ADVANCED TOPICS IN ANIMAL WELFARE

This course will explore sev­eral top­ics related to ani­mal wel­fare. We will begin with a brief sur­vey of the­o­ries of ani­mal ethics and key con­cepts for under­stand­ing debates about ani­mal wel­fare. We will then dive into dif­fer­ent top­ics each week. The top­ics we will study include: the ethics of eat­ing ani­mals; the ethics of exper­i­ment­ing with ani­mals; dilem­mas of cap­tiv­ity and zoos; ani­mals in the wild; ani­mal com­pan­ions; ani­mal pro­tec­tion; and ani­mal rights. Stu­dents will be encour­aged to explore and assess all sides of the issues cov­ered. Class ses­sions will be dis­cus­sion based and will require both active par­tic­i­pa­tion and the timely com­ple­tion of read­ing assign­ments.  Writ­ten assign­ments will stress crit­i­cal think­ing and argu­men­ta­tion. This class has no pre­req­ui­sites, but some prior study of phi­los­o­phy will prove very useful.

Taught by Lau­ren Hartzell (post­doc­toral fel­low) in the Depart­ment of Philosophy

 

ANIMAL PLANET: FOOD, DEVELOPMENT, AND ACTIVISM IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Recent years have seen an increase in inter­est about food pol­i­tics: how it is pro­duced, where it comes from, how it inter­sects with class and racial inequal­ity, child­hood obe­sity, and cli­mate change among many other issues. Yet recent schol­ar­ship on and activism around food very often ignores the cen­tral­ity of non-human ani­mals. This course focuses on the place of ani­mals in transna­tional economies of food and devel­op­ment pro­grams. We also explore the global move­ment for ani­mal rights and wel­fare, and chal­lenge the notion that con­cern over the plight of “food” (and other) ani­mals is lim­ited to the “devel­oped” world. This course seeks to com­pli­cate and de-naturalize the com­mon sense under­stand­ings that make non-human ani­mals an all too invis­i­ble part of world politics.

Taught by Pro­fes­sor María Elena Gar­cía in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas

 

ANIMALS, ETHICS AND FOOD: DECONSTRUCTING DOMINANT DISCOURSE

Stu­dents enrolled in this course should gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the work­ings of the U.S. food sys­tem (at both an indus­trial and small scale) and the expe­ri­ence of ani­mals within this sys­tem. Using ani­mals in the food sys­tem as a case study, this course will explore notions of power and dif­fer­ence, ethics and respon­si­bil­ity, and cre­ativ­ity in reimag­in­ing the sta­tus quo. This course will push the bound­aries of how we think about dif­fer­ence and dis­crim­i­na­tion and rec­og­nize the inter­sec­tions between human and ani­mal oppression.

Taught by Kathryn Gille­spie (PhD can­di­date in Geog­ra­phy) in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas

 

ENCOUNTERING ANIMALS: ETHICS, CULTURE, POLITICS

Are ani­mal rights and fem­i­nist move­ments con­nected? Does eat­ing meat per­pet­u­ate patri­archy? Can we suc­cess­fully chal­lenge the exploita­tion of human beings with­out also advo­cat­ing for non-human ani­mals? Can we morally dis­tin­guish between human and non-human exhi­bi­tion­ism? How do notions of class struc­ture our choices about eat­ing habits? This course explores some eth­i­cal, polit­i­cal, and cul­tural ques­tions regard­ing ani­mals and our engage­ments with them. Specif­i­cally, it looks at the cul­tural pro­duc­tion of dif­fer­ence between humans and non-humans, as well as the tac­tics, strate­gies, and ide­olo­gies behind ani­mal advo­cacy move­ments. Draw­ing on debates in anthro­pol­ogy, phi­los­o­phy, lit­er­a­ture, and pol­i­tics, this course invites stu­dents to inter­ro­gate the dis­courses and prac­tices that reduce ani­mals to “infe­rior beings.” The class also asks stu­dents to crit­i­cally exam­ine their own rela­tion­ships with ani­mals, to explore cul­tural debates about ani­mals and the envi­ron­ment, veg­e­tar­i­an­ism, the indus­trial food com­plex, health, zoos, com­pan­ion ani­mals, and ani­mal exper­i­men­ta­tion (among other top­ics), and to think about the var­i­ous approaches to ani­mal advocacy.

