Humans and Other Animals Course Info
Course Description:
This course provides an introduction to the study of the entanglements between the oppression of nonhuman animals and the oppression of various groups of human animals. Participants will analyze points of entwinement between speciesism and sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and racism, approaching these topics with the care that they require.
Content Warning:
Given the subject matter of this course, there will be frequent discussion of violence against both nonhumans and humans. Please be mindful of this (and of its potential impact on your fellow participants) when taking this class. Take care of yourself and each other.
Course Content:
This course is made up of text readings, online presentations, and optional weekly group video calls for discussion.
All required texts will be provided, though of course you are encouraged to purchase your own copies if you wish. The three full books that we will be reading are:
Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor
Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question by Bénédicte Boisseron
The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel
Course Schedule:
The recommended pacing for this course is 14 weeks (similar to a standard college class), but learners are free to diverge from this schedule as they wish. Just keep in mind that discussion meetings will follow the 14-week schedule laid out below.
Week 01: Speciesism Part 1
From Animal Liberation by Peter Singer:
“All Animals Are Equal…or why the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal moral consideration to animals too” (pg. 1-23)
From The Animal Ethics Reader, Third Edition, edited by Susan J. Armstrong & Richard G. Botzler:
“Are Human Rights Human?” by Paola Cavalieri (pg. 28-31)
From Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice, edited by Atsuko Matsuoka & John Sorenson:
“Animal Agency, Resistance, and Escape” by Sarat Colling (pg. 21-40)
Week 02: Speciesism Part 2
From The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader, edited by Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams:
“Introduction” by Josephine Donovan & Carol J. Adams (pg. 1-15)
“Caring to Dialogue: Feminism and the Treatment of Animals” by Josephine Donovan (pg. 360-369)
From Speciesism by Joan Dunayer:
“Preface on Language,” “Speciesism Defined” & “Nonspeciesist Philosophy” through “Nonspeciesist Advocacy” (pg. xi-5 & 123-161)
Week 03: Speciesism and Sexism Part 1
From The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams:
“The Sexual Politics of Meat,” “The Rape of Animals, The Butchering of Women,” & “Masked Violence, Muted Voices” (pg. 3-65)
Week 04: Speciesism and Sexism Part 2
From Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness, edited by Lori Gruen and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey:
“There’s Something About the Blood…: Tactics of Evasion Within Narratives of Violence” by Nekeisha Alayna Alexis (pg. 47-64)
From Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals by Carol J. Adams:
“Bringing Peace Home: A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on the Abuse of Women, Children, and Pet Animals” (pg. 135-153)
Week 05: Speciesism and Heterosexism
From Intersectionality of Critical Animal Studies: A Historical Collection, edited by Anthony J. Nocella II & Amber E. George:
“From Beastly Perversions to the Zoological Closet: Animals, Nature, and Homosex” by Jovian Parry (pg. 49-61)
From Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness, edited by Lori Gruen and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey:
“The Role of Damned and Dammed Desire in Animal Exploitation and Liberation” by pattrice jones & Cheryl Wylie (pg. 187-202)
Week 06: Speciesism and Ableism Part 1
From Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor:
“Prologue: Chicken Truck” through “Ableism and Animals” (pg. xiii-81)
Week 07: Speciesism and Ableism Part 2
From Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor:
“What Is an Animal?” through “Toward a New Table Fellowship” (pg. 83-155)
Week 08: Speciesism and Ableism Part 3
From Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor:
“Romancing the Meat” through “The Service Dog” (pg. 157-223)
Week 09: Speciesism and Ableism Part 4
From Disability and Animality: Crip Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies, edited by Stephanie Jenkins, Kelly Struthers Montford, and Chloë Taylor:
“Productive bodies: How neoliberalism makes and unmakes disability in human and non-human animals” by Kelly Somers & Karen Soldatic (pg. 35-56)
“Disrupting Temple Grandin: Resisting a ‘humane’ face for autistic and animal oppression” by Vittoria Lion (pg. 182-211)
Week 10: Speciesism and Racism Part 1
From Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age by Claire Jean Kim:
“Animals, Nature, and the Races of Man” (pg. 24-60)
From The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel:
“Foreword” (by Alice Walker) through “Social Relations: The Destruction of Security” (pg. 13-50)
From Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question by Bénédicte Boisseron:
“Introduction: Blackness Without Analog” & “Is the Animal the New Black?” (pg. ix-36
Week 11: Speciesism and Racism Part 2
From The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel:
“Transportation, or the Unbearable Journey,” “Hunting,” & “Vivisection” (pg. 51-72)
From Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question by Bénédicte Boisseron:
“Blacks and Dogs in the Americas” & “The Commensal Dog in a Creole Context” (pg. 37-119)
Week 12: Speciesism and Racism Part 3
From The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel:
“In Defense of Slavery” through “What Others Have Said” (pg. 73-113)
From Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question by Bénédicte Boisseron:
“Dog Ownership in the Diaspora,” “The Naked Truth About Cats and Blacks,” & “Coda” (pg. 121-199)
Week 13: Speciesism and Racism Part 4
From Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age by Claire Jean Kim:
“Makah Whaling and the (Non) Ecological Indian” (pg. 205-252)
From The Journal of Intercultural Studies, 41:1:
“Unsettling Anthropocentric Legal Systems: Reconciliation, Indigenous Laws, and Animal Personhood” by Maneesha Deckha (pg. 77-97)
Week 14: Wrapping Up
From Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice, edited by Atsuko Matsuoka & John Sorenson:
“Psychological Implications of Undervaluing Animals: Dominance-Based Ideologies and Systems of Oppression” by Gordon Hodson & Kimberly Costello (pg. 184-202)
From Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters by Aph Ko & Syl Ko
“Revaluing the Human as a Way to Revalue the Animal” by Syl Ko (pg. 106-119)
From Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age by Claire Jean Kim:
“We Are All Animals/We Are Not Animals” (pg. 283-287)