ANTH UN3151

I feel that I have a solid grasp on contemporary anthropological literature about human-animal interactions,with a less distinct/developed understanding on archaeology of human-animal sites.

This course taught me how to view human-animal relationships through a critical lens

It was interesting to explore nature/culture binaries/dualities through a non anthropocentric perspective, and to imagine kinship with non-human species.

I felt at the beginning like this course had a lot of potential to teach me about different perspectives in the world through anthropology of animals but unfortunately I found 80% of readings and discussions to be so intangible and irrelevant to daily life that I did not have this experience. The best readings were the ones about Nazi Germany, I definitely felt like I learned useful and applicable information from those. However, reading discourse and discussions between academics especially regarding definitions of categories felt so unrelated to actual animals lives, so anthropocentric, that it was hard for me engage.

Completely new ways of understanding animals, nature, and society. Also how to better engage with academic arguments in anthropology and archaeology.

I learned a new perspective in which to view human's relationship to animals and the ethics pertaining to them through different lenses thanks to the professor.

You must really enjoy talking about animals to love this course. (And not just dogs and cats). There were readings for each class, anywhere between 30-70 pages depending on the day with very low stakes completion assignments on each day's readings, 2 papers but you get to rewrite one of them and resubmit it around finals

Sometimes I felt like we focused way more on specific scholars than we did on the subject matter that the scholars were talking about. Our biggest assignment is about scholars, not necessarily living with animals. It frustrates me that our understandings of the course will be evaluated by how well we can report back our understandings of other people's ideas. Of course, I think those ideas are important to reference, but there was really not much space for creativity at all. There was not much space for imagination, it felt like in seminars we were expected to perform recitations rather than have truly creative thoughts.

Professor Chazin is amazing. She is organized, passionate, knowledgeable, and cares about students. However, this class just didn't really broaden my mind because so much reading was so unrelated to how the world works. Every time we discussed definitions and categories and different academics conflicting ideas, all I could think was: exactly how is this academic discourse changing the sheep's life? In no way.

I would recommend this class to anyone interested in anthropology in general, as it deals with a lot of major anthropological topics through the lens of animals, meaning you end up with a better understanding of both animal studies as well as many other concepts. I found myself thinking about the course content all the time outside of class.