Taught by Pro­fes­sor María Elena Gar­cía in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas and Inter­na­tional Studies

 

EXPLORING INTER-LOCKING OPPRESSIONS: ANIMALS, GENDER AND DIFFERENCE

Among the­o­rists and activists it is com­mon­place to focus on one, very par­tic­u­lar kind of injus­tice.  Thus, it is not at all unusual to encounter fem­i­nist activists who eat and wear ani­mal flesh as well as ani­mal activists who are not par­tic­u­larly con­cerned with the plight of women.  Yet, the mar­gin­al­iza­tion and oppres­sion of ani­mals has been linked (through what Karen War­ren calls “the logic of dom­i­na­tion”) to the mar­gin­al­iza­tion and oppres­sion of women.  It is also often thought that the same forces that rel­e­gate women and ani­mals to the realm of the “other” oper­ate on other mar­gin­al­ized groups.  In this course we will explore the nature of inter-locking oppres­sions by exam­in­ing the con­nec­tions between the dom­i­na­tion of ani­mals and the dom­i­na­tion of women as well as other mar­gin­al­ized groups.

Taught by Karen Emmer­man (PhD in Phi­los­o­phy) in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas

 

GLOBALIZED GUINEA PIGS: ANIMALS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

This course exam­ines the mul­ti­ple ways in which ani­mals have entered transna­tional flows through the inter­na­tional econ­omy of food and devel­op­ment pro­grams, and the transna­tional move­ment for ani­mal rights. The glob­al­iza­tion of the “fac­tory farm” model of pro­duc­tion has impli­ca­tions for human and non-human ani­mal lives as the epi­demics of “mad cow” dis­ease, avian flu, and “swine” flu have recently and dra­mat­i­cally demon­strated. While these dis­eases are often seen as sep­a­rate from the “nor­mal” work­ings of inter­na­tional polit­i­cal economies, this sem­i­nar explores how they have emerged in and through the processes of indus­tri­al­iza­tion and glob­al­iza­tion. Stu­dents also exam­ine the impli­ca­tions of devel­op­ment pro­grams that place “tra­di­tional ani­mals” at the cen­ter of new strate­gies to con­front poverty in many parts of the devel­op­ing world. We engage this new devel­op­ment lit­er­a­ture and ask what the cul­tural and eco­nomic impli­ca­tions of this process are for local com­mu­ni­ties who often value ani­mals for reli­gious and social rea­sons that are incom­men­su­rable with the met­rics of inter­na­tional devel­op­ment. Finally, stu­dents explore the eth­i­cal and moral debates that have emerged under the rubrics of ani­mal rights and ani­mal wel­fare. While this debate has largely been seen as a “First World” phe­nom­e­non, this course looks at how con­cerns for the lives of non-human ani­mals have been expressed by local com­mu­ni­ties and activists in a global con­text. Tak­ing ani­mals as the prover­bial “fish in the water,” this course seeks to com­pli­cate and de-naturalize the com­mon sense under­stand­ings that make non-human ani­mals an all too invis­i­ble part of world politics.

Taught by Pro­fes­sor María Elena Gar­cía in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas and Inter­na­tional Studies

 

ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY

Tra­di­tion­ally, pol­i­tics has been defined as the arrange­ments, frame­works, and rules that human beings devise for liv­ing together. What hap­pens to this con­cept of pol­i­tics when we add non-human ani­mals to the mix?  In this sem­i­nar, we will explore var­i­ous nor­ma­tive approaches to think­ing about inter-species rela­tion­ships, which are drawn from dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions of polit­i­cal the­o­riz­ing and philo­soph­i­cal reflec­tion.  Our the­o­ret­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tions in this sem­i­nar will con­tribute to our under­stand­ing of sev­eral dis­tinct tra­di­tions of inquiry in con­tem­po­rary polit­i­cal the­ory, as well as sub­stan­tive inno­va­tions in the lit­er­a­ture and pol­i­tics of inter-species relationships.

