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Animals are an integral part of human societies. Much of everyday human life is structured through the interaction with and the "consumption" of non-human animals enmeshed in different ecosystems. These structural elements include insects in everyday life, animals in religious contexts, animals in urban spaces (rats, pigeons, dogs, foxes), pet animals as family members, rewilding nature (e.g., wolves), animals for therapy, and most generally animals as source for food and clothing. This seminar takes up central streams of human-animal studies and critically discusses these from different sociological points of view.
Although the seminar can only cover a limited number of topics associated with the field of human-animal studies, following this course, students should be familiar with:
(1) Major research areas of sociological importance and specific examples of recent trends in human-animal-research (e.g., well-being of animals, sustainable human-animal relations),
(2) The role of mediating factors (e.g., technology, children, or religious beliefs) in shaping the relationship between a society and its animals,
(3) The inclusion of animals into sociological theory and research and its contribution to new understandings of a wide array of "social" processes,
(4) Comparative views on the changing role of animals through history as well as their changing role in major social institutions, e.g., new legal developments in animal rights. |
