Professor: Hannah Cutting-Jones

4.00 credits

CRN 12293: Monday & Wednesday, 2:00-3:20pm @ CHA 202

Graduation Requirement: This class will fulfill a Social Science Colloquium and the Global Perspectives (GP) cultural literacy requirement.  If the student has already taken a Social Science Colloquium, this class will fulfill both of the following requirements:  an Elective Colloquium and GP cultural literacy.

In what ways did our dependence on animals make us human? How did domestication, urbanization, industrialization, and organized religion change our relationship to animals and the natural world? More recently, in what ways is the proliferation of factory-farmed meat and the fishing industry driving and/or exacerbating climate change? Why do we consider some animals appropriate to eat, and others taboo? In this course we will utilize a global perspective to examine the fraught relationship humans have always had with other living creatures. By drawing from case studies across cultures, we will analyze what these dynamics might have to teach us about our shared future.