THINKING ANIMALS INITIATIVE
Thinking Animals is a community of
faculty and students working to advance the study of animals, human-animal
relationships, and the many meanings of animals in human lives. Participating
faculty will periodically offer a set of linked courses that introduce students
to ways of thinking about animals that are both grounded in particular
disciplines and encouraging of interdisciplinary connections.
12302 |
AS
310 Art, Animals
& Anthropocene |
Krista Caballero |
W 1:30 pm-3:50 pm |
New
Annandale House |
MBV |
HUM |
Cross-listed:
Experimental
Humanities; Environmental & Urban Studies
From species extinction to radioactive soil and climate change, we
are now in the age of the Anthropocene. This recently proposed geologic period
refers to the ways in which human activities have dramatically impacted and
altered every ecosystem on Earth. Now in an age of mass extinction, what does
it mean to visually interpret our more-than-human world and explore the often
messy and complicated encounters between human and nonhuman animals? Indigenous
and traditional ecological knowledges will ground our exploration as we
consider the cultural, artistic, and technological implications of species
decline. Our focus will include examining animal representations from caves to
cages and from the living to the virtual, as well as themes of the wild and the
tame, zoos, animal rights, laboratory research, and companion species. Each of
these topics will be paired with an exploration of the ever-increasing presence
of animals in contemporary art with particular emphasis on multimedia and
inter-species installations, bio art, as well as experimental video, film,
performance, and robotics. Students will work intensively to develop
experimental humanities approaches that blur boundaries between physical and
digital media, integrate field-based research, and experiment with
interdisciplinary practices of art making in order to grapple with ways in
which our understanding of other species directly relates to human
self-understanding. This course is open to unmoderated and moderated students.
It can be used to fulfill the American Studies Junior Seminar requirement for
students moderated into that program. This course is part of the Thinking
Animals Initiative, an interdivisional collaboration among students and faculty
to further the understanding of animals and human-animal relationships.
Class
size: 12
12565 |
BIO
106 Mammals |
Felicia Keesing Lab: |
T Th 10:10 am-11:30 am Th 1:30 pm-4:30 pm |
RKC
115 RKC
114 |
LS |
SCI |
In this
course, intended for students who do not
plan to major in biology, we will explore the biology of mammals. Mammals are
a fairly specialized group of creatures with two notable features – they
produce nutritious milk to feed their offspring and they maintain a constant
internal body temperature, though doing so requires them to eat with near
comical frequency. Despite our inherent familiarity with a number of mammalian
traits, many people are unaware that some of our mammalian relatives lay eggs,
others produce venomous saliva, and yet others live in ant-like colonies with a
single queen surrounded by a worker caste whose members don’t reproduce. More
surprising still might be that hundreds of new species of mammals have been
described in the past 15 years. Yet compared to other forms of life, like
plants or microbes or insects, mammals are extremely rare, representing just a
tiny fraction of living organisms. In this course, we will explore the ecology,
behavior, physiology, diversity, and evolution of mammals, and put these
characteristics into context by considering how they compare to the
characteristics of other groups. Most importantly, we will explore what
focusing on mammals can teach us about life on Earth, particularly in the 21st
century as the planet warms and little of the land or sea is untouched by the
influence of humans, a particularly adaptable and abundant species of mammal.
Class size: 18
12103 |
BIO
311 Field
Ornithology |
Bruce Robertson |
T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm F 8:30 am-11:30 am |
RKC
111 RKC 111/112 |
LS |
SCI |
Cross-listed:
Environmental
& Urban Studies
This course will present birds both as a unique group and as
representative of vertebrates. It will
emphasize adaptation, ecology, and behavior of birds, the physical basis of
flight, and introduce students to laboratory and field methods used in modern ornithology.
We also will consider current views of the systematic relationships among
living birds, and the evolutionary history of birds, including the debate
regarding their origin in relation to dinosaurs and the origin of flight.
Finally, we will examine case studies in bird conservation to understand the
interaction of human and biological causes of, and solutions to, those
problems. The laboratory portion of the class will include instruction in
identification of all regional bird species by sight and sound. This will
include field trips to local habitats / biological reserves and the study of
museum specimens. Students will design and conduct small-scale behavioral
research experiments (e.g. bioacoustics) with on-campus bird populations and
will exploit publicly available and continental-scale databases to ask
questions about bird ecology, evolution or conservation which will be submitted
as both an oral report and scientific research paper.
Class
size: 16
12422 |
PHIL
140 Other Animals |
Jay Elliott |
M W 8:30
am-9:50 am |
OLIN
101 |
MBV |
HUM |
Cross-listed:
Environmental
& Urban Studies
We human beings have learned to think of ourselves as animals, and
to think of our pets, our laboratory subjects, wild animals and those we slaughter
for meat as “other animals.” Yet the lives of these other animals remained
profoundly mysterious to us. Can we understand their thoughts, desires and
lives? What do we owe them by way of justice, love or sympathy? What should the
future of our relationships with them look like? In this course, we will
approach these questions through a variety of sources, including works of
philosophy, poetry, fiction and history. The course is part of the Thinking
Animals Initiative, an interdivisional collaboration among students and faculty
to further the understanding of animals and human-animal relationships.
Class
size: 22