Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ANTM106: Representation of Animals Through Religion

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Module Aims

The module aims are:

To enable the student to engage with the range of human, animal, and environmental encounters according to the religious, mystical, and supernatural contexts that continue to have significance in the contemporary world.
To critically evaluate the position of religiously-constructed human-animal encounters in diverse sociocultural schemes globally and how this frames cultural constructions and the ethical treatment of either specific animal species, or non-human animals generally.
To consider how contemporary representations of animals through religious doctrine and ceremony can inform wider theoretical/philosophical debates such as locally-contextualised constructions of ecology and conservation, approaches to ethics and animal welfare, and of non-human animal entities as participants in the wider religious and political landscapes.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here - you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. develop an understanding of the diversity of human interactions with animals in the context of religious practices (ceremony, worship, deification) and of religious moral discourse (gift or sacrifice, animal welfare); 2. identify and evaluate representations of animals in religion through art or religious technology, oral narratives, doctrinal and textual sources, and ceremonial activities; 3. demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of how the social construction of animals through religion enhances anthropological approaches and methodologies that examine the participation of other-than-human beings in the human social, religious, and political landscape;
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. demonstrate a clear understanding of the historical development of theoretical approaches to the representations of animals within the social sciences; 5. demonstrate the ability to critically assess key theoretical debates from anthropology and cognate disciplines surrounding human interactions with animals in the contexts of religious moral discourses; 6. demonstrate a critical awareness of significance of historical and contemporary socio-cultural influences of particular representatives of other-than-human beings for social scientific theory;
Personal and Key Skills	7. identify a research problem and conduct independent research to test the research problem; 8. clearly and concisely convey complicated ideas to academic and non-academic audiences; and 9. prepare for writing papers suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

The module forms broadly three parts and will focus upon: animist or shamanist approaches, and the historical and continued use of animals as ancestral or spiritual guides; the construction of and conduct towards non-human animals in contemporary religious discourse and practice; cosmology and animal participation. It will investigate the anthropomorphism of animals in religious thought and ceremonial activity, and the animals in the construction of religious ethical discourse, around either gift or sacrifice, or compassionate ideologies associated with animal welfare.

Topics may include:

Introduction
Deification and Worship of Non-Human Animals (Ancestral Animals and Animals as Spiritual Guides)
Animals in Hindu and Buddhist Religious
Hindu Temple Animals
Animals in Religious Art
Gifts to the Gods and Animal Sacrifice
Abrahamic religions, ethics, and animal welfare
Buddhism, Compassion, and Non-Violence Towards Animals
Bereavement and Pet Funerals
Anthrocosmology, Deep Ecology, and New Age Spirituality

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
20	130

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	10	10 x 1 hour podcast audio lectures with accompanying PowerPoint presentations
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	10	10 x 1 hour discussion/seminar participations on the VLE discussion forums (Including formative assessments)
Guided Independent Study	30	Preparation for formative assessments
Guided Independent Study	100	Research and writing of summative assessments

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

How this Module is Assessed

In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Leading discussion for one of the tutorial topics	Length of tutorial	All	Peer-assessed and oral feedback during tutorial

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
100	0	0

...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Academic research paper	100	4,000 words	All	Written Feedback
	0
	0
	0
	0
	0
	0
	0

Re-assessment

Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Academic Research Paper	Research Paper (4,000 words)	All	To be submitted before the start of the next academic year/academic session.

Re-assessment notes

Students must have completed formative assessments before being allowed to submit summative reassessment.