Spring 2025 Religion UN1452 section 001

Animals and Religion

Call Number 00505
Day & Time
Location
TR 10:10am-11:25am
To be announced
Points 4
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Beth A Berkowitz
Type LECTURE
Course Description

Religion features animals everywhere, from the lion lying with the lamb in biblical prophecy, to the beasts that populate many myths, to beliefs in the transmigration between human and animal souls, to legislations and rituals for animal slaughter, to religious responses to animal suffering, to a range of positions on meat-eating and vegetarianism, and the list keeps going. “Animals and Religion” introduces you to the many different ways that the world’s religious traditions approach nunhuman beings — the creatures we call “animals.” We will address animals in the big “world religions” such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and the “Abrahamic” traditions, as well as in local and indigenous traditions and in secular spiritualities, from antiquity to today. We will conduct our inquiry under the shadow of species extinction, factory farming, and other forms of species-based oppression. The course will explore how religious traditions are obstacles as well as rich resources in contemporary thinking about the question of the animal and in the choices we make regarding fellow creatures.

Web Site Vergil
Department Religion @Barnard
Enrollment 28 students (30 max) as of 5:05PM Sunday, December 8, 2024
Subject Religion
Number UN1452
Section 001
Division Barnard College
Section key 20251RELI1452V001