As a society, we have a curious relationship with animals.

Some animals we welcome into our homes and our lives. Others we bar from our lawns and legal systems to keep animals in their place and us in ours. 

This seminar examines the role that literature and language plays in reimagining our relationship with animals. We will discuss how animal-themed literature has evolved and where it is headed. And we will focus on language and how it shapes our relationships with different species (and our sense of their relations with one another). 
Combined with readings from new works of fiction, this seminar will offer insights into the ways in which twenty-first century animal literature can enlighten as well as entertain. 

Featuring
Midge Raymond (My Last Continent)
Sascha Morrell (Among Animals 2: The Lives of Animals and Humans in Contemporary Short Fiction)

Sascha Morrell

Midge Raymond

There are many theoretical obstacles that prevent marginalized groups, such as animals and persons with cognitive disabilities, from living the life they would like to lead. The main cause in these two cases has probably to do with the way philosophers typically define the concept of autonomy - in a highly rationalistic fashion. This tradition seems to me wrongheaded, as everyone is entitled to be free to choose her life and to not be dominated, regardless of one’s cognitive abilities.

But even once we grant that these individuals deserve the rights associated with autonomy, other issues persist. Is it enough to let them choose as they want or is intervention warranted in some cases, for instance when their choices are significantly harmful? And given that influences inescapably shape one's identity and preferences in any social settings, how can we ensure that their environment can foster their autonomy rather than force them into predetermined choices? In general, how do we deal with adaptive preferences with persons who are not only more vulnerable to manipulation, but also less apt to question their options?

By drawing from relational autonomy, disability studies, and citizenship theory of animals, I will argue that these issues can be addressed in non-rationalistic and non-individualistic terms in a way that is equally instructive for neurotypical human agents, for persons with cognitive disabilities, and for animals. This approach will emphasize that social support is often crucial for any group to acknowledge and overcome its oppression, and for this reason, that personal autonomy often relies on interpersonal contributions. But this social influence, as it can as much foster as undermine individual liberty, should also aim at helping individuals to make their own choices, by allowing them the opportunity to redefine their relationships and their environment to a certain extent, to opt out if necessary, as well as to gain the power to contest their set of options.

Bio
Frédéric Côté-Boudreau is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Queen's University, working under the supervision of Will Kymlicka. His interests cover issues at the intersection between political philosophy and animal ethics while his thesis focuses on the concept of autonomy. He is also active in the Québec animal justice movement and maintains a popular French-language blog at coteboudreau.com.

Frédéric Côté-Boudreau  - Preference Formation:A Non-Rationalistic & Non-Individualistic Approach

Our economy is transforming planet Earth into planet Farm. Forty percent of the planet’s surface is dedicated to agriculture. Livestock, representing over 70% of vertebrate biomass, use a third of our available freshwater and a third of our cropland for feed. Industrial animal production is a major source of greenhouse gases. Agribusiness’s impact extends to the deadliest of diseases. If by its global expansion alone, commodity agriculture increasingly acts as a gateway through which a wide array of deadly xenospecific pathogens are migrating from the deepest forests and most backwater of farms to the most cosmopolitan of cities. 

As a matter of standard industrial practice, such diseconomies of scale are externalized off agribusiness margins to governments, the indigenous, workers, consumers, taxpayers, livestock, and wildlife. Green capitalist approaches meanwhile exacerbate environmental degradation by among other mechanisms the Jevons trap and Lauderdale’s paradox. Alternate modes of production are not only possible, but already underway, reconnecting our agricultural economies to local ecologies, a wealth available only when shared in common. A state-supported probiotic agroecology can at one and the same time produce good food, compensate farmers fairly, preserve ecosystem services, and protect us from virulent pathogens.

Co-presented by the Human Animal Research Network (HARN), the Marie Bashir Institute’s Politics & Ethics of Infection node & the Healthy Food Systems: Nutrition*Diversity*Safety node at the Charles Perkins Centre