BSocSc Sociology

This course explores the significance of human-animal relations for understanding human societies. With reference to the diverse and often controversial roles of animals in modern societies, as pets, as foods, as entertainment, as laboratory animals, and as agricultural machines and commodities, it examines the important but often unacknowledged role of nonhuman animals in human social life.

Throughout history nonhuman animals have played key roles in human societies. In different historical periods and in different cultures animals have been key sources of calories, clothing, labour power, transport, physical protection and companionship, as well as cultural symbolism, identities, mythology and religious beliefs. In late modern societies, animals and the various products derived from their bodies continue to play a huge role in both material and cultural aspects of human social organisation. This has led some to argue that it is necessary to understand social life as comprising more than just the interactions between human beings, and this course takes up that argument.

The course draws upon sociological as well as interdisciplinary approaches to trace how human-animal relations have changed over time and how these changes have been connected to social transformations, with an emphasis upon changing human-animal relations in modernity. The ambiguous and contested place of animals in modern societies is explored in depth, with reference to the varied roles of animals in different locales, from the home to the farm, from the zoo to the laboratory. In this way the course combines ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ analysis, exploring the nature of human-animal interactions in everyday life as well as in rationalised modern systems of production and consumption. 

On completion of this course unit students will be able to: 

- Assess the importance of human-animal relations for understanding human social life 

- Explain how the relations between humans and nonhuman animals have changed over time in relation to social transformations

- Understand the diverse and ambiguous roles of animals in a range of social institutions and locales

- Identify the changing ideological function of animals in various modern discourses and cultural forms

Thinking with animals: animality, humanity, and the great divide

Animals in sociology: from invisibility to interaction and intersection

Animal subjects? inter-subjectivity and multispecies methods

What is domestication? trust, domination and co-evolution

Companion animals: perspectives on ‘pets’ and anthropomorphism  

Animals in (late-)modern societies: complex and contradictory relations

Animals in agri-food production: ‘labour’, discipline and bio-power

The zoological gaze: captivity, power and ‘nature’

Animals in science: gender, affect and scientific knowledges 

Weekly lecture and separate seminar/workshop comprising group discussion of key readings organised around questions on the text.

Appreciate the importance of human-animal relations for understanding human social life

Explain how the relations between humans and nonhuman animals have changed over time in relation to social transformations

Understand the diverse and often ambiguous roles of animals in a range of social institutions and locales

Identify the changing ideological functions of animals in various modern discourses and representations

Perceive how social relations between human beings are interconnected with human-animal relations

Critically assess the material and cultural significance of nonhuman animals in late modern societies

Ability to summarise and communicate complex ideas in a concise, clear and accurate manner

Ability to think critically and independently about social, ethical and environmental issues, taking account of new perspectives and unfamiliar ways of thinking

Ability to assess the merits of diverse arguments and theoretical frameworks for understanding concrete issues

Ability to summarise and communicate complex ideas in a concise, clear and accurate manner

Formative assessment:

Critical reading notes (students' summary notes on a required/key reading of their choice) - 500 words

Summative assessment:

100% Exam - 2h
 

All sociology courses include both formative feedback which lets you know how you're getting on and what you could do to improve, and summative feedback which gives you a mark for your assessed work.  

Margo DeMello (2021) Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies.

Lindsay Hamilton and Nik Taylor (2017) Ethnography after Humanism: Power, Politics and Method in Multi-Species Research.  

Diana Stewart, Rebecca Shewe and Brian Gunderson (2013) ‘Extending Social Theory to Farm Animals: Addressing Alienation in the Dairy Sector’, Sociologia Ruralis, 53, 2.  

Erika Cudworth (2014) ‘Beyond Speciesism: Intersectionality, Critical Sociology and the Human Domination of Other Animals’, Chapter 1 in Nik Taylor and Richard Twine (eds) The Rise of Critical Animal Studies, pp. 19-35.

Donna Haraway (2008) When Species Meet.