FYRS -- First Year Research Seminar (Winter 2025): White

We’re surrounded by animals all day - our pets, food, wildlife, even the products we use. Yet our feelings about these animals vary wildly from person to person and across time and culture. In this class, we’ll explore the human-animal dynamic, its inconsistencies, and what our relationships with animals reveal about ourselves as human animals. Students will select their own research topics related to the broad theme of animals and humans, creating opportunities for projects drawing from morality and ethics, psychology, biology, anthrozoology, climate studies, and many others.

 

Required Text: Herzog, Hal. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat. Revised ed., Harper Perennial, 2021.

Try these sample searches on your class topic in the library catalog:

Click on this link to search for books and articles on your topic. Type keywords relating to your topic in the box under "Search Everything."

Check out these books in print and/or online for further reading on your topic once you've gotten started.

Use broad reference materials to find out background information about your topic. This will help you narrow your future searches and will also give you keywords to find the most relevant sources. Credo can be a good place to start for that first step in research.

Multidisciplinary databases for all FYRS classes

Need more options? Library Databases A-Z

Many articles on the topic of animal rights are published in the Journal of Animal Ethics.  A few scholarly articles on the topics relating to your course are below.

A few films and a podcast on the treatment of animals are below.