HAS Courses in Sociology
Augustana College
Debi Reed Hill
Animals and Society
This course is designed to introduce students to the broad new field of human-animal studies by focusing on three key areas. First, we consider non-human animals as thinking and feeling beings and actors, present in every important aspect of human life and society. In this analysis we employ ideas from symbolic interaction, supplemented by cognitive ethology and neuroscience in order to address questions about animals as persons and selves. Second, we consider various specific human institutions and their practices in relation to non-human animals. Third, we discuss the implications of all this for the rights of animals and for the ethical assessment of their treatment by human beings, reading a variety of perspectives, including sociological, zoological, legal, and philosophical sources.
Brock University
David Sztybel, Lauren Corman
Animals and the Law
This course will explore questions pertaining to animals and the law in terms of both theory and practice. The law illuminates key interrelationships between humans and other animals. Not only the law but sociology itself interweaves with ethical concerns about how we should relate to others. Indeed, three competing theoretical groundings of present or proposed animal law are: (1) animal welfare; (2) animal rights; and (3) animal liberation (the latter often rejects rights in favor of a utilitarian approach). After reflecting on animal law in Canada as it exists, we will ask, as does Gary Francione, if society's profession of animal welfare is, after all, self-contradictory. After examining the property status of animals and Francione's vision of animal rights among other approaches, theoretical questions about the comparability of oppression will be addressed, including: can we compare speciesism to racism and sexism? Animals and the Law in Practice will occupy the second half of the course and will principally be concerned with animals as entertainers, companions, in laboratories, and as sources of food. Also, we will contemplate the practices of litigating and legislating in relation to animals, their advocates, and users.
Brock University
David Sztybel, Lauren Corman
Animals and Human Society
This course will explore how animals relate to human social organization. The sociology of animals interweaves with ethical concerns about how we should relate to others. We will examine how animal rights and human rights, although they seem disparate to some, are actually very close conceptual neighbours. Different versions of animal liberation and animal "welfare" will be discussed. Since this is the first in Brock University's series of Critical Animal Studies courses, it is fitting that we take a sustained look at an area in which 95% of animals killed by humans meet their fate: animal agriculture. We will examine not only flesh-eating but indeed vegetarianism. Fox's insight that people "compartmentalize" their thinking about humans and animals will help to guide our reflections on animals used as performers, competitors, clothing, and research tools. Before concluding, we will contemplate how speciesism can be compared not only with racism but sexism, and how themes of liberation also intimately intertwine.
Brock University
John Sorenson
Critical Animal Studies
In 1980, John Berger asked: Why Look at Animals? We consider some possible answers to Berger's question by analyzing various ways of looking at animals, for example, as food, pets and objects of entertainment. We will examine how they are represented in visual media, especially photography, and in campaigns by animal advocates. Representation does not simply refer to visual images but also to the control and circulation of images and how they operate in society. Thus, in our examination, we will undertake a sociological investigation of the meaning and power of these images in our society and how visual representations draw attention to or are contradicted by the actual situation of various animals. Representation also connotes the process of standing in for another' - i.e. representing them politically and we will also discuss how academics and activists look at animals in the newly-emerging field of Animal Studies and, with our positioning of this course as Critical Animal Studies, ask what sorts of responsibilities are involved in the representation of animals.
Central Connecticut State University
Jessica Greenebaum
Animals & Society
Using Symbolic Interaction as the main theoretical perspective, this course explores the social relationship between humans and animals and examines the social meanings which shape the role and status of animals in society.
Central New Mexico Community College
Margo DeMello
Animals & Society
This course explores the spaces that animals occupy in human social and cultural worlds and the interactions humans have with them. Central to this course will be an exploration of the ways in which animal lives intersect with human societies. We will also examine how different human groups construct a range of identities for themselves and for others through animals.
Drury
University
Animals and Society
This course will give students the opportunity to think critically about
controversial issues regarding the relationships between humans and other
animals. Central to the course will be an exploration of the social construction
of animals in American culture including various subcultures and the way in
which these constructed social meanings shape human identity.
Humane Society University
Leslie Irvine, Merriellyn Maldonado
Sociology
of Animal Abuse
The
sociological approach to animal abuse examines human cruelty to animals from
several perspectives. How do different groups arrive at definitions of animal
abuse, and what claims are made by various groups, whether psychologists, legal
scholars, or activists, to have a particular definition of abuse recognized?
