Join us on Thursday, April 11, 2024, in the Simperman Hall Wiegand Amphitheate for 2024 Roeben-Raunig Lecture in Social Justice and the Human Animal Relationship. Dr. Dave Aftandilian, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Founding Director of the Human-Animal Relationships (HARE) Program, Texas Christian University, will present, "Why Animals Are People Too."
About the Lecture
In this talk, Dave Aftandilian will explore what it would mean to their lives and ours if we were to view other than human animals as persons—that is, as conscious subjects of their own lives, with their own agendas and emotions and possibly even spiritual paths—rather than as objects/things/products. We will first consider what it means to be a person, and why insights from Native American worldviews, the sciences, and our own experiences ought to convince us that animals are persons. We will then discuss some of the legal, ethical/spiritual, and practical consequences for both human and nonhuman animals if we were to accord other animals personhood.
About Dr. Dave Aftandilian
Dave Aftandilian is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Founding Director of the Human-Animal Relationships (HARE) Program at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He is the editor or coeditor of four books, including City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness (Chicago, 2015), Grounding Education in the Environmental Humanities: Exploring Place-Based Pedagogies in the South (Routledge, 2019), and Animals and Religion (Routledge, 2024). His teaching and research focus on animals and religion, Native American worldviews, food justice, and nature-based contemplative practices.