HAS Courses in Great Britain
This is a preliminary list of Human-Animal Studies units taught in universities in Great Britain. Please email Margo DeMello to add courses to this list.
Bath Spa University
English
Greg Garrard
Reading Animals.
Goldsmiths, University of London
Visual Cultures
Lynn Turner
Sex, Gender. Species. This course asks how animal and sexual differences matter in a range of
contemporary
art, films and literature. Recent years have shown a surge of interest
in what Derrida's late writings name 'the animal question', that is to
say, the philosophical tendency to divide 'man' from 'animal' and for
this difference to allow for a 'non-criminal putting to death' of the
latter. This course provides an in depth investigation into the 'logics'
that erect this critical division while also addressing what is a
frequent gap in critical animal studies: the interface with gender and
sexuality. Thus this course will also include study of works by new
feminist materialists (Alaimo, Haraway, Hird, Braidotti). These will
enable the ways that 'the feminine' is problematically figured in
relation to both 'the animal' and to a supposedly neutral and human
'subject' to come into view. It will also consider how the sexual
locates a key intersection with species and may open paths to new ones.
In opening new paths between or within species the course points to what
some are now calling the posthumanities.
Lancaster University
Sociology
Richard Twine
Animals,
Science and Society. This module aims to examine the ways in which
contemporary developments in science and technology impact upon ethical
and social relationships between humans and other animals, and to
consider the novel ethical and social aspects of such new developments.
It situates these novel aspects against an account of the social history
of human/animal relations. This option draws upon the emerging
literature in the sociology of human/animal relations,
cross-disciplinary Critical Animal Studies, including complimentary
literature from geographers and feminists.
Roehampton University
Anthropology
Garry Marvin
Animals, Culture and Society
Ruskin College, Oxford
History and Social Sciences
Hilda Kean
Animals
and Humans: Whose History? This module develops students thinking on
the nature of history - and the subjects of history. It explores the way
in which human history is taken as a given and seeks to explore the
historical and cultural position of animals in society both as a way of
understanding but also challenging set ideas of human history. After
having successfully completed this module students will be able to: 1.
Demonstrate critical understanding of the way that the past has been
constructed as simply a human past; 2. Understand the limits of
knowledge in the development of historical and cultural understandings
which acknowledge the role of non- human animals in human pasts; 3.
Critically analyse information which might be obtained through
re-visiting 'given' pasts through the lens of animals; and 4. Evaluate
the appropriateness of applying historical concepts and those from
other subjects to the study of animals' history.
Southampton University MSc Degree in Human-Animal Interactions
Southampton
University now offers an MSc in Human Animal Interactions. Graduates
from a range of specialities including psychology, social science,
humanities, zoology, human and veterinary medicine and nursing are
eligible to apply. The course starts with a common foundation in
anthrozoology and research methods and then has two pathways; Animals
and Human Health, and Global Perspectives in Human Animal Interactions,
plus the opportunity to pursue a particular area of interest through one
elective module. After passing the taught modules students progress to
undertaking a dissertation. The course will equip students for success
if they plan to continue higher education in teaching or research, or
pursue a path in a related health, charitable, public sector or
commercial organisation.
University of Bristol
Sociology
Maggie Studholme
Society and Nature.
University of Chester
Theology and Religious Studies
David Clough and Celia Deane-Drummond
The
Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of
Chester has an active research programme focussed at the interface
between Christian theology and animals with a small group of PhD
students.
University of Exeter
Geography
Henry Buller
Animal Geographies.
University of Exeter
Anthropology
Samantha Hurn
Anthrozoology.
University of Leeds
English
Graham Huggan
Human/Animal Machine.
Postcolonialism, Animals and the Environment.
University of Manchester
Sociology
Richie Nimmo
Sociology
of Human-Animal Relations: Throughout history nonhuman animals have
played key roles in human societies. In different historical periods and
in different cultures animals have been key sources of calories,
clothing, labour power, transport, physical protection and
companionship, as well as cultural symbolism, identities, mythology and
religious beliefs. In late modern societies, animals and the various
products derived from their bodies continue to play a huge role in both
the material and the cultural aspects of human social organisation. This
has led some to argue that it is necessary to understand social life as
comprising more than just the interactions between human beings, and
this course takes up that argument. The course will trace how
human-animal relations have changed over time, and how these changes
have been connected to social transformations, with an emphasis upon
changing human-animal relations in modernity. The deeply ambiguous and
contested place of animals in modern societies will be explored in
depth, with reference to the diverse roles of animals in different
locales, from the home to the farm, from the zoo to the laboratory. In
this way the course will combine macro and micro approaches,
exploring the nature of human-animal interactions in everyday life as
well as in rationalised modern systems of production and consumption.
University of Sheffield
English
Robert McKay
Theory, Animals and the Environment.
Animals Writes: Beasts and Humans in 20th Century Literature.
University of Wales, Trinity Saint David
Anthropology
Samantha Hurn, Piers Locke and Penny Dransart
Human-Animal
Interactions in Anthropological Perspective. This module introduces
students to a range of anthrozoological topics, the associated
theoretical issues and appropriate ethnographic case studies. *Other
classes in this inter-disciplinary masters programme in Anthrozoology
include Research Methods, Environmental Anthropology, Humans and Other
Primates, and Environmental Philosophy (Department of Philosophy). Also
in Development are the following courses: Representing Animals, Herding
into The 21st Century, Cryptozoology, and Animal Minds (Department of
Philosophy).
University of Wales, Trinity Saint David
Anthropology
Piers Locke
Humans
and Other Primates. This module is concerned with the anthropological
significance of non-human primates. As our phylogenetic relatives, both
extinct and extant, primates have fascinated anthropologists as symbolic
mirrors of the human condition. This module is also concerned with
primatology as a socially and historically situated scientific practice.
And thirdly, this module is concerned with ethnoprimatology; an
emerging field that considers humans and other primates as species
occupying shared social, cultural, and ecological spaces.

