Postgraduate Module Descriptor


ANTM101: Animals, Health and Healing

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

The module will cover a range of theoretical debates and case studies concerned with the following topics:

  • the use of animals in biomedical research (which could include animal rights/ethics, nonhuman models, history of vivisection, environmental enrichment programmes, genomics, xenotransplants, cloning)
  • the use of animals in therapeutic contexts (which could include Animal Assisted Therapy, assistance animals such as Guide dogs, power relationships etc.)
  • ethnoveterinary medicine (which could also include alternative/non-allopathic therapies such as homeopathy, as well as spiritual communications with nonhumans such as shamanism and animal psychics)
  • zoonotic disease (which could include focus on transmission, responses, attitudes towards carriers etc.)
  • zoopharmacognosy (which could also include ethnobotany)

Learning and Teaching

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

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
201300

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

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities1010 x 1 hour podcast audio lectures with accompanying powerpoint presentations
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities1010 x 1 hour discussion/seminar participations on the VLE discussion forums (Including formative assessments)
Guided Independent Study30Preparation for formative assessments
Guided Independent Study100Research and writing of summative assessments

Online Resources

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

ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Arluke, A.B. 1988. Sacrificial symbolism in animal experimentation: object or pet? Anthrozoös 2(2): 98–117.

Bolton, M. and Dengen, C. (eds) 2010. Animals and science: from colonial encounters to the biotech industry. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.

Caplan, P. 2000. ‘Eating British beef with confidence’: a consideration of consumers’ responses to BSE in Britain. In: P. Caplan (ed.) Risk revisited, pp. 184–203. London: Pluto.

Caplan, P. 2010. Death on the farm: culling badgers in north Pembrokeshire. Anthropology Today 26(2): 14–18.

Fine, A.H. (ed.) 2006. Handbook on animal-assisted therapy: theoretical foundations and guidelines for practice, 2nd edn. New York: Academic Press.

Fouts, R.S., Fouts, D.H. and Waters, G.S. 2002. The ethics and efficacy of biomedical research in chimpanzees with special regard to HIV research. In: in Fuentes, A.

and Wolfe, L. (eds) Primates face to face: the conservation implications of human–nonhuman primate interconnections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Franklin, S. 2001. Sheepwatching. Anthropology Today 17(3): 3–9.

Franklin, S. 2007. Dolly mixtures: the remaking of genealogy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Franklin, S. 1995. Science as culture, cultures of science. Annual Review ofAnthropology 24: 163–184.

Gigliotti, C. 2009. Leonardo’s choice: genetic technologies and animals. Vancouver: Springer.

Hatley, J. 2011. Blood intimacies and biodicy: keeping faith with ticks. Australian Humanities Review 50: 63–75.

Heatherington, T. 2008. Cloning the wild mouflon. Anthropology Today 24(1): 9–14.

Holmberg, T. 2008. A feeling for the animal: on becoming an experimentalist. Society & Animals 16(4): 316–335.

Lefkowitz, C., Paharia, I., Prout, M., Debiak, D. and Bleiberg, J. 2005. Animalassisted prolonged exposure: a treatment for survivors of sexual assault suffering posttraumatic stress disorder. Society & Animals 13(4): 275–295.

Lowe, C. 2010. Viral clouds: Becoming H5N1 in Indonesia. Cultural Anthropology 25(4): 625–649.

Lynch, M.E. 1988. Sacrifice and the transformation of the animal body into a scientific object: laboratory culture and ritual practice in the neurosciences. Social Studies of Science 18(2): 265–289.

Mahaney W.C. and Krishnamani R. (2003) Understanding geophagy in animals: standard procedures for sampling soil. Journal of Chemical Ecology 29(7): 1503–1523

McCardle, P., McCune, S., Griffin, J.A. and Maholmes, V. (eds) 2010. How animals affect us: examining the influences of human–animal interaction on child development and human health. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

McCorkle, C.M., Mathias, E. and Schillhorn van Veen, T. (eds) 1996. Ethnoveterinary research and development. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.

McKay, R. 2006. BSE, hysteria, and the representation of animal death: Deborah Levy’s Diary of a Steak. In: Animal Studies Group, Killing Animals. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Serpell, J.A. 1991. Beneficial effects of pet ownership on some aspects of human health and behaviour. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 84: 717–720.

Servais, V. 2005. Enchanting dolphins: an analysis of human–dolphin encounters. In: J. Knight (ed.) Animals in person: cultural perspectives on human–animal intimacies. Oxford: Berg.

Smith, J.A. and Boyd, K.M. 2002. The Boyd Group papers on the use of nonhuman primates in research and testing. Leicester: British Psychological Society.

Smuts, B. 2006. Between species: science and subjectivity. Configurations 14: 115–126.

Villbala, J.J., Provenza, F.D., Hall, J.O. and Lisonbee, L.D. 2010. Selection of tannins by sheep in response to gastrointestinal nematode infection. Journal of Animal Science 88: 2189–2198.