Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ANTM112: Animals and Religion

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

– What is Religion? What’s it got to do with animals? (module description, assignment description, the problem of using ‘religion’ as a concept and the peculiar role of Protestantism).

– Prehistoric and Oral Traditions (archaeology and anthropology, shamanism, animism, totemism, appeasement, Australian dream time, shifting boundaries).

- Early History and ‘civilisation’ (mythology, farming, structural origins, economics, domestication, classical literature).

- The Indian Subcontinent (The variety of ‘Hindu’ traditions, reincarnation and animal sacredness, asceticism, Jainism and Buddhism).

- East Asia (Dao vs social order, pre-Han traditions, Shinto and syncretism).

- Abraham (The origins of Jewish traditions and the emergence of Christianity and Islam, world order and hierarchy, biblical vegetarianism, stewardship).

- A Bad Rap (Christianity in the middle ages, was it all bad? Inhuman daemons and witches, angels, St Francis, Protestant purity and property).

- Enlightenment, Science and Machines (Descartes’ legacy, Human as an animal, a return to philosophy, big economics, global mixing).

- New Age, Vegetarians and Animal Rights (full circle – world religions and neo-shamanism, animals as sentient, anthropomorphism).

- Death, burial and other themes (drawing it together, picking out common themes from disparate traditions).

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
22	128

...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)
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	2	2 x 1 hour assessment preparation tutorials
Guided Independent Study	30	Preparation for formative assessments
Guided Independent Study	98	Research and writing of summative assessments

Online Resources

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

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.

Waldau, Paul, & Patton, Kimberly C. (Eds.). 2006. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics. Columbia University Press (available as an ebook through the library) this is a key text throughout the module.

Allen, Barbara. 2016. Animals in Religion: Devotion Symbol and Ritual, Reaktion Books (available as an ebook through the library). This is also a very useful text for most of the topics in the module.

Kemmerer, Lisa. 2011. Introduction. Animals and World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press (available as an ebook through the library).

Smith, C. 2017, ‘Chapter 1 – What is Religion?’, Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Ingold, T. 2002. From Trust to Domination: An Alternative History of Human-Animal Relations. In: Manning, A. and Serpell, J. (eds.) Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives, 1-22. Taylor and Francis.