Listed in: Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, as LJST-355 | Political Science, as POSC-355
Thomas L. Dumm (Section 01)
Adam Sitze (Section 01)
(Offered as LJST 355 and POSC 355.) (Research Seminar) The treatment and legal status of animals has often provided a rich resource for legal theory. Jeremy Bentham famously yoked the denial of rights to animals with pro-slavery arguments in order to argue that the basis of rights was not the shape of the body or the level of intelligence but the capacity to feel pain. Since then a considerable literature on animal rights and the nascent field of animal studies has emerged. This course covers many of these debates but goes further, asking what are the historically contingent grounds on which humans relate to animals? Such a perspective draws us to consider the contingency of moral arguments and the changing structures of sovereignty and legal personality. Finally, in a world where at least a billion people have been reduced to what Giorgio Agamben calls "bare life," how do global capitalism and biopolitics shape our contemporary conceptions of human and animal? Readings include Sunstein and Nussbaum, Animal Rights, Jonathon Safran Foer, Eating Animals, Giorgio Agamben, The Open: man and animal, J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello.
This writing-attentive seminar operates on twin tracks. Over the course of the semester, students will identify, research, write and revise a topic resulting in a 30-page paper. At the same time, weekly assignments will not only probe content but also focus on style. What constitutes a piece of evidence in a research project? How do writers make choices in the construction of sentences and paragraphs?
Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professors Sitze and Dumm.
Section 01
Th 02:30 PM - 05:00 PM CONV 209
This is preliminary information about books for this course. Please contact your instructor or the Academic Coordinator for the department, before attempting to purchase these books.
| ISBN | Title | Publisher | Author(s) | Comment | Book Store | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Open: Man and Animal | 2004 Stanford U Press | Giorgio Agamben | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Animal Rights | 2004 Oxford U Press | Ed. Sunstein and Nussbaum | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Erewhon | Dover | Samuel Butler | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Philosophy and Animal Life | 2008 Columbia U Press | Cavell et al, | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Elizabeth Costello | 2002 Penguin | J.M. Coetzee | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| The Law is a White Dog | 2011 Princeton U Press | Colin Dayan | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Persons and Things | 2015 Polity | Roberto Esposito | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves | 2013 GP Putnam's Sons | Karen Fowler | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| An Autobiography | Dover | Mohandas Gandhi | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| The Parasite | 1982 John Hopkins U Press | Michel Serres | Amherst Books | TBD |
These books are available locally at Amherst Books.