Human-animal studies
Encyclopedia
Human–animal studies is a new academic field that examines the relationships between nonhuman and human
animals. It includes scholars from a diverse range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, biology, and philosophy.
HAS scholars recognize the lack of scholarly attention given to non-human animals and to the relationships between human and non-human, especially in the light of the magnitude of animal representations, symbols, stories and their actual physical presence in human societies and cultures. Like feminist scholars in the 1970s, these scholars have been inserting the animal into the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
Rather than a unified approach, the field currently consists of several methods adapted from the several participating disciplines to encompass human-nonhuman relationships and occasional efforts to develop sui generis
methods.
There are now three primary lists for HAS scholars and students: H-Animal, the Human-Animal Studies listserve, and NILAS, as well as the Critical Animal Studies list.
There are now over a dozen journals covering HAS issues, many of them founded in the last decade, and hundreds of HAS books, most of them published in the last decade. Brill, Berg, Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Columbia, Reaktion, Palgrave-McMillan, University of Minnesota, University of Illinois, and Oxford all offer either a HAS series or a large number of HAS books.
In addition, in 2006, Animals and Society Institute
began hosting the Human-Animal Studies Fellowship, a six-week program in which pre- and post-doctoral scholars work on a HAS research project at a university under the guidance of host scholars and distance peer scholars. Beginning in 2011, ASI has partnered with Wesleyan Animal Studies, who will be hosting the fellowship in conjunction with ASI. There are also a handful of HAS conferences per year, including those organized by ISAZ and NILAS, and the Minding Animals conference, held in 2009 in Australia. Finally, there are more HAS courses being taught now than ever before. The ASI Website's course pages list over 300 courses (primarily in North America, but also including Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and Poland) in twenty-nine disciplines at over 200 colleges and universities, not including over 100 law school courses.
Books
Journals
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
animals. It includes scholars from a diverse range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, biology, and philosophy.
HAS scholars recognize the lack of scholarly attention given to non-human animals and to the relationships between human and non-human, especially in the light of the magnitude of animal representations, symbols, stories and their actual physical presence in human societies and cultures. Like feminist scholars in the 1970s, these scholars have been inserting the animal into the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
Rather than a unified approach, the field currently consists of several methods adapted from the several participating disciplines to encompass human-nonhuman relationships and occasional efforts to develop sui generis
Sui generis
Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....
methods.
Areas of study
- The social construction of animals and what it means to be animal
- The zoological gaze
- The human-animal bond
- Parallels between human-animal interactions and human-technology interactions
- The symbolism of animals in literature and art
- The history of animal domestication
- The intersections of speciesism, racism, and sexism
- The place of animals in human-occupied spaces
- The religious significance of animals throughout human history
- Exploring the cross-cultural ethical treatment of animals
- The critical evaluation of animal abuse and exploitation
- Mind, Self, and Personhood in nonhuman animals
Growth of the field
There are now twenty-three college programs in HAS or a related field in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands, as well as an additional eight veterinary school programs in North America, and over thirty HAS organizations in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Israel, Sweden, and Switzerland.There are now three primary lists for HAS scholars and students: H-Animal, the Human-Animal Studies listserve, and NILAS, as well as the Critical Animal Studies list.
There are now over a dozen journals covering HAS issues, many of them founded in the last decade, and hundreds of HAS books, most of them published in the last decade. Brill, Berg, Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Columbia, Reaktion, Palgrave-McMillan, University of Minnesota, University of Illinois, and Oxford all offer either a HAS series or a large number of HAS books.
In addition, in 2006, Animals and Society Institute
Animals and Society Institute
The Animals and Society Institute is an independent research and educational organization that seeks to bring about institutional change by advancing the status of animals in public policy, promoting the academic study of human-animal relationships, and implementing programs to break the cycle...
began hosting the Human-Animal Studies Fellowship, a six-week program in which pre- and post-doctoral scholars work on a HAS research project at a university under the guidance of host scholars and distance peer scholars. Beginning in 2011, ASI has partnered with Wesleyan Animal Studies, who will be hosting the fellowship in conjunction with ASI. There are also a handful of HAS conferences per year, including those organized by ISAZ and NILAS, and the Minding Animals conference, held in 2009 in Australia. Finally, there are more HAS courses being taught now than ever before. The ASI Website's course pages list over 300 courses (primarily in North America, but also including Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and Poland) in twenty-nine disciplines at over 200 colleges and universities, not including over 100 law school courses.
