21A.411
People and Other Animals
See description under subject 21H.380[J] .
Fall 2013
This course is a historical exploration of the ways that people have interacted with their closest animal relatives, for example: hunting, domestication of livestock, exploitation of animal labor, scientific study of animals, display of exotic and performing animals, and pet-keeping. Themes include changing ideas about animal agency and intelligence, our moral obligations to animals, and the limits imposed on the use of animals. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.
Readings
- [Capek] = Capek, Karl. War With the Newts . Catbird Press, 1990.
- [Sewell] = Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty (Signet Classics) . Signet Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780451531742.
- [Wells] = Wells, H. G. The Island of Doctor Moreau . Penguin Classics, 2005. ISBN: 9780141441023.
- [Ritvo] Chapter 6.
- Corbett, Jim. “Introduction,” and Chapter 1 in Man-Eaters of Kumaon . Oxford University Press, 1993.
- Cioc, Mark. “Introduction,” Chapter 1, and Appendix A in The Game of Conservation: International Treaties to Protect the World’s Migratory Animals. Ohio University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780821418673.
- [Ritvo] Chapter 1.
- Coppinger, Raymond, and Lorna Coppinger. Chapter 1 in Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, & Evolution . University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226115634.
- [Franklin] Chapters 2, and 3.
- Ritvo, Harriet. Chapter 5 in The Platypus and the Mermaid: and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination . Harvard University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780674673588.
- Grandin, Temple. “A Major Change,” and “Thinking Like Animals.” In The Animal Ethics Reader . 2nd ed. Edited by Susan Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler. Routeledge, 2008. ISBN: 9780415775397.
- [Ritvo] Chapter 2.
- Lorenz, Konrad. Chapters 4, 6, and 17 in Man Meets Dog . Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 9780415267458.
- Rader, Karen. “Why Mice?” In Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900–1955 . Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. 1–24. ISBN: 9780691016368.
- Pemberton, Stephen. “Canine Technologies, Model Patients: The Historical Production of Hemophiliac Dogs.” In Industrializing Organisms: Introducing Evolutionary History . Routledge, 2003, pp. 191–213. ISBN: 9780415945486.
- [Ritvo] Chapter 3.
- SES #: 8 · TOPICS: No Class · READINGS: No readings
- Cronon, William. Chapters 2 and 5 in Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England . Hill & Wang Inc., U. S., 2003. ISBN: 9780809016341.
- [Ritvo] Chapter 4.
- [Franklin] Chapter 5.
- Weiss, R. A. “Animal Origins of Human Infectious Disease.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 356, no. 1410 (2001): 957–77.
- [Ritvo] Chapter 5.
- Rothfels, Nigel. “Gardens of History.” Chapter 1 in Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo . Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780801889752.
- Miller, Ian. “The Great Zoo Massacre.” Chapter 4 in The Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo . University of California Press, 2013.
- Alberti, Samuel. “Introduction: The Dead Ark.” In The Afterlives of Animals: A Museum Menagerie . University of Virginia Press, 2013, pp. 1–16. ISBN: 9780813933900.
- O’ Rawe, Richard. “The Thames Whale.” In Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer That Changed Irish History . The Lilliput Press Ltd., 2010, pp. 186–201. ISBN: 9781843511847.
- Goodall, Jane. Chapter 1–3 in In The Shadow of Man . Phoenix Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780753809471.
- Hrdy, Sara. Chapter 1 in The Woman That Never Evolved . Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN: 9780674955400.
- Galdikas, Biruté. Chapter 1–4 in Reflections of Eden: My Life with the Orangutans of Borneo . Orion Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780575059863.
- Fossey, Dian. Chapters 1–3 in Gorillas in the Mist: A Remarkable Story of Thirteen Years Spent Living with the Greatest of the Great Apes . Phoenix Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780753811412.
- Wells, H. G. The Island of Dr. Moreau. Penguin Classics, 2005. ISBN: 9780141441023.
- SES #: 15 · TOPICS: Final Presentations · READINGS: No readings
Prerequisites & course information
Same subject as 21H.380[J] Subject meets with 21A.419[J] , 21H.980[J] Prereq: None U (Fall) Not offered regularly; consult department 2-0-10 units. HASS-S
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2013
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.