Fall 2006

WGS 345 • Animals and American Culture-W

Course Description

A wandering pig played a central role in creating a bicameral legislature in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1644. According to John Winthrop, the colony's first governor, "There fell out a great business upon a very small occasion": a poor widow and a wealthy merchant went to the General Court regarding the disputed ownership of a stray sow. Although popular sympathies rested with the widow, the Court ruled in favor of the merchant, thus prompting the Court's assistants and deputies to divide formally into two distinct legislative houses in order to make the colony's government more representative. This is but one example of the central, if hitherto unrecognized, role that animals have played in shaping the course of American history. This interdisciplinary upper-division undergraduate seminar explores the place of animals in the social, cultural, economic, and political life of the United States. Topics of discussion include animals in entertainment; hunting; vegetarianism; changing cultural attitudes about nature; wandering animals and property rights; animals and evolutionary theory; the rise of the animal welfare and animal rights movements; laboring animals and the nation's move to a motorized economy; animals and war; the growth of pet keeping as a cultural practice and big business; factory farms; the rise of veterinary science; zoos; and more.

Grading Policy

Mandatory class attendance and completion of all reading and writing assignments. Each student will serve as a discussion leader for one class; each student will also write weekly response papers and/or study questions; each student will prepare a class presentation based upon h/her research work, and will submit a final research paper of ten-fifteen pages in length on a topic relating to the course material of his or her choosing.

Texts

Anna Sewell, Black Beauty James Turner, Reckoning with the Beast Jennifer Price, Flight Maps Steve Baker, The Postmodern Animal Susan Jones, Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America Ingrid Newkirk, Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Liberation Front Laura Hillenbrandt, Seabiscuit: An American Legend Gregg Mitman, Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film Elizabeth Hanson, Animal Attractions: Nature on Display in American Zoos

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