Taught by Pro­fes­sor Chris­tine Di Ste­fano in Polit­i­cal Science

 

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AT THE MARGINS

This course explores social move­ments at the mar­gins which, through the activism and the protest that con­tests the mean­ing of law, help to shape the fab­ric of the United States. Law, as a con­struc­tion of soci­ety, faces con­stant oppo­si­tion and peri­ods of ele­vated resis­tance in spe­cific sub­ject areas. These areas include: abo­li­tion­ism, work­ers rights, women suf­frage and lib­er­a­tion, civil rights, the stu­dent and anti-war move­ment, the Amer­i­can Indian move­ment, rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ism, and ani­mal rights. Each of these impor­tant polit­i­cal, soci­o­log­i­cal, ide­o­log­i­cal, and legal move­ments ani­mates the sub­ject of our dis­cus­sions. We focus upon the legal and polit­i­cal the­o­rists and activists who chal­lenged main­stream polit­i­cal and legal culture.

Taught by Larry Cush­nie (PhD can­di­date in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence) in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas

 

SUFFERING: ANIMALS, VIOLENCE, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF SILENCE

This advanced sem­i­nar invites stu­dents to engage intel­lec­tu­ally with the idea and expe­ri­ences of suf­fer­ing. How do we think about suf­fer­ing and, per­haps more impor­tantly, how do we not think about it? Review­ing philo­soph­i­cal, cul­tural, and social ques­tions about the nature of pain and vio­lence, this course pays spe­cial atten­tion to the suf­fer­ing of non-human ani­mals. In the United States, approx­i­mately 10 bil­lion ani­mals are killed each year in the food indus­try alone, although this does not include fish or other sea ani­mals. Through­out the world, mil­lions of ani­mals are used in ille­gal fight­ing and traf­fick­ing cir­cles, used in med­ical exper­i­ments, and killed in har­row­ing ways for their fur and skin. The pain and suf­fer­ing that these and other ani­mals endure in life, and dur­ing the process of death, is mostly hid­den from pub­lic view. Do we con­sider the fate of pigs, chin­chillas, or mice, in the same way that we think about the dogs or cats with whom we share a home? How do humans make deci­sions about the rel­a­tive impor­tance (and non-importance) of the suf­fer­ing of par­tic­u­lar ani­mals? What are the con­se­quences of those deci­sions? In addi­tion to con­sid­er­ing these ques­tions, this course also explores the ways in which some forms of vio­lence become more and less vis­i­ble. What kind of cul­tural work goes into the pro­duc­tion and under­stand­ing of these mul­ti­ple forms of vio­lence? More hope­fully, what can be (and has been) done to address these forms of vio­lence in the world? Besides read­ing philoso­phers, anthro­pol­o­gists, his­to­ri­ans, and other schol­ars, stu­dents engage visual mate­ri­als (espe­cially doc­u­men­tary films) in order to explore what Kathie Jenni calls the “power of the visual.” Is wit­ness­ing suf­fer­ing a nec­es­sary part of con­fronting and mit­i­gat­ing it? Stu­dents in this course also take a field trip (to a local ani­mal shel­ter or farm sanc­tu­ary) to get a closer look into the ways in which human and non-human emo­tions inter­twine. Together we will explore the learn­ing that is pro­duced from inter­ro­gat­ing the gaps and con­nec­tions between our emo­tional responses and our eth­i­cal commitments.

Taught by Pro­fes­sor María Elena Gar­cía in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas and Inter­na­tional Studies

 

