Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ANTM106: Representation of Animals Through Religion

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

Module Aims

The module aims are:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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 Skills1. demonstrate a comprehensive 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 Skills4. 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 Skills7. 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.

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.

Basic reading:

Aftandilian, David. 2007. What are the Animals to Us?: Approaches from Science, Religion, Folklore, Literature, and Art. University of Tennessee Press.

Baldick, Julian. 2000. Animal and Shaman: Ancient Religions of Central Asia. New York University Press.

Bolton, Maggie. 2005. Quartering Sheep at Carnival in Sud Lipez, Bolivia. In The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches, edited by Wendy James and David Mills. Oxford: Berg.

Broglio, Ralph. 2012. Thinking With Surfaces: Animals and Contemporary Art, in Animals and the Human Imagination: A Companion to Animal Studies edited by Aaron Gross and Anne Valeley. Columbia University Press.

Carmak, Betty J. 2003. Grieving the Death of a Pet. Minneapolis: MN Augsburg Books.

De Silva, Lily. 2003. The Buddhist Attitude towards Nature, in Environment Ethics: Divergence and Convergence (Second Edition), edited by Richard G. Botzler, Susan J. Armstrong.

Fellenz, Marc R. 2007. The Moral Menagerie : Philosophy and Animal Rights. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Folzt, Richard C. 2006. Animals in Islamic Traditions and Muslim Cultures. Oxford: One World.

Kalof, Linda and Resl, Brigitte 2011. A Cultural History of Animals. Oxford: Berg.

Linzey, Andrew. 1999. Animal Gospel: Christian Faith as If Animals Mattered. London: Hodder and Stougton.

Masri, Basheer Ahmad. 1989. Animals in Islam. Petersfield: Athene Trust.

Morris, Brian. 2000 Animals and Ancestors: An Ethnography. Oxford: Berg.

Northcott, Michael S. 2007. Faithful Feasting. In A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming. MaryKnoll, NY: Orbis.

Regan, Tom. 1987. Animal Sacrifices: Religious Perspectives on the Use of Animals in Science. Temple University Press.

Taylor, Bron. 2010, Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. University of California Press, Berkeley. 

Serpell, James. A. 2005. Animals and religion: Towards a unifying theory. In The human-animal relationship: Forever and a Day edited by Francien Heriette de Jonge. Uitgeverij Van Gorcum.

Waldau, Paul. 2001. The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals. American Academy of Religion Books.

Waldau, Paul. 2010. Religion and Other Animals. In Teaching the Animal: Human Animal Studies across the Disciplines edited by Margo DeMello. New York: Lantern Books.

Waldau, Paul and Patton, Kimberly C. 2006. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics. Columbia University Press. 

Journal Articles

Chur-Hansen, Anna. 2010. Grief and Bereavement Issues and the Loss of a Companion Animal. Clinical Psychologist. 14(1): 14-21.

Davis, Helen et al. When a pet dies: Religious issues, euthanasia and strategies for coping with bereavement. Anthrozoos. 16(1), 57-74.

Lee, Sherman A.; Surething, Nicole A. 2013. Neuroticism and Religious Coping Uniquely Predict Distress Severity among Bereaved Pet Owners. Anthrozoos. 26 (1): 61-76.

Parson, E.C.M. (Chris) 2004. Sea monsters and mermaids in Scottish folklore: Can these tales give us information on the historic occurrence of marine animals in Scotland? Anthrozoos. 17(1): 73-80.

Praet, Istvan. 2013. The Positional Qualitty of Life and Death: A Theory of Human-Animal Religions in Animism. Anthrozoos. 26(3): 341-355

Rea, Amadeo M. 2008. Wings in the Desert: A Folk Ornithology of the Northern Pimans. Anthrozoos. 21(4): 398-398

Sax, Boria. 2000. The Holocaust and Blood Sacrifice. Anthrozoos. 13(1): 22-33.

Sax. Boria 2009. The Magic of Animals: English Witch Trials in the Perspective of Folklore. Anthrozoos. 22 (4): 317-332.

Schaefer, Donovan O. 2012. Do Animals Have Religion? Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion and Embodiment. Anthrozoos. Vol. 25 Supplement: 173-189.

Stibbe, Arran. 2007. Haiku and Beyond: Language, Ecology, and Reconnection with the Natural World. Anthrozoos. 20(2): 101-112

SzÃ?±cs, Endre et al. (2012). Animal Welfare in Different Human Cultures, Traditions and Religious Faiths. Asian Australasian Journal of Animal Science, 25(11), 1499-1506.

Veldkamp, Elmer. 2009. The Emergence of "Pets as Family" and the Socio-Historical Development of Pet Funerals in Japan.  Anthrozoos. 22(4): 333-346.