Example papers
- "Placing the Wild in the City:'Thinking with' Melbourne’s Bats" (Thomson 2007)
- "More Than a Furry Companion: The Ripple Effect of Companion Animals on Neighborhood Interactions and Sense of Community" (Wood et al. 2007)
- "Engaging the Animal in the Moving Image" (Porter 2006)
- "Hunting and Illegal Violence Against Humans and Other Animals: Exploring the Relationship" (Flynn 2006)
- "Between Ideals, Realities, and Popular Perceptions: An Analysis of the Multifaceted Nature of London Zoo" (Ito 2006)
Related authors
- Kenneth Shapiro
- Arnold Arluke
- Carol J. Adams
- Frank Ascione
- Giovanni Aloi
- Marie-France Boissonneault
- Juliet Clutton-Brock
- Erica Fudge
- Linda Kalof
- James Serpell
- Harriet Ritvo
- Nigel Rothfels
- Paul Waldau
- Cary Wolfe
- Jennifer Wolch
- Donna HarawayDonna HarawayDonna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...
- Steven Baker
- Tom BeauchampTom BeauchampTom L. Beauchamp is an American philosopher and bioethicist. He currently serves as Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. He earned his B.A. from Southern Methodist University in 1963, a B.D. from Yale Divinity School, and...
- Lynda Birke
- Stephen R. L. ClarkStephen R. L. ClarkStephen Richard Lyster Clark is a British philosopher and former professor of philosophy at the University of Liverpool.Clark specializes in the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, science fiction, and animal rights...
- Jonathan Burt
- Marion Copeland
- Jody Emel
- Greta Gaard
- Clifton P. Flynn
- Joan DunayerJoan DunayerJoan Dunayer is a writer, editor, and animal rights advocate. "A graduate of Princeton University, she has master's degrees in English literature, English education, and psychology...
- Marti Kheel
- Phillip Armstrong
- Clinton Sanders
- Leslie Irvine
- Jenia Meng
- Lisa Kemmerer
- Harold Herzog
See also
- IntersectionalityIntersectionalityIntersectionality is a feminist sociological theory first highlighted by Kimberlé Crenshaw . Intersectionality is a methodology of studying "the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations"...
- AnthrozoologyAnthrozoologyAnthrozoology is the study of human-animal interaction. It is a modern interdisciplinary and burgeoning field that overlaps with a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, ethology, medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and zoology...
- Cognitive ethologyCognitive ethologyThe fusion of cognitive science and classical ethology into cognitive ethology "emphasizes observing animals under more-or-less natural conditions, with the objective of understanding the evolution, adaptation , causation, and development of the species-specific behavioral repertoire" - .- Relation...
- AnthropomorphismAnthropomorphismAnthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
- Critical animal studiesCritical animal studiesCritical Animal Studies is a term increasingly used by a wide range of academic groups who variously link it to what is otherwise known as "Animal Studies" , "Human-Animal Studies" , or "Posthumanism." Yet, there are key differences in terms of the ideological and methodological approaches to...
- Furry fandomFurry fandomFurry fandom is a fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes...
Further reading
External links- Animals & Society Institute
- Antennae, The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
- Animal Studies and Film: An interview with Matthew Brower, professor of Art History at York University
- Animal Studies Bibliography compiled by Linda Kalof, Amy Fitzgerald, Jennifer Lerner, and Jessica Temeles
- Culture & Animals Foundation
- David Anderson's Literature of Human-Animal Studies
- Animal Studies at Michigan State University
- New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies
- Australian Animal Studies Group
Books
- Adams, Carol and Donovan, Josephine (1995). Animals & Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Duke University Press.