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD AND CUISINE

This course inves­ti­gates cur­rent debates within the United States about what dietary guide­lines are opti­mum for main­tain­ing human health. First, we will look at how sci­ence is used to inves­ti­gate the rela­tion­ship between diet and the sky­rock­et­ing inci­dence of chronic dis­ease in the United States since the 1970s. We rely on sci­ence to inform us about the pros and cons of dif­fer­ent dietary approaches, but sci­ence itself is a messy process in which dif­fer­ing par­a­digms com­pete within the con­text of con­tend­ing social, eco­nomic, and polit­i­cal forces. There­fore, we will take a “sci­ence and soci­ety” approach to the study of com­pet­ing dietary mod­els and develop an under­stand­ing of sci­ence as a com­plex social process. Sec­ond, the course will explore the emer­gence of a new kind of health con­sumer who seeks to man­age their own expo­sure to chronic dis­ease through diet. The use of media, such as the web blog, will be explored as new tech­nolo­gies that dis­sem­i­nate and democ­ra­tize sci­ence through the cre­ation of web com­mu­ni­ties that exam­ine crit­i­cally the often con­flict­ing and con­fus­ing find­ings that sur­face in the news stream on health and diet. These web com­mu­ni­ties put sci­en­tists, physi­cians, health pro­fes­sion­als, and self-educating health con­sumers into dia­logue with each other in ways that may be very new. In the search for well­ness, health con­sumers are engag­ing in a form of sci­ence with them­selves as sin­gu­lar exper­i­men­tal sub­jects. We will be look­ing at how this form of “anec­do­tal” evi­dence is being weighed in rela­tion to the more tra­di­tional forms of sci­en­tific research by the mem­bers of these Inter­net com­mu­ni­ties. Third, we will explore how indi­vid­u­als are chang­ing their rela­tion­ship to what they eat through farm-to-table sourc­ing, reclaim­ing home cook­ing, self-provisioning, par­tic­i­pa­tion in social move­ments to build local and regional food sys­tems, and de-linking from indus­trial agri­cul­ture. We will explore the dif­fi­cul­ties of enact­ing these changes on a stu­dent bud­get and work col­lec­tively to find ways to make them more afford­able. We will get involved with one such exper­i­ment right here on cam­pus at the UW stu­dent farm. The farm, which is entirely run by stu­dents, was estab­lished in 2005 to help stu­dents recon­nect with where their food comes from and to develop a vision for farm-to-table pro­vi­sion­ing even for large insti­tu­tions like the UW. Fourth, we will explore con­tem­po­rary food ide­olo­gies that are form­ing web-based com­mu­ni­ties in the search for per­sonal well­ness. How do peo­ple define their moral and eth­i­cal selves through food? What attracts them to a spe­cific food phi­los­o­phy? How does this reshape their rela­tions with oth­ers? How do they use the evi­dence of their bod­ies to weigh the pros and cons of dif­fer­ent approaches. What are the pos­si­ble dan­gers of “obsess­ing about food too much?” What counts as obses­sion in this con­text as indi­vid­u­als endeavor to change their own rela­tion­ship to food?

Taught by Pro­fes­sor Ann Anag­nost, Depart­ment of Anthropology

 

VIOLENT INTIMACIES: ENCOUNTERING THE ANIMAL

In this course, our read­ings and dis­cus­sions focus on the “ques­tion of the ani­mal” or what I call the “vio­lent inti­ma­cies” of human-animal encoun­ters. The “ques­tion of the ani­mal” is one that fem­i­nists, philoso­phers, sci­en­tists, activists, and many oth­ers have been grap­pling with for cen­turies. Over the past decade, how­ever, the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary field of ani­mal stud­ies has expanded greatly. Inter­est in ani­mal stud­ies, which had been build­ing since at least the 1964 pub­li­ca­tion of Ruth Harrison’s Ani­mal Machines, gath­ered increased steam in 1975 with Peter Singer’s Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion, and reached new audi­ences with the 1997 lec­tures given by Jacques Der­rida (sub­se­quently pub­lished as The Ani­mal That There­fore I Am). Receiv­ing the sus­tained atten­tion of schol­ars in phi­los­o­phy, lit­er­a­ture, his­tory, anthro­pol­ogy, geog­ra­phy, polit­i­cal sci­ence, and other dis­ci­plines, ani­mal stud­ies, in the words of a recent arti­cle in the Chron­i­cle of Higher Edu­ca­tion, “has become a force to be reck­oned with.” This course will intro­duce stu­dents to some of the key schol­ars writ­ing about human-animal encoun­ters. We will engage the dif­fer­ent approaches used to think about human-animal rela­tion­ships and entan­gle­ments, and explore broad themes like ani­mal­ity and dif­fer­ence, sci­ence and rep­re­sen­ta­tion, cap­tiv­ity and spec­ta­cle, and the power of wit­ness­ing. In addi­tion to engag­ing films, texts, and each other, we will take a field trip to a local farm sanc­tu­ary. Please note that one of the sem­i­nar assign­ments is to write a brief ethnog­ra­phy of a visit to the Wood­land Park Zoo or the Seat­tle Aquar­ium. This will require that you spend at least 2–3 hours in either the Zoo or the Aquarium.

Taught by Pro­fes­sor María Elena Gar­cía in the Com­par­a­tive His­tory of Ideas and Inter­na­tional Studies