I - Margo DeMello, "Animals in Human Thought" (Chapter 14): Discussion Questions

Margo DeMello, "Animals in Human Thought," chapter 14, in Animals and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. 283-300.

Questions for Reflection & Blogging

"Animals are agents of nature translated into the symbols of culture." -Edward Wilson

1. What is the Spair-Whorf hypothesis?

2."Words shape our understanding of animals" (284) and "language is never neutral" (285), De Mello notes, then probes the implications of these assertions. To begin, what might the implications of calling people by animal names be--especially when those names are pejorative?

3. What do expressions such as "skin a dead cat" or "flog a dead horse" suggest about our relationship to animals? How, furthermore, might using terms such as "breeding stock," "meat," and "research tool" affect our perception of and relationship to animals?

4. What is the effect on animals - and on people - of using the third-person passive voice to describe experiments in scientific papers?

5. By what linguistic convention do we often avoid referring to animals as subjects?

6. Perhaps the most radical difference in the way we talk about people and animals is manifested in the terms we use to describe their violent ends. People are "murdered" - animals are never murdered, but rather "slaughtered" or "euthanized." Why might the ways we talk about animal deaths at our hands be problematic? What do these ways of talking hide?

7. What is a symbol? What makes a symbol "polyvocalic"? What are some of the reasons that animals are so commonly used as symbols?

8. When do animals first appear in art? How is the early history of human evolution in part figured in art?

9. What kinds of representations of animals do we encounter in European art of the medieval and Renaissance periods?

10. What are some important animal figures in Chinese and Japanese artistic traditions?

11. What are some of the ways in which animals are represented in African art?

12. Contemporary artists have used animals in art in ways strikingly different from artists in the past. Describe two opposing trends in animal art being created today.

13. Comment on Carol Gigliotti's "Animals and the Creative Arts."

II - Margo De Mello, "Animals in Religion and Folklore" (Chapter 15): Discussion Questions

Margo De Mello, "Animals in Religion and Folklore," Chapter 15, Animals and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. 301-324.

Questions for Reflections and Blogging

1. Margo De Mello observes that, "Religions, through their myths and practices, encode a world view that is specific to that religion. In this sense, a world view is an orientation to the world that includes assumptions about the natural world and our place in it" (301). How has - or hasn't - religion influenced your own worldview concerning the natural world and your place in it?

2. What is the Old Testament (OT) view of the natural world and our place in it? Do you think that the OT advocates "stewardship" or "domination" of nature?

3. What was St. Augustine's view of the difference between humans and other animals? How does St. Augustine's view influence Thomas Aquinas's view--as well as the worldview of Christianity?

4. What is the Islamic view of the relationship between humans and other animals?

5. Describe the more complex attitudes concerning the relationship of humans to other animals espoused by Hinduism and Buddhism.

6. Describe some prevailing concepts about the relationship of humans to other animals found in Native American religious traditions.

7. What is Jainism and how does it conceive of the relationship of humans to other animals?

8. Margo De Mello remarks, "we can say that in the traditional and ancient cultures in which the [animal] tales were created, the human-animal boundary which emerged in the west had not yet been formed" (308). Offer examples of the ways in which animals and humans share the same world in these tales.

9. Margo De Mello offers several examples of human-animal transformations in works of folklore. Find one of the works she mentions and offer a brief summary and analysis of it.

10. Discuss some of the religious symbolism associated with dogs and cats.

11. Research an animal cult that interests you and report your findings.

12. Consider the practices of animal sacrifice De Mello offers. What happens to the status of the animal sacrificed? Is it possible to balance freedom of religious practice with the humane treatment of animals?

13. Margo De Mello poses the question, "Should religion have something to say about the treatment of animals?" Identify several religious figures who have assented to the question. How have they contributed to thinking about the "animal question"? Which if the "Suggested Readings" at the end of this chapter might help you answer this question more fully?

14. Consider several different imaginations of the afterlife. Which ones include animals? Which ones do not?

15. Comment on Laura Hobgood-Oster's "What Do Animals and Religion Have to Do with Each Other?"

III - Margo De Mello, "Animals in Literature and Film" (Chapter 16): Discussion Questions

Margo De Mello, "Animals in Literature and Film," Chapter 16, Animals and Society.New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. 325-345.

Questions for Reflection & Blogging

1. Margo De Mello writes about two children's books: Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust, by Eve Bunting, and Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel. Read one of them and discuss the ways in which animals are used to evoke the suffering of humans.

2. How, traditionally, have animals functioned in works of literature? Trace the figure of the animal in literature across the centuries.

3. In what two primary ways are animals used in children's books? Find one or more contemporary children's books featuring animals and discuss them.

4. Margo De Mello alludes to numerous "talking animals." Analyze one talking animal - from Aesop's fables, Sewell's Black Beauty, Orwell's Animal Farm, Auster's Mr. Bones, Berger'sKing, or any other talking animal in literature.

5. Look at and describe as fully as possible Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 series of photos depicting an unnamed horse. You can find the photos athttp://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/windows/southeast/eadweard_muybridge.html.

6. Research an animal TV star such as Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, Benji, Flipper, Toto, Morris the Cat, etc. and report your findings. What were the lives of the animal actors who played these TV characters like? What was their influence?

7. A new genre of film is the "eco-horror" film. How does nature appear in such films? Why might this genre have come into being?

8. Look at and analyze the offerings on a single night of Animal Planet. What do these offerings suggest about our relationship to and treatment of animals? Is the programing on Animal Planet ethical?

9. Watch and comment on one of the following documentaries: Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud's Winged Migration or Luc Jacquet's The March of the Penguins.

10. How do films - even pro-animal films - often cause harm to animals? Comment on scholar Randy Malamud's question, "Does [our interest in wildlife films and documentaries] testify to our increasing interest or concern for other animals, or does it mean we've dragged these creatures down to the level of mass entertainment?" (qtd. Pg. 338).

11. If "the internet is made of cats" (338), what "kind" of cats are they--i.e., how are cats (and other animals) represented on the internet? How does the internet figure human-animal relations?