Piggies!

Hey guys,
I mentioned in class a pig adoption the other day.
I have the dates that the adoption is being held!
The pig adoption will be march 5th and 6th at Buzzy's Bow Wow Meow in Narberth PA, thats a saturday and sunday.
For more information about the adoption type in the name of the shop into google, their site is the first one that appears. Also the site has some cool info on pit bulls on it as well!
Thanks,
Audrey

RIGHTS VS. WELFARE

We've had some great conversations about the distinctions between a rights perspective and a welfare perspective, and I think the following passage from Tom Regan's "Understanding Animal Rights Violence" is useful (from The Animal Ethics Reader, p. 616):

When it comes to what we humans are morally permitted to do to other animals, it is safe to say that opinion is divided. Some people (abolitionists) believe that we should stop using nonhuman animals, whether as sources of food, as trained performers, or as models of various diseases, for example. Others (welfarists) think such utilization is permissible as long as it is done humanely. Those who accept the former outlook [abolitionists] object to such utilization in principle and believe it should end in practice. Those who accept the latter outlook [welfarists] accept such utilization in principle and believe it may continue in practice, provided the welfare of animals is not unduly compromised, in which case these practices will need to be appropriately reformed. Clearly real differences separate these two ways of thinking, one abolitionist at its core, the other not. Anyone who would deny or attempt to minimize these differences would distort rather than describe the truth.

According to Regan's passage, some keys distinctions between abolitionist and welfarist perspectives have to do with abolishing versus reforming the use of NHA and basic perspectives on the principle of NHA use. Some key questions: how is "humane use" defined? How is "unduly compromised" defined? And how is "welfare" defined?

For more on the abolitionist approach, see for example Gary Francione's website:

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/

Reflective Journal

I have always been an avid dog lover, but have never spent any time volunteering in a shelter. My ideas about what it would be like seemed to flip-flop every day. One day I thought it would be easy and I would get such a sense of fulfillment and that would totally override the sadness and the hurt of seeing the dogs. Other days I assumed it would be too heart wrenching and that I would never be able to do it. It seemed like on the days leading up to my volunteering, my stomach was doing these somersaults while imagining what it would be like.

My experience volunteering at the shelter has been somewhat of a mixture of the two. When on our orientation they took us too the "intake" room, it was almost too much for me. I didn't know anyone else on my orientation, so I didn't want to get upset, but it was hard to hold it back when I saw all of the beaten up and scared looking dogs looking back at me. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen in person to date.

However my experience volunteering has been much more good than bad. With the weather being beyond frigid most days, it has been hard for me to get out walking the dogs for hours on end, the time I spend there with the dogs is very peaceful. I have met some absolutely wonderful dogs who I have spent time with. It made me really re-evaluate my stance on getting dogs.

I have always been about rescue, but have gotten all my dogs as puppies from a rescue. This made me realize that so many nice dogs who aren't puppies anymore need homes so much more. From now on in my life I have a feeling my rescue dogs will not be puppies, and more will be just a dog that is really truly looking for a home.

-Mary Penxa

NATIONAL CANINE RESEARCH COUNCIL

Here's the link to the National Canine Research Council:

www.nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com

(Also posted in our blog links along the margin.)

The NCRC mission statement:

The mission of The National Canine Research Council is to publish accurate, documented, reliable research to promote a better understanding of the human-canine bond.

Two decades of intensive research, during which the NCRC has developed the most complete body of data available on incidents of canine aggression, have taken us beyond the limitations of epidemiological studies that focus on the dog and the single vector of breed. Our historical approach has yielded an understanding of the relational dynamics between dogs and people that no single-vector approach can replicate, and of the responsibilities of owners and professionals – all the people directly associated with the human-canine bond – to the community, and to the dogs.

Reflective Journal

...It wasn't until after orientation and reading Animal Ethics Reader that I realized how much I identified with the rights perspective.  It is hard, though, to know where to begin in actualizing the ideal "ethical" lifestyle.  I grew up in a home where I was expected to learn how to hunt and fish.  To a lot of people, it may seem strange, but game meat is some of the only food I ate as a kid.  It's more normal for me to eat a venison steak than a hamburger.  Our family has been hunters for generations and I am uncomfortable saying that the practice is morally reprehensible.  At the same time, I am beginning to doubt many of the beliefs I previously held about using animals as food.