The course also critically examines the potential and contextual impact of
cruelty to animals on people. Individualized forms of animal abuse, such as
cruelty and neglect, and institutionalized abuses such as the use of animals
for research, hunting, and food are also examined.
Illinois State University
Marion Willetts
Animals and Society
In this course, a sociological examination of the roles and
statuses of non-human animals in society is provided. We will explore philosophical arguments
supporting and opposing the principles of animal rights, and how these
arguments differ from those in support of/opposition to the principles of
animal protection/welfare. We will
analyze various social movements and organizations concerned with animal rights
and animal protection. We will
investigate how and why some animals are defined as food, as research subjects,
as sources of entertainment, as sources of clothing, and as companions. Finally, we will explore the connections
between non-human animal oppression and exploitation and the oppression and
exploitation of specific aggregates of human animals (particularly racial and
ethnic minorities, women, and the poor).
Keene State College
Environmental Sociology
Examines some of the important concepts and theories used by environmental sociologists to address the following substantive issues: how society and the economy have developed their relationship to the environment, efforts to expand our moral circle to include non-human life, a variety of environmental movements such as the environmental justice movement and the animal rights movement, how we measure and interpret studies of environmental concern, and some of the problems and possible solutions of building sustainable and alternative environmental societies.
McMaster University
Leanne Joanisse
Animals and Society
Much of human society is structured through interactions with animals or through interactions with other humans regarding animals, yet sociology has largely ignored these types of interactions. This course is designed to bring into the realm of sociological study the relationships that exist between humans and animals. It will examine how animals are socially constructed, challenge traditional representations of animals, and study animals as minded social actors. We will apply sociological approaches to the study of human-animal relationships and even animal-animal relationships. A major focus will be on the social construction of animals in North American culture, although we will also examine controversies surrounding human-animal relationships. Finally, we will consider the moral status and rights of animals in human society.
Michigan State University
Linda Kalof
Contemporary Animal-Human Relationships
Through the lens of interdisciplinary contemporary scholarship, we will examine:
* animals as philosophical and ethical subjects. Are language and rational thought prerequisites for the extension of justice and/or morality? What about the assertion that there is a connection between the human treatment of animals and our treatment of marginalized human groups?
* animals as reflexive thinkers. Do some nonhuman animals possess material culture, social morality, and emotions such as grief and sadness?
* animals as domesticates, "pets" and food. What is the link between animal domestication and the spread of contagious diseases, especially zoonotic diseases? How do humans "petrify" nature? What are the social, environmental and biological consequences of the intensive factory farming of animals for food?
* animals as scientific objects. What are the issues surrounding the use of animals in scientific speculation, classification and experimentation, such as in vivisection, cloning and the human-animal relationship in technoscience?
* animals as spectacle and sport. What is the cultural meaning of pitting animals in combative struggle against humans or against other animals? Do humans have a penchant for hunting and for gazing at exotic animals in confined places? Do these activities help shape the meaning of animals in human culture, reinforcing Michel Foucault's ideas about power and surveillance? Should humans swim with dolphins, feed stingrays, play with killer whales?
Finally, we will examine the thorny question of the meaning of nature and its reconfiguration from a binary purified category to a fluid nature-culture network composed of actants in relation.
Michigan State University
Linda
Kalof and Molly Tamulevich
Animals, People, and
Nature
Humans
from a diverse range of disciplines have attempted for years to
answer the animal question: what is the
fitting role of animals in human culture and of humans in animal
culture? The interaction between humans and animals has
occupied the minds of thinkers from Aristotle to Jane Goodall. By examining the
animal question from a variety of contemporary perspectives, we will gain
understanding of the role human and non-human animals play in each others
lives, deaths and cultures. Each week, we will consider a different area of
society where humans and animals interact, attempting to see the meeting of
species not only from a human perspective, but by considering the position of
the animal as well.
Middle Tennessee State University
Angela Mertig
Animals and Society
Non-human animals have played important, often unrecognized, roles throughout the history of human society. Even so, sociology, as the study of society and its component parts, has typically viewed other animals as part of the environmental back-drop that could be safely ignored. Recently, however, sociological and other disciplinary recognition of animals in society has grown. Not only have sociologists gained greater appreciation for social impacts on animals (and their environments), but they have increasingly come to see that other animals are social agents as well. This course is devoted to exploring many of the ways that non-human animals and humans interact in sociologically meaningful ways.