- Adams, Carol J. 2009. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, Twentieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Continuum.
- Arluke, Arnold and Clinton Sanders, eds. 2009. Between the Species: A Reader in Human–Animal Relationships. Boston, Mass.: Pearson Education.
- Arluke, Arnold and Clinton Sanders, 1996. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- Armstrong, Susan and Richard Botzler. 2008. The Animal Ethics Reader. London, England: Continuum.
- Baker, Steve (2000). Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, and Representation. University of Illinois Press.
- Bekoff, Marc 2007. The Emotional Lives of Animals. New World Library.
- Bekoff, Marc, ed. 2007. Encyclopedia of Human–Animal Relationships. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group.
- Boissonneault, M. F. 2010. Every Living Being: Representations of Nonhuman Animals in the Exploration of Human Well-Being, Portland, OR: Inkwater Press.
- Boissonneault, M. F. 2009/2011). Nurse or Nemesis? Public Perception of the Australian Grey Nurse Shark, Mandhurrra, WA: Equilibrium Books.
- DeMello, Margo, ed. 2010. Teaching the Animal: Human-Animal Studies Across the Disciplines. New York: Lantern Press.
- Donovan, Josephine and Carol Adams, eds. 1996. Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethic for the Treatment of Animals. New York: Continuum.
- Eisnitz, Gail. 2007. Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
- Flynn, Clifton, ed. 2008. Social Creatures: A Human and Animal Studies Reader. New York: Lantern Books.
- Franklin, Adrian. 1999. Animals and Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human–Animal Relations in Modernity. London: Sage.
- Gaard, Greta (1993). Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, & Nature. Temple University Press.
- Haraway, Donna. 1989. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall.
- Haraway, Donna. 2007. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Kalof, Linda (2007). Looking at Animals in Human History. Reaktion Books.
- Kalof, Linda and Amy Fitzgerald, eds. 2007. The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings. Oxford and New York: Berg.
- Kalof, Linda and Brigitte Resl, eds. 2007. A Cultural History of Animals. Oxford and New York: Berg.
- Kemmerer, Lisa. In Search of Consistency: Ethics And Animals. Leiden: Brill, 2006. xvi + 542 pp. $115.00 (paper), ISBN 978-90-04-14725-6.
- Manning, Aubrey and James Serpell, eds. 1994. Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives. London: Routledge.
- Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff and Susan McCarthy. 1995. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks.
- Meng, Jenia. 2009. Origins of Attitudes towards Animals. Brisbane: Ultravisum. ISBN: 9780980842517.
- Nibert, David. 2002. Animal Rights; Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Domination. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
- Podberscek, Anthony L., Elizabeth S. Paul, and James A. Serpell. 2000. Companion Animals and Us. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Regan, Tom and Peter Singer, eds. 1989. Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
- Rothfels, Nigel, ed. 2002. Representing Animals. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Sanders, Clinton. 1999. Understanding Dogs: Living and Working with Canine Companions. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- Serpell, James (1996). In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships. Cambridge University Press.
- Singer, Peter. 2002. Animal Liberation, rev. ed. New York: Harper Perennial.
- Spiegel, Marjorie. 1996. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery. New York: Mirror Books.
- Sunstein, Cass R. and Martha Nussbaum, eds. 2004. Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Wolch, Jennifer and Emel, Jody (1998). Animal Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands. New Left Books.
Journals
- Society & Animals
- Anthrozoös
- Antennae, The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
- Humanimalia
- Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
- Journal of Animal Law & Ethics
- Journal for Critical Animal Studies
- Animal Ethics, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics http://www.oxfordanimalethics.com/2011/04/news-release-launch-of-the-journal-of-animal-ethics/
- New Perspectives on Human-Animal Interactions: Theory, Policy and Research http://books.google.com/books?id=EHkMjpMFlWIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=human+animal+relationship+herzog&hl=en&ei=GRgETpioOovnmAWKkpTbDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=human%20animal%20relationship%20herzog&f=false