Becoming Vegan and Fridays (?)

After the great discussion we had today in class, I could not get the idea of becoming vegan out of my head. It is a life choice which a few of my friends have adopted and I really admire them for it. One of my best friends from high school is both a vegan and a wonderful cook - quite a delectable combination. I have been vegetarian for about 5 years now and it surprises me how I can not even imagine going back to eating meat. It has become the norm in my life and I plan on keeping it that way. The final frontier for me is to go vegan (sorry but the raw vegan movement is just too far-fetched for me to even dream about undertaking). I have slowly been trying to reduce the amount of animal products in my diet, as I believe going cold-turkey would not work as well in transitioning to a vegan diet as to my current vegetarian one. I've been drinking all soy milk lately, which I actually really love, and have been trying to avoid cheese as much as possible. It's pretty unbelievable how poorly the dining system at Temple provides for such diets. Vegans live on salad and sweet potatoes and rock-hard falafel (nothing like Maoz).

I am hoping to have a kitchen in my apartment next year, which would make the transition to becoming vegan a real possibility. I really do love food, so giving up some of my favorite dishes like al-gratin potatoes and ice cream would be challenging (although they really do have substitutes for everything nowadays - even corndogs!)

I wanted to say something about the Singer article that really hit me as I was reading it. I was annotating while reading and found myself underlining and circling at least half of the essay. His arguments were so well phrased and comprehensible and I was unable to think of a valid argument someone could pose against his reasoning. I had a bit of an 'aha' moment while reading just the small excerpt from his book. One thing I find very frustrating are the never-ending animal welfare/rights debates which pop up much too frequently between myself and carnivores or pet-store shoppers or Circus goers. I have so many personal beliefs which identify such practices as ethically wrong, but I always have a very difficult time articulating these arguments in a persuasive way which can actually impact the people I am talking to.

Instead, I typically find myself getting flustered and disheartened with their staunch positions and so I withdraw myself from the discussion. I wish that I would have stumbled upon the Animal Ethics reader many years ago. I am loving this book.

However, one thing I wanted to bring up was the issue I am having with the lack of adequate time for this class. I really love this class, I passionate about the subject matter, and I think I could learn a lot from everyone in the class, as many of us seem to have different views on animal rights and unique experiences which led us to adopt such beliefs. I wanted to propose an informal meeting during what would be our normal class time (12 to 12:50) on Fridays in order to have more time to discuss the material/whatever other animal welfare topics we find interesting. Even if it were simply an informal gathering (It could just be student run if Dr. Featherstone can not make it) in the lounge for the girls in the class who felt like coming. I know I would really enjoy it. It's just an idea I wanted to throw out there. I have this feeling in my other classes as well - there just never seems to be enough actual class time to adequately discuss and share ideas.

Reflective Journal

I am so happy to sit down with a cup of tea and read (and sometimes re-read) something I would choose to pick up on my own- for a class! In high school, I would always chose animal rights-based arguments for debates and this would give me an opportunity to read and speak about the things that truly interested me amongst my peers at school. However, taking such a course in college is especially exciting because I am reading with a slightly different context, trying to absorb the information slower, instead of quickly drinking up all of the exciting information of opinions and like-minded individuals. Again, this context is different because in the class room, I am discussing such topics with more open-minded individuals who are at least somewhat intruiged in these topics instead of simply talking at a class full of stubborn meat and potatoes lovers.

As soon as my book came, I cracked it and began reading Regan who was someone I had always heard my friends discussing, but had never read myself. I found it very different from most of the other animal rights literature I had read in the past, and found that it most closely resembled some of the abstract and lofty philosophers I've had experience with. Yet, I am glad that we started with Regan, followed by Cohen's response. Cavalieri was also someone I was somewhat unfamiliar with. I enjoyed her experpt and alway remember to place the feminist lens on philosophical writings, so the fact that a woman wrote "Are Human Rights Human?", along with the observation that everyone in our class (apart from our professor) is female gave me one more layer to look at as I read.