Notre Dame de Namur University
Cheryl Joseph
Sociology of the Animal-Human Bond
This course explores the unique relationship that humans share with other animals, the implications of this relationship and the potential. We examine the attitudes our society holds toward animals other than ourselves as well as how and why our social institutions create these attitudes. We also address the connection between animal and human cruelty along with the similarities between animal oppression and racism, sexism, ageism and social class privilege. Finally, we direct attention to the ways in which animals enrich human lives and humans can benefit other animals. This course uses historical, cultural, institutional, interpersonal and environmental perspectives to examine the human-other animal bond.
Notre Dame de Namur University
Cheryl Joseph
Animals, People and the Environment
By combining natural science with social science, this class explores the interactions between people, wildlife and our ecological environment. We focus on the value of animal life and nature in such specific areas as conservation/wildlife management, food production, energy needs assessment, biomes and populations, urban sprawl, biomagnification and chemical pollution, environmental disease, endangerment, extinction, globalization and ecotourism within the context of social inequality and social justice. Particular emphasis is given to the deforestation of Africa and the Amazon; the introduction of kingfish into the Quechua and Imara Indians of Southern Peru; the Arctic wilderness and oil drilling; mountaintop removal in West Virginia; chemical pollution of the Great Lakes; creation of compatible eco-environments in Northern Minnesota; and the impact of tourism on Moorea. This course uses historical, biological, sociological, cultural, institutional and environmental perspectives to examine the connections between animals, people and our environment.
Notre Dame de Namur University
Cheryl Joseph
Animals in Society
This course begins by exploring capabilities of animals other than humans along with the implications of these faculties. Using experts in their various fields, we examine the bond between people and animals, focusing on the cruelty and compassion connections, then discuss ways in which humans and our furry, feathered and finned friends can enhance the lives of others.
Purchase College, SUNY
Environmental Sociology
This course brings a sociological perspective to environmental issues, both past and present, by asking: Who is civilized? Who is savage? What is nature? By addressing questions of how human societies, animals, and land have shaped each other, students better understand the root causes and consequences of today's environmental crisis. Topics include world hunger, water, and environmental equity for all.
Texas Christian University
Carol Thompson
Animals, Culture and Society
Non-Human animals are an ever-present part of our lives. This presence, even though salient, is often taken for granted by humans. Even sociologists, for the most part, have neglected the study of animal/human interaction and the importance of animals in human societies. This course will attempt to correct this oversight by addressing the roles, places, meanings, and significance animals have in human society. We will explore the cross-cultural differences and the major social and philosophical arguments regarding the place of animals and the capacity of animals to think, feel, express, interact etc. We will also examine beliefs, social practices and policies regarding animals and their well-being and the social, cultural, and political bases of these practices and policies. This course will apply sociological approaches to the study of human-animal relationships. It will be revealed that humans are not consistent in our perceptions of, or relations with, other animals, indicating that socially constructed realities extend into human/animal relations. We will challenge traditional representations of nonhuman animals and connect these representations to enduring social problems such as racism, sexism and violence against the vulnerable. Central to this course will be an exploration of the ways in which animals' lives intersect with human social life. The overarching goal is to examine these topics in a way that is both scholarly and practical, thereby providing a rich and meaningful intellectual experience.
University of Colorado, Boulder
Leslie Irvine
Animals and Society
This course examines the role of non-human animals in human society; Investigates the social construction of the human/animal boundary; Challenges ideas that animals are neither thinking nor feeling; Examines the many ways humans rely on animals; Considers the link between animal cruelty and other violence; and Explores the moral status of animals.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Luis Sfeir-Younis
The Sociology of Animal Rights
This course is designed to examine sociologically the relationships that exist between humans and other non-human animals. Since its birth in Europe in the 19th century, sociology has focused almost exclusively on human-to-human interactions largely ignoring the nature and significance of the human-animal relationship. However, in the last decades, this relationship has received much public attention. Scholars from all disciplines are focusing the nature, the significance, and the implications of the human-animal relationship. Animals are being placed back into the core of the sociological agenda.
