Animal – Human Studies from a Humanities Perspective

Dates: January 23-27th, 2023, 11:00-13:00
Location: FASoS, Maastricht University
Instructors: Leonie Cornips (UM) and Maarten Reesink (UvA)
Contact: leonie.cornips@maastrichtuniversity.nl and m.c.c.j.reesink@uva.nl
Credits: 5 ECTS
Register ↯ (Before 15 December 2022, maximum of 25-30 students)

Human-Animal Studies is about us, humans, and the dynamic (power) relations we have with other animals. It is a new academic discipline, combining theories and research from fields as diverse as history, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and media studies. In this course, we will explore the origins of this new interdisciplinary field, figure out why and how traditional disciplines have contributed to this so-called ‘animal turn’ in academia, particularly in the humanities (and the social sciences), and imagine what this all means for our current and future relations with other animals.

Therefore, the course will critically engage with the construct of ‘the human’, connecting directly to (new understandings of) interspecies ethics aiming at how to get to know animals on their own terms, and to respect them in doing research. In doing so, we will decenter the human perspective in elaborating a non-anthropocentric approach to culture including language that may help foster more egalitarian relationships to and between different species, or, “as Agamben (2004: 83) phrases it, to bring to a “standstill” the anthropological machine that has historically articulated humanity and animality through their mutual exclusion” (cited in Cornips & Van den Hengel, 2022:178; see also Meijer 2019; Reesink, 2022; Wehrle, 2018:52).

This interdisciplinary course will entail:
1. Cultural and linguistic science approaches to understanding our fellow living beings
2. Qualitative social science methods for investigating human-animal interactions

Guest Lecturers:

• Raf de Bont (UM, FASoS) Human-Animal History
• Bernice Bovenkerk (Wageningen University) Philosohpy, Animal Ethics
• Louis van den Hengel (UM, FASoS) Ecofeminism
• Ike Kamphof (UM, FASoS) Philosophy
• Pim Martens (UM) Sustainable Development
• Henny van Rij (Dierenmuseum) Art History

We will visit a donkey sanctuary, receive a virtual ZOO guide, see the movie “The Cow” in Cinema Lumière, perform with the Maas (Meuse), develop an animal guide tour in afternoons and visit the cinema in the evening.

This course is sponsored by the UM department of Literature and Art (https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/about-um/faculties/arts-and-social-sciences/departments/department-literature-art) and the Chair ‘Taalcultuur in Limburg’ (https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/leonie.cornips)

Register