Alas, when I reached Singer, I was overjoyed. Reading "Practical Ethics" brought me back to one of the first times I ever read someone with a like minded view on the interactions between human and non-human animals. I had always felt pretty alone in my personal philosophies, and was one of a few vegetarians in grade school who stuck with the diet, and was sometimes ridiculed for the way I thought. Upon going vegan, after many fights with my parents and school nurse, an older friend handed me a copy of "Animal Liberation". since then I've been hooked, on-and-off, on reading about alternative ways of living that are not as harmful to the planet, other individuals, and myself. I find that it is hard to always remain a really active vegan (taking responsibility not just through my inactions, but also through informing other people about what they can do to help the rest of the world and themselves out) without the occasional reading or discussing of said topics.

That being said, I cannot wait until we dig into more specific topics as a class.

As for my visit to the SPCA: Lately, I've been imagining a world where humans never thought to utilize or domesticate non-human animals in any way, and going to the SPCA made me realize how invisible that world is even in my mind. Sadly, we are so far from that utopia that I cannot even imagine it. Frankly, I found my trip to the PSPCA to be quite a downer, however it made me really excited to help out in all of the ways that I am able to, and inspired me to think of other ways I can help out individually as well. Gotta stay active!

PS I'd love to discuss any of these topics with you guys out of class as well- I feel like we all have so much to say and not really enough time to say it most classes, especially now that we are dissecting some pretty heavy pieces. Let me know if you're down!

Reflective Journal

I thought it was very interesting when we discussed the burning house dilemma in class; this dilemma was also brought up in one of my psychology classes to prove the theory of Social Darwinism. However instead of asking whether or not we would save our dog or our child, or our dog and a random child, we were asked whether we would save our mother or our significant other. The catch in this situation was that we would only have known our significant other for about a year. It seemed obvious to me that almost all the students in the class would inevitably choose to save their parent, and the results proved just this. Our professor stated; however, that if this were to happen in real life more people would end up saving their significant other. He said this would be the case because our instincts would lead us to save the person that we could potentially procreate with rather than someone we could not. I found this to be rather disturbing, and wish there were someway to test this hypothesis in a more real life matter rather than asking it in a philosophical way. Perhaps this type of experiment could be tested in some sort of virtual reality simulation, in order for experimenters to achieve more accurate results.

Since I had seen this dilemma before, I guessed that most people would choose to save the child in both situations. However considering that the majority of people in our class are very involved in animal rights, I hypothesized that more, but probably not the majority, of people would save their dog rather than a random child, than would be the case in the general population. I was somewhat surprised when the majority of people chose to save their dog. Later I went online and looked up this dilemma and found that it is often used to prove the hierarchy of moral value in various situations. In this circumstance it was used to prove the theory of speciesism. In some cases it used to show that animal rights activists can be hypocritical as most people would still save a child over their dog; even though, they advocate the equality of species. Again it is very interesting to find that this finding did not hold true in our class, as when we had a moral attachment to the dog and not to the child the majority of us chose to save the dog. I am curious though to see what the results in our classroom would be if it were both a random child and a random dog in the burning house.

Reflective Journal

At my volunteer orientation to the PSPCA, Nicole mentioned that cats often get left out in favor of dogs at the PSPCA. She said the majority of people tend to pay more attention to dogs rather than to cats. Often this is because cats do not require as much direct contact, as opposed to dogs who need walked twice a day. I learned in the orientation that cats in shelters often are not able to show their true personalities because they become stressed in caged, isolated conditions. Even my companion cat, Frisky, becomes stressed when isolated from humans. One year, the day after my family put up our Christmas tree, we put Frisky in the basement for a whole day so that she would not climb the tree. This made Frisky so anxious that she licked all the fur off her one side. I felt horrible, so now we do not put up a large tree and do not have to worry about Frisky’s safety in the basement or near the tree. The point of this story is to show that cats are very sensitive to changes in their environment. This is why I feel like the cat socialization I have been doing at the PSPCA really makes a difference in those cats’ lives. I have noticed that some cats are very friendly and seek attention. These cats are the ones who tend to be adopted and the less friendly cats are overlooked. I saw two cats get adopted during one visit to the PSPCA, and they were both very sociable with humans while in their cages. I was excited for these cats, but I worry about the ones who are less responsive to humans. Out of the context of a shelter, or even out of its cage, a cat may show its affectionate side. One cat I formed a relationship with on my visit came to the front of the cage but did not nuzzle or sniff my hand. But, going slowly, I was able to pet him, hold him and take him out of his cage. This cat seemed to love my attention, but a potential adopter might overlook him because he did not actively seek attention. Getting cats used to human encounters makes them more likely to be adopted. Petting cats also helps them remove excess fur and dirt. It seems harder for cats to maintain their coats in cages, which can put them at a disadvantage in the adoption pool. I know that Frisky would not easily be adopted in a shelter because of her coat, which would be patchy due to over-licking. Knowing that my help increases the chances of cat being adopted is very fulfilling to me.

