Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT3099: Animals and Society

This module descriptor refers to the 2024/5 academic year.

Overview

NQF Level 7.5
Credits 15 ECTS Value 7.5
Term(s) and duration

This module ran during term 2 (11 weeks)

Academic staff

Dr Julien Dugnoille (Convenor)

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Available via distance learning

Yes

From the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the medicines which sustain us, our lives are inextricably bound up in complex relationships with other animals. This module explores the many and varied interactions which humans have with nonhuman animals.  You will consider the place of non-human animals in social anthropology which prioritises the human animal, traditionally seeing fundamental and irreconcilable differences between 'cultured' humans and objectified animals.  You will put these interactions in socio-historical context and consider cross-cultural comparisons and theoretical analysis. Key issues relate to how we might understand often conflicting attitudes such as what it means to be human and our responsibilities. These philosophical discussions may culminate in a re-consideration of the place of nonhuman animals in social anthropology as described above. The ways in which attitudes towards animals as objects and/or subjects are changing in other academic disciplines will also form part of the cross-cultural analysis. The module is open to non-specialist students.

Module created

14/01/2021

Last revised

24/01/2022