for granted. We share our social and cultural environments with a wide variety of non-human animals and for a wide variety of purposes. We domesticate animals and use them for food, clothing, entertainment, and transportation. We hunt them for subsistence and sport. We worship, sacrifice, display, vilify, cherish, and study them. In this course, we will explore questions regarding the intersection of the lives of human and non-human animals from anthropological and sociological perspectives. Potential questions we will examine include: Why do we love some animals to the point of considering them family members, but vilify and even eat others? Are pets--like the dog currently sleeping by my side--monsters of dependence created by human oppression, or do pets and people co-exist interdependently? Is human perception and treatment of non-human animals related in significant ways to such enduring social problems as racism, sexism, settler colonialism, and violence against vulnerable groups? These are difficult questions. Our aim in this course is not to come to a consensus, but rather to consider a variety of perspectives and develop our own logical and evidence-based arguments regarding these matters. In doing so, we will also focus on developing and honing our reading, writing, critical thinking, group discussion, and oral presentation skills.

Prerequisites

• WRIT 131: Writing I