Reflective Journal

I had never really thought about the philosophies of the animal rights movement before taking this class; all I knew was that I was an animal rights activist because it’s what I believed in. Humans shouldn’t exploit animals, who are often helpless against us, because they have lives too; and as humans are animals ourselves, we should treat other animals like we’d want to be treated. This is what I always believed, but reading from The Animal Ethics Reader, I have been able to analyze my views and add to them more reasons to support the animal rights movement. All of the different possible philosophies about animal rights really interest me, and now I feel like I have even more evidence to back up my reasoning when arguing a case for animal rights.

For example, I had never before considered moral value as a platform for basing one’s views on animal rights. Regan’s essay introduced me to this idea, and now I see that this is a very logical way to think of animal rights. A completely different way to look at the animal rights issue is through the feminist care theory that Donovan discusses in her essay. Donovan mentions moral status, but her idea is different from Regan’s in that she believes moral status “should be granted to living creatures with whom one can communicate cognitively and emotionally as to their needs and wishes” (49). This is a bit different from Regan’s definitions on moral status, such as subject-of-a-life, which is a wider classification of beings than Donovan’s classification.

Reading these essays has opened my mind to how many different views of the animal rights movement there really are. I find it very interesting to study the philosophies of these views, and they are definitely helping me build even better arguments.

Reflective Journal

(Originally composed 1/31/11)

...In the end, Regan’s argument brings up good points. However, there are flaws. Mainly, the line between “subject-of-a-life” and “non-subject-of-a-life” can become blurred depending on the individual.

• I’m reminded of people who strap themselves to trees to prevent logging. Are they wrong by Regan’s definition? (Not bringing into account the multitude of reasons to stop logging.)

Cohen’s reply really interested me, as he uses many of the arguments against logical fallacy that I enjoy.

• He breaks down the nature of Regan’s appeal and examines the logic used.
  
• Cohen still makes the argument that animals have value – though he places the value more on their rights as individual lifeforms than on the debate of their personal awareness.
  
  • I think this is an interesting take. While it may be equally open to interpretation and debate, it’s a different prospective.

...Cavalieri has her own unique perspective of human rights transferring to animals. This hearkens back to our class discussion of comparing animals rights to slavery/the holocaust.

• For the record, I would sign a petition to give mattresses to holocaust victims. As we saw, they (the victims) weren’t saved overnight. Why not stop the bleeding in the field on the way to the hospital?

I agree with what Cavalieri (and in turn much of the class) is saying. Human Rights are more than human. However, I see a disconnect between what the theory is, and the logicality of putting it into practice. (Like Communism!)

• One – We live in a large, liberal, Eastern city. It is very easy to look around and say, “People will give animals all the due rights if we show them the way!”
  
  • Go down to Texas, Oklahoma, or even three hours outside of the city. You will be laughed out of the area.
    
• Two – A majority of the population is moderate....
  To give a whole song and dance about animals being treated with human rights is too drastic.
  
• Three – Complete and immediate abolition of slavery didn’t work. Sorry. (See: Sharecropping, Jim Crowe, Grandfather Clauses.)

