"I was tasked the previous semester with developing a philosophy course that would count toward the animal studies minor. My goal was to take an expansive approach to animal philosophy, meant to demonstrate that this subfield is pertinent to other areas of social and political philosophy and can include subjects beyond a narrow focus on the ethical status of nonhuman animals."
"(2) Material Entanglement, which I placed early in order to foreground the ways in which racialized others and nonhuman animals are entangled in the same systems of material oppression, before diving into discursive entanglement; (3) Ideological Entanglement, which explored the different theories-both liberatory and oppressive-that take race and animality to be co-constitutive; (4) Political Futures, which expanded the normative and political dimensions of the previous unit;"
The course was taught at Wesleyan University in Spring 2025 to 15 students, mostly seniors and sophomores. The course counted toward the animal studies minor and adopted an expansive approach to animal philosophy beyond narrow ethical status debates. Focus areas included discourses of animalization, construction of the human as a moral and political entity, and intersections of racism and colonialism with human supremacy. The syllabus included five units: Theoretical Background, Material Entanglement, Ideological Entanglement, Political Futures, and Art. Early emphasis on material entanglement foregrounded shared systems of material oppression affecting racialized others and nonhuman animals. Assignments included short papers for the first four units and an art-based synthesis.
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