Fall 2022 Learning Community: Animal Planet: Human Being(s) and Nature

Fall 2022 Learning Community—Honors: Ethics AND Women and Creativity

Professors Marian Staats and Tom Bowen 

MW 9:30AM-10:45AM, MW 11:00AM-12:15PM, Des Plaines Campus 

Register for BOTH PHL 106 0H1 (CRN: 32008) & HUM 142 OH1 (CRN: 32007)

Animal Planet: Human Being(s) & Nature

Our conceptions of “nature” and relation to the natural environment emerge from how we understand ourselves as human beings. As humans live entangled with a nature that has served, not only as a primary resource sustaining our lives, but also as a rich field for sacred, political, and communal rites and symbols through which we establish our humanity, nonhuman animals have developed an intimate and (potentially) conscious relation with us: as pets, as companions, as entertainment, as research subjects, as predators, and as food. They also play important roles in various discourses justifying and resisting oppression—particularly in relation to people “othered” on the basis of race, gender and sexuality. Key global concerns of the 21st century—climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, reproductive and environmental justice—can be approached in relation to changing conceptions of humanity, nature, and human/nonhuman animal relations. Our seminar will explore these issues through an intersectional lens, focusing on women’s contributions to ethical and political theory, the arts and performance, and contemporary activism.