Reflective Journal

On Animals as food (After reading Singer 39-40):

The idea that animals are food was never weird to me, it is how I grew up and never double thought it. However, I was raised in the city and did not have much interaction with animals, actual no interaction with animals outside of the family dog or others families' pets and the zoo. As I got older and more exposed to and understanding of meat for dinner was actually an animal I felt bad, but never changed my eating habits. I have never really been that much of a meat eater, and I don't think I eat that much meat because I like the taste of it, but even these recent readings make me re-think about how much meat I do eat. I wondered what Singer would say during a family dinner if meat was served. I know he says that there is more moral way to eat meat, depending on free-range or how animals are raised and killed. But I cannot help it but to feel guilt because I was ignorant of the issue for so long. However, I do not think I would be able to commit to living a vegan or even vegetarian lifestyle. Because of this I feel like I am constantly battling with myself on this issue. Maybe by the end of the semester I will be vegetarian. I know the more information I am exposed to the more I will search for better options. I feel like this class is actually changing some of my outlooks, and it is a great thing because it shows that I am learning, growing, and becoming less ignorant. But, I don't want to be falsely inspired to be vegetarian for three months during the class, while exposed, and then go back to being an occasional meat-eater. I feel like that is doing just as much damage to the cause. I feel like I can commit to buying free-range chicken eggs and trying to go to a better place to buy meat so that I am not endorsing cruelty.

Reflective Journal

I went to the Pennsylvania SPCA today for my first official visit as a member of this class. It was great getting back out there again. I absolutely love spending time with the dogs there, the new runs make it super easy to play with them and get their energy out so that they look less insane to potential adopters. Today i fell in love with this Pit Bull mix *i never read the names on the cages it is most definitely something i need to work on if I am going to be talking about the dogs i meet in my Reflective journal* she was super cute and reminded me of my recently adopted foster dog. I spent a long time playing with her and getting to know her. After I brought her back inside there were some potential adopters looking around and I introduced them to her. They seemed to love her just as much as I did. Though i cannot be sure *i had to leave to catch the bus* I'm pretty sure they adopted her. It makes me feel really good that I helped her find a home today. Because i got to know her and could talk to the potential adopters about what she was like they seemed more inclined to take her home with them.
I also thought I'd give the class an update on Cleo and her new family. They have been emailing my mom and me updates about her, she seems to be fitting right into their family. Last I spoke to them she was fitting in well with their schedule, the dad stays at home and takes her on long walks around their development, by the time their 7 year old daughter gets home Cleo is ready to veg out and watch t.v. apparently they both like spongebob which is a plus!
Here are a couple of pictures of Cleo and her new family!

Reflective Journal

February 3, 2011

Today I completed my first two(ish) volunteering hours at the SPCA, and I loved it.

I was having a horrible morning--was running late for class, hadn't finished my homework, had had a night full of bad dreams, and was feeling sick and just overall cranky--so instead of driving into campus, I got the idea to go to the SPCA instead. As soon as I walked into one of the cat rooms, my whole disposition changed. I was greeted by Peridot, whose cage is closest to the door, and she was so full of love and energy that I couldn't help but smile, and everything that had been bothering me dissipated for awhile. That probably sounds corny or cliche, but there's no better way to describe it. When you're in a cat room, you're so loved because they all want a piece of you.

Anyway I made a lot of cat friends today, and it made me realize that I'm really fortunate to be volunteering at a place like this. I never would have had the guts to do it if it weren't for my class, so I'm really glad that I'm having this experience.

Reflective Journal Entry

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

So, I'm a little late starting this, but better now than April...

Anyway, last Friday I did my first volunteering at the PAPCA, and it went really well. I knew right away the visit would be a success when the first cat I went to socialize with was named Chewbaca. *Sidenote: I am a pretty big Star Wars fan and hae a deep love of Chewbaca and Han Solo. I have plans to name my first dog and cat Chewie and Solo respectively.* So Chewbaca was adorable and actually got adopted and taken home while I was there, which was great to see. Another cat that was a sweetie was Carmel. He was on the whole a cuddly and adorable cat, and I'm sure he'll find a home soon.

I also took one of the cats from the hallway into the "play room" to socialize. His name is Aries. It was obvious he had been there for a while (also his papers said he'd been there over 90 days) and he seemed to not be eating as much as he should. I feel like part of that could be the fact that he's been at the PSPCA for so long and could be stressed out by it all. He didn't look like the "prettiest" cat in the group, but he was a total sweetheart in the room; very affectionate and mellow. I hope he'll find a home soon. He definitely deserves a caring owner to take care of him.