In an effort to fundamentally rethink the relationship between human beings and non-human animals, this course will explore some of the legal, ethical, cultural, political, ecological, and social issues that underlie the concerns for and against animal rights and protections. We will examine the use of animals for experimentation, food, entertainment, work, and their furs, and the consequences of such practices on the well-being of animals as well as its impact on society, its industries and institutions. Different perspective on animal rights and animal welfare will be presented and a comparative analysis of human and animal rights and abuses will be attempted so as to be able to trace whether the abuse and exploitation of animals may be inextricably related to the oppression of human groups. We will examine how the use and abuse of animals in American society may perpetuate unequal and oppressive human-to-human relationships such as racism, sexism, and class privilege.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Luis Sfeir-Younis
Animals and Society
This course is designed to examine sociologically the relationships that exist between humans and other non-human animals. Since its birth in Europe in the 19th century, sociology has focused almost exclusively on human-to-human interactions largely ignoring the nature and significance of the human-animal relationship. However, in the last decade, this relationship has received much public attention. Scholars from all disciplines are focusing on the nature, the significance, and the implications of the human-animal relationship. Animals are being placed back into the core of the sociological agenda. In an effort to fundamentally rethink the relationship between human beings and non-human animals, this course will explore some of the legal, ethical, cultural, political, ecological, and social issues that underlie the concerns for and against animal rights and protections. We will examine the use of animals for experimentation, food, entertainment, work, and their furs, and the consequences of such practices on the well-being of animals as well as its impact on society, its industries, and institutions.
University of South Carolina, Upstate
Clif Flynn
Animals and Society
This course will examine the role of animals in human society. It will examine how animals are socially constructed, it will challenge traditional representations of nonhuman animals, and study animals as minded social actors. It will apply sociological approaches to the study of human-animal relationships, and even animal-animal relationships. Finally, it will explore the oppression of nonhuman animals, and consider the moral status and rights of animals in human society.
University of Vermont
Robbie Pfeufer Kahn
Animals and Society
This rich, new area of scholarly investigation is the subject of our course. But we also come together as readers of the printed page. Reading might seem less than exciting to young women and men accustomed to the visual acquisition of knowledge--TV, movies, computers--over the verbal. Yet the gray blocks of words on white paper in our five texts hold as much life in them as a wiggly puppy. Together, we will work on releasing the boundless energy contained in a text. The key is to look deeply at the words that create the author's story. Our weekly written exercises and discussions will help you cultivate the ability to look deeply at the text. During the semester we will see a number of films and have several guest speakers.
University of Wisconsin, Marathon County
Ann Herda-Rapp
Sociology of the Environment
Explores the socio-cultural foundations of our relationship with the natural environment. Examines the relationship between environmental degradation and social, political, and economic structures. Explores beliefs and values about the environment and their expression in various forms of environmentalism and environmental movements. Also analyzes the presentation of environmental issues in cultural, political and scientific domains.
Wittenberg University
David Nibert
Sociology of Minority Groups
Since humanity developed the capacity to produce an economic surplus, countless masses of earthlings have been oppressed, and many have had their labor appropriated, by relatively small groups of privileged humans. This course will examine the historical and contemporary causes for the continued oppression of entire groups, including various ethnic groups, women, the impoverished and other species of animals. Special attention will be given to the roots of oppression with an in depth look at the entanglement of oppression of humans and other animals. This analysis will be woven into an examination of the treatment of devalued humans in the United States. The course will include class discussions, videotape presentations, and assignments outside of class. Students are expected to respond actively to assigned readings by discussing key ideas and by using examples to support or question these ideas.
Wittenberg University
David Nibert
Animals & Society
Increasingly, social scientists are focusing on the ethical, environmental and social consequences of human treatment of other animals. This course will examine how human societies have viewed and treated other animals and how the interactions and the structure of the relationship between humans and other animals affect both those animals and human social organization. For example, some scholars argue that cultural practices that define and use nonhuman animals as food contribute significantly to various forms of environmental devastation. Human health research indicates that high rates of heart disease and cancer in many cultures can be attributed to the consumption of animals. Others suggest that human perception and treatment of nonhuman animals are related in significant ways to such enduring problems as racism, sexism and violence against vulnerable groups of people. This course will examine the causes of human exploitation of other animals and the issues that frame the animal rights debate.
