Abstract
The overarching goal of this book is to answer four essential questions: “What is Animal Studies?” “Who and what are ‘animals’?” “Why is Animal Studies important?” “What explains the personal connection so evident when meeting animals?” (p. 2). Waldau explains that the latter three questions should be employed to answer the first and that all of these questions may be answered by tackling four basic tasks. The first task is to review humans’ history with nonhuman animals. The second task is to attempt to understand the lived experiences of other animals, both as individuals and as members of their own communities. The third task is to explore the future, that is, to grasp what possibilities exist for human and nonhuman animals to live in a shared environment. Finally, the fourth task is to identify the limits experienced by humans in an attempt to understand other animals. Waldau seeks to fulfill these tasks by drawing upon the knowledge acquired by academic disciplines as diverse as the creative arts, philosophy, law, and the social sciences, among others. As a result, the author takes a truly interdisciplinary approach in introducing animal studies to his audience.
Waldau states that what he refers to as “the exceptionalist tradition” has limited people’s understanding of who or what are animals. He defines this tradition as one in which humans, “merely by virtue of their species membership, [are] so qualitatively different from any and all other forms of life that humans rightfully enjoy privileges over all of the earth’s other life forms” (p. 8). These claims may be rooted in religion, philosophy, or other belief systems, but regardless of the source, the result is the same: Humans see themselves as distinct from other animals, so much so that contrary to science, most humans do not even define themselves as animals. According to Waldau, this dualism between humans and animals is indicative of the importance of animal studies as an academic discipline. Waldau asserts, however, that instructors of many animal studies courses inadvertently embrace the exceptionalist tradition by focusing too strongly on human perspectives and experiences as they relate to human–nonhuman interaction, thereby serving only to emphasize the importance of human animals with such courses neatly falling into humanities, social sciences, or physical sciences frameworks. According to Waldau, the result of such exceptionalist thinking is that opportunities to develop more fully informed views of animal issues are lost, as are opportunities to enhance critical thinking skills and for self-actualization. Waldau argues that by taking a truly interdisciplinary approach, animal studies has the best chance of rejecting exceptionalist thinking in order to accomplish the goals and tasks he lays out in his book.
After introducing these questions and tasks in Chapter 1, Waldau provides an extensive history of humans’ interaction with nonhuman animals in Chapter 2 by drawing from philosophy, ancient history, cultural anthropology, archeology, biology, and other disciplines. The history he provides is much more thorough than that provided in most other books on animal studies, which typically start (at best) with Enlightenment philosophers or with the founding of animal protection organizations in the 1800s. As part of this review, he discusses the failure of both formal and informal education to adequately impart accurate knowledge of nonhuman animals and to instill a sense of morality or ethics in our interactions with them.
Waldau devotes the majority of his book (Chapters 3 through 11) to exploring how the exceptionalist tradition is maintained, advanced, and occasionally challenged in various academic disciplines. He first takes on science and politics in Chapter 3, asserting that part of the student’s training in the physical and agricultural sciences is indoctrination into the exceptionalist tradition, despite the claims of value neutrality often made by scientists. He argues that essentially the same strategy is invoked in public policy, as policies are created and maintained by legislators serving the interests of their most powerful constituents (this practice explains the implementation of “ag-gag laws” in states with a strong agricultural presence).
Despite these prevailing practices, however, Waldau is optimistic in that he sees potential for these sciences and public policy to move beyond the exceptionalist tradition, and he points in Chapter 4 to three disciplines that are on what he refers to as the “cutting edge” in animal studies. More specifically, Waldau discusses how law, philosophy, and critical studies have all progressed away from the exceptionalist tradition to become disciplinary leaders in animal studies. For example, he writes of how student demand led to the implementation of animal studies courses in law schools around the world, and he predicts that the content of such courses will become more interdisciplinary and inclusive (that is, moving away from a focus on companion animals and other favored species to embracing a greater variety of species).
