Tag Archives: Human-Animal Studies

What Does the Fox Say? A Simple Tale with a Plethora of Possibilities

By Maryann Henck

When I first read George Saun­ders’ fable-like tale, Fox 8, I ini­tial­ly felt amused, then sad, and final­ly out­raged. I also felt a blog brew­ing – not of the book review vari­ety but of the teach­ing tool/creativity cor­ner vari­ety. For starters, Fox 8 is less of a charm­ing bed­time sto­ry for chil­dren – who will no doubt enjoy it – and more of a dark­ly com­ic cau­tion­ary tale for adults. The tit­u­lar first-per­son nar­ra­tor takes the read­ers on a jour­ney through his life as a fox who lives and for­ages with his fel­low fox­es in the for­est. Fox for­est life is run­ning smooth­ly until Fox 8 has his first con­fus­ing encounter with humans, which results in con­flict­ing feelings.

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Human-Animal Studies – The ASB Editors’ Favorite Picks (Part II)

By Maria Moss

Clau­dine André with a bonobo. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language#/media/File:Claudine_andre.jpg

When we think about rela­tion­ships between human ani­mals and non-human ani­mals, we often think of the rela­tion­ship between guardians and pets. How­ev­er, there’s so much more to the top­ic. This week, I’ll con­tin­ue our series on Dig­i­tal Amer­i­can Stud­ies by shar­ing with you some won­der­ful videos on human-ani­mal stud­ies I found use­ful for under­grad­u­ate class­es. When­ev­er I teach eco­crit­i­cal the­o­ry – for instance my project sem­i­nar, “Study & Save: Eco-Crit­i­cal The­o­ry in Action” – I make sure it always has a prac­ti­cal com­po­nent. And even in sem­i­nars on North Amer­i­can cul­ture, eco­crit­i­cal top­ics (e.g. frack­ing, plas­tic oceans, defor­esta­tion, and loss of species) are always part of the deal.

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Teaching Human-Animal Studies: An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Ani­mals are all around us. But what do we actu­al­ly mean when we say “ani­mal”? We are, of course, also ani­mals: human ani­mals.  

In recent years, ani­mals have entered uni­ver­si­ty life, and  schol­ars in fields as diverse as art, philos­o­phy, and reli­gious stud­ies approach ani­mals from dif­fer­ent angles and method­olo­gies. Ani­mals are to some extent invis­i­ble until they enter the realm of the human. Then they become pets, cat­tle, or lab­o­ra­to­ry ani­mals.  

Are you curi­ous? Could this sub­ject enrich your teaching cur­ricu­lum? Then why don’t you join us at Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty from Jan­u­ary 23 to 25. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, includ­ing reg­is­tra­tion details, see the pro­gram.