Animal and society

Margo DeMello , Animal and society ( Columbia university Press, 2012) chapter 15

1 . This is only a very brief summary of some of the religious connotations of different animals. Pick one example from anywhere in the chapter and ask a question about it’s meaning or how it fits into that culture’s tradition

     Marina Belozerskaya, The Medici Giraffe (Little, Brown, and Co., 2006)   Chapter 6

2. This chapter really has it all: shipwrecks, scurvy, Australian wildlife being terribly cared for, the rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire. It’s a lot! But focus on the people and the animals. Both Josephine Bonaparte and Nicolas Baudin seem like dedicated caring individuals put in no-win situations, but still trying to do their best. Which parts of their stories jump out at you the most?

Marina Belozerskaya, The Medici Giraffe (Little, Brown, and Co., 2006)       Chapter 5

3. This chapter is a marked departure from the last few. While Philadelphios, Pompey, Lorenzo Medici, and Hernan Cortes were all striving for power and political dominance of some sort, Rudolf II was born into about as much as it was possible for any man in Europe to have. Belozerskaya probably assumes her readers have some knowledge of Rudolf, the late sixteenth century, and the Holy Roman Empire, so she sort of sells short how UNBELIEVABLY IMPORTANT and powerful Rudolf and his family, the Hapsburgs, were at the time.

Between his own role as ruler of the HRE, King of Croatia, Hungary, and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria, and his uncle Philip II’s powers (and later his cousin Philip III’s) as King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Sicily, Duke of Milan, and Lord of the Netherlands, these two men were the figurehead leaders of almost all of Europe except for England, France, Poland, and Scandinavia. All of this while the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation was tearing nations apart with civil strife and violence.

And despite all of that, Rudolf really did devote most of his interest to the natural sciences! He’s a fascinating individual and I’m looking forward to seeing how you react to all this short description of his life and his relationship with animals and the idea of animals.

Margo DeMello , Animal and society ( Columbia university Press, 2012)

Chapter 13

4. Your assignment is to pick out DeMello’s thesis statement for this chapter, then provide at least one example that she uses to support it.You might not all agree on what her thesis statement is – it’s somewhat ambiguous – but this is a good way to try to find her point of view. Use specific quotes with page numbers, and keep in mind that her thesis might not be clearly stated in a single sentence. Feel free to paraphrase as well if you need to restate it.

Once you’ve responded to your assigned chapter, visit the threads for the other two chapters and reply to one of your classmates in each with a different example that either backs up their proposed thesis statement or suggests an alternative.

Respond to Chapter 13

5. Mark Kurlansky,Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (Penguin, 1998)  Cod – chapter 1-10

Respond to atleast one question .

1) What does fishing mean to the modern people living in Newfoundland?

2) How was the historical experience of fishing different for the Norse and Basque?

3) How did the commercial fishing industry develop over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and what was its impact on the “discovery” of North America?

4) What is the importance of different types of cod (and other seafood) being more profitable in some places than others?

5) How has competition over fishing impacted international relationships, right up into the twentieth century?

Margo DeMello , Animal and society ( Columbia university Press, 2012)

Chapter 18 DeMello – the Moral status of animals

6 .  Pick one of the main philosophical approaches that DeMello traces in this chapter and explain how it applies to a different case that we have read about. Remember that each of us has our own moral approach to these questions and we even frequently contradict ourselves! So don’t cast your argument in terms of judgment, but in terms of how to understand our attitudes towards wild animals, food animals, lab animals, companion animals, or some other category using examples from any of our readings.

Possible approaches include utilitarianism, virtue ethics, ethical humanism, and phenomenology.

Margo DeMello , Animal and society ( Columbia university Press, 2012)   ChAPTER 17 – BEHAVIOR AND ETHIOLOGY

7. Pick one of the main philosophical approaches that DeMello traces in this chapter and explain how it applies to a different case that we have read about. Remember that each of us has our own moral approach to these questions and we even frequently contradict ourselves! So don’t cast your argument in terms of judgment, but in terms of how to understand our attitudes towards wild animals, food animals, lab animals, companion animals, or some other category using examples from any of our readings.

Possible approaches include utilitarianism, virtue ethics, ethical humanism, and phenomenology.

8 .      Peter Laufer, Forbidden Creatures (Lyons Press, 2010)  – PRIMATE PROBLEMS

Whether macaques are smuggled from Asia or chimpanzees are bred for research or entertainment, great apes and smaller monkeys can destroy a home or cause a commotion, even while their “owners” might consider them part of the family. What does Laufer have to say about the ways in which people interact with and identify with primates? What can and should be done about those who disregard exotic animal laws or take advantage of loopholes in them?

9. Peter Laufer,Forbidden Creatures (Lyons Press, 2010)  LAUFER

Depending on who you ask and how you count, there are probably anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 lions, tigers, cougars, cheetahs, leopards, servals, and other big cats in captivity across the United States. Laufer raises a number of questions ranging from animal welfare, to black market traditional medicine trafficking, to public safety related to how and why people are keeping these animals. What do you think of the authors arguments about the keeping of these cats and what can and should be done about it? Is it, again, a question of the charismatic apex predator dominating the conversation, when we know that feral house cats also live difficult and often short lives while causing problems for native wildlife?