I didn't get a chance to walk any dogs this first visit, but I'm really looking forward to taking some dogs out next time. I'm really looking forward to this whole experience with the PSPCA. I really love animals, and as an owner of two cats and a dog I feel I can relate to both. Even when this class is over I hope to continue volunteering. Very exciting!

Reflective Journal

01/02/11

Ever since Nicole Larocco came and talked about pit bulls, I've been thinking about people's perceptions of pitbulls and, in particular, how these perceptions are perhaps related to racism. I have always been taught that pit bulls are vicious dogs. My mother is completely terrified of them and tells me every time there is something in the paper about a pit bull biting someone. I did not know that they didn't have lockjaw and didn't know that they were used as bull and nanny dogs.... I am shocked that I'm leaning all this now. But I'm surprised-- I used to have a doberman mix who was extremely sweet and did not live up to the reputation of dobermans as killers.

When its humans that pit these animals against one another for "sport," who abuse them terribly, I think its clearly us that are the monsters, not them. I saw this Animal Planet show called Pitbulls and Parolees that had inamtes who working with pitbulls-- because both are hated by society, both as discriminated against. But I want to address something new here-- that Americans' perceptions of pitbulls are founded in racism. Not breed racism so much as the fact that the majority of people owning pitbulls are people of color living in cities. White people tend to own pure breds-- the typical image of the golden retriever or yellow lab. I don't think its a coincendence that dogs traditionally owned by wealthy people-- pomeranians, chihuahuas, poodles, dalmatians, corgis, terriers, etc. bite just as much, if not more than pit bulls and are just as aggressive, but it doesn't get as much coverage. I'm not saying dogfighting and breed characteristics aren't a factor, but I think a key piece of pitbull hatred is that they're linked in people's minds to poverty and people of color.

Reflective Journal

2/8/11

In one of my other classes today, the topic of pit bulls was briefly mentioned. The professor of the class called them ugly dogs and implied negative things about them. Whenever I hear people talk like this about animals whose only fault is being portrayed negatively in the media, it makes me see how important dispelling the rumors about pit bulls are.

I think many people growing up were told about the dangers of pit bulls, but do not know what amazing animals they are. The comment about them being "ugly" goes along with the idea of pit bulls being a threat because, unlike many other family dogs, pit bulls do not carry the "cute" factor as much. They are beautiful dogs and are adorable (if seen through the right perspective), but they do not generally give people the same fluffy feelings as a breed like beagles might.

People have preconceived notions of how dogs should act based on how they look. I had a rescue basset hound years ago and could be a very aggressive dog, but because of the type of dog he was, people assumed he would be a like the goofy bassets they saw in cartoons. People would automatically reach down to pet him without asking for permission because they assumed he was a well behaved dog based on his breed. Depending on the mood he was in on the day, that could be the complete opposite. The sad truth is that people would generally feel more comfortable around my silly basset hound Fred, who actually had behavior problems and bit people, then they would have if there was also a pit bull in the picture.

I think people really need to learn to judge dogs based on each on they encounter and not on the breed as a whole. This is the method in which people are supposed to approach other people, and it should be the same for companion animals. Some pit bulls may bite, but the majority are good animals who haven't been given a fair chance, and it is so upsetting that so many good dogs go unadopted because of the false impressions people have of the breed.

DARA LOVITZ AT GRINDCORE HOUSE

Professor Dara Lovitz, author of Muzzling a Movement: The Effects of Anti-Terrorism Law, Money & Politics on Animal Activism, will discuss her book at Grindcore House (1515 S. 4th St. Philadelphia) at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 16.

Dara will also be visiting our class to talk about animal law on Wednesday, March 23.

Review of Muzzling a Movement in The Journal for Critical Animal Studies here.

More information on Muzzling a Movement here.