Waldau devotes the next several chapters (5 through 11) to discussing the perspectives of other academic disciplines with regard to animal studies. In each chapter, he begins with a history of the role animals have played in a particular discipline, for example, how artists have portrayed animals visually, musically, and literally. He then discusses the potential each discipline offers to the field of animal studies. The breadth of the disciplines he discusses is impressive and includes the creative arts; philosophy; comparative study of legal systems, religious traditions, and cultures; sociology; anthropology, archaeology, and geography; history; and women’s studies, children’s studies, and studies of other marginalized human populations. In Chapter 12, Waldau discusses notable figures in animal social movements and the role of individuals as members of organizations and with regard to personal decision making as it relates to animals. He concludes the book with a chapter devoted to potential future directions for the “megafield” of animal studies and how the lived experiences of animals (human and nonhuman) may be improved.
I asked myself throughout the course of reading this book whether I would assign it in my Animals and Society class, which I teach from a sociological perspective. I begin my course each semester with a basic introduction to philosophical and religious views of nonhuman animals, followed by an analysis of animal rights and animal welfare perspectives. The majority of the course is devoted to discussion of five main uses of animals in U.S. society, specifically, as food, in vivisection, in entertainment, as clothing, and as companions. As part of these discussions, the lived experiences of animals in these industries are explored, as are those of humans working in these industries. My students and I also discuss legislation concerning the uses of animals in these industries and how public opinion influences the implementation of such legislation. I conclude the course with a discussion of the parallels between oppression of nonhuman animals and of particular humans, most notably, racial/ethnic/religious minorities, women, and the poor.
The book is well written and organized, although I found it a bit challenging to stay focused in some places. The goals the author wishes to accomplish are clearly delineated in the four questions listed above, as are the tasks necessary to fulfill those goals. His answers to the four questions are extremely thorough, if not exhaustive. He also fulfills the tasks that he lays out in the first chapter, though not necessarily in the ways I had expected and that would be suitable for my course. For example, recall that the purpose of the second task was to understand the lived experiences of nonhuman animals. After reading this chapter, I took that to mean that the reader would be provided with much information on the day-to-day lives of animals in factory farms, laboratories, and so on. Instead, the author discusses how various disciplines seek to understand the lived experiences of animals, rather than discussing the actual experiences themselves. Additionally, given the book’s interdisciplinary nature, some readers may find the chapters that lie well outside their own academic specialty to be a bit of a challenge to absorb. Indeed, the book is so interdisciplinary that I find it difficult to envision a sole instructor teaching an animals studies class while using this book as the primary text. Instead, this book would be well suited for a course that is team-taught by several instructors from various disciplines. It would also be extremely helpful to an instructor who wishes to make his or her animals studies class more interdisciplinary, but likely more as a supplementary teaching tool rather than as a required text. Its interdisciplinary focus most certainly makes the book useful to someone teaching an animals studies class regardless of the academic department in which the class is offered or the academic specialty of the instructor.
The title of the book is accurate in that the book is an introduction to animal studies as an academic discipline, and it provides an extensive discussion of how various academic disciplines contribute to animal studies. What this book is not is an introduction to the study of cultural or societal practices as they concern animals. The author seems to assume that the reader of this book already possesses extensive knowledge of the lived experiences of animals in various contexts, in that while he states throughout the book that many harms have been inflicted upon animals due to the exceptionalist tradition, he rarely discusses what are those harms. Readers of this book, for example, will not acquire knowledge of any factory farm practices or of laws or practices pertaining to animals used in vivisection, in entertainment, as clothing, as companions, or in any other context. The author’s arguments concerning the pervasiveness of the exceptionalist tradition may be less convincing for readers who do not possess knowledge of the extensive harms inflicted upon animals, which in my experience teaching an Animals and Society course is virtually all of my students.
Because the author does appear to assume prior knowledge of the various roles animals play in U.S. society (and the attendant consequences), this book would not be appropriate for an introductory-level class in animal studies but instead would be appropriate for an advanced interdisciplinary animals studies class that required a more descriptive class as a prerequisite. Furthermore, given that there are no graphs, text boxes, or other visual aids to keep the reader’s attention and that it is written at a rather rigorous level of comprehension, the book is suited for advanced undergraduates at the very least.
In summary, this book is best suited for an advanced interdisciplinary animal studies class that is focused on how various academic disciplines have contributed to the field and may continue to do so. This book is not suited for a class that focuses on the actual lived experiences of nonhumans, nor is it suitable for a highly discipline-specific class. Because the book does not fit my class as I currently teach it, I will not be assigning it to my students in the foreseeable future; however, I will most certainly make use of it to further develop my lectures on philosophy and law in particular.