3.0

Average Course Rating

Everyday, we all have encounters with animals: the mosquito that bites our arm, the rat that runs in front of us on the sidewalk, the dog that greets us upon our return home. These interactions are quotidian, but rarely reflected in the histories that we read. In this class, we will bring the animal back into the narratives that we tell by considering history from a multispecies perspective. Taking the examples of China and Japan, we will see how animals, both real and metaphoric, played a critical role in the political, economic, religious, and social lives of our historical, human, actors. We will see how the inclusion of animals in history bolsters and challenges history as it has been written and gain a deeper understanding of how our current mores regarding animals came to be. Our class will begin with a discussion of Japan and China in the 17th century and end with contemporary controversies surrounding Japanese whaling and shark fin soup. Throughout the course we will consider the ethical and philosophical ramifications of our inquiries like the agency of non-human animals. Designed for upper-level undergraduate students interested in the history of East Asia, prior knowledge of the region will be useful but is not required.