Uexküll & Uli's Umwelt

Watching Uli in the classroom reminded me of zoologist Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of umwelt, which has had profound importance in the development of environmental studies. In The Open: Man and Animal, Giorgio Agamben notes that “Uexküll’s investigations into the animal environment are contemporary with both quantum physics and the artistic avant-gardes" (39). He describes umwelt as follows:

Where classical science saw a single world that comprised within it all living species hierarchically ordered from the most elementary forms up to the higher organisms, Uexküll instead supposes an infinite variety of perceptual worlds that, though they are uncommunicating and reciprocally exclusive, are all equally perfect and linked together as if in a gigantic musical score. (40)

“Too often,” Agamben notes, “we imagine that the relations a certain animal subject has to the things in its environment take place in the same space and in the same time as those which bind us to the objects in our human world. This illusion rests on the belief in a single world in which all living beings are situated. Uexküll shows that such a unitary world does not exist, just as a space and a time that are equal for all living things do not exist" (40).

Uexküll’s notion of perceptual worlds as “uncommunicating and reciprocally exclusive” would seem to categorically dismiss any attempt at interspecies communication as simply anthropomorphism, which doesn’t hold up to contemporary cognitive studies of nonhuman animals and interspecies relations, let alone common observation. Nonetheless, Uexküll’s umwelt does at least three things that are significant to our studies of human-animal relations: it introduces the idea of many environment-worlds versus a single, objective world; it replaces that hoary notion of a “great chain of being” (with humans, of course, at the top) with a diverse and dynamic vision of multiple “perceptual worlds”; and it challenges anthropocentric notions about reality.

Umwelt, as Agamben goes on to explain, is “the environment-world that is constituted by a more or less broad series of elements that [Uexküll] calls ‘carriers of significance’ or of ‘marks,’ which are the only things that interest the animal" (40).

In the umwelt of the human animal classroom, the information Nicole shared with us was a primary “carrier of significance.” Although Nicole’s voice and body language were “carriers of significance” for Uli, in the umwelt of Uli’s classroom, information about the Pennsylvania SPCA held no significance. Instead, the carriers of significance in Uli’s umwelt seemed to include the human animals in the classroom (greeting and gathering information), the space under the door (where smells of a buffet wafted in, as well as sounds of other people talking), the perimeters of the classroom (walls), the open space at the front of the room, and a candy wrapper (unseen/insignificant to the human animals in the room, but something Uli discovered right away). I also noticed that Uli gravitated toward particular human animals who seemed more interesting to her based on what were “carriers of significance” (scent? sight? movement? facial expressions?).

“There does not exist a forest as an objectively fixed environment,” Agamben writes in relation to the theory of umwelt. “There exists a forest-for-the-park-ranger, a forest-for-the-hunter, a forest-for-the-botanist, a forest-for-the wayfarer, a forest-for-the-nature-lover . . .” (41). And so on. Likewise, there does not exist a classroom as an objectively fixed environment. Most of us realize this from an intraspecies, human-animal perspective: there is a classroom-for-the-professor, a classroom-for-one-student, a classroom-for-another-student, a classroom-for-maintenance-staff, and so on. But it seems that we seldom consider the nonhuman animal’s umwelt: not only in environments where nonhuman animals are common, like a campus, a city, or a countryside, but especially in environments like classrooms that are designed with only human animals in mind.

And so it was a pleasure to watch Uli in the classroom environment: to see, or at least imagine to see, what carries significance in the umwelt of a dog’s classroom.

TEMPLE'S COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EARNS NATIONAL RECOGNITION

By Hillel Hoffmann

Temple University has earned the 2010 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, a national acknowledgement of the degree of mutually beneficial collaboration between Temple and its greater community.

The Carnegie Foundation, an independent policy and research center, cited Temple's "excellent alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy community engagement."

"Community engagement has been part of Temple's mission since the university was founded," said Temple President Ann Weaver Hart. "This spirit of collaboration and partnership with the community has been woven into the Academic Strategic Compass and will continue to be a part of all we do."

Temple is among 115 colleges and universities selected for the classification in 2010, bringing the total to 311. For 2010, unlike previous years, all selected institutions had to demonstrate substantial commitments to both curricular engagement with the community as well as community outreach and collaborative partnerships.

Unlike the Carnegie Foundation's other classifications that rely on national data, the foundation describes the Community Engagement Classification as "elective" — institutions elect to participate by submitting required documentation describing the nature and extent of their engagement with the community. This approach enables the foundation to address elements of institutional mission and distinctiveness that aren't represented in national data on colleges and universities.