{"id":4166,"date":"2022-11-17T15:40:15","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T15:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farmforward1.wpengine.com\/?page_id=4166"},"modified":"2022-12-02T11:08:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T16:08:11","slug":"curriculum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/eating-animals\/curriculum\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Animals Curriculum Resources"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Eating Animals<\/em> was written with an eye towards its use in educational settings and is suitable for use in a variety of different disciplinary contexts for both high school and college students. The book is simultaneously a personal journey, a critical look at the American meat industry, a reflection on the meaning of food, and a response to big picture ethical questions about how to live in the contemporary world. Written in an engaging narrative style, this multi-vocal book includes both extended \u201cmonologues\u201d from diverse perspectives and quantitative analysis based on government and industry data. Sixty pages of endnotes provide both citations and additional information while leaving the main prose unencumbered. The text\u2019s even-handed approach invites readers to come to their own conclusions on questions of universal importance, providing an excellent opportunity for educators to use the text to promote critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n\n\n\t

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Eating Animals<\/em> in College Courses<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBusiness<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEnglish<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEnvironmental Studies<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhilosophy<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLaw<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tReligious Studies<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n\n\n\t
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Business<\/h2>\n

As referenced by recent articles in The Guardian<\/em>1<\/a> and The Wall Street Journal<\/em>,2<\/a> and as indicated by the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School,3<\/a> to be a business leader in today\u2019s market is to understand complex environmental challenges and assist in creating solutions that advance both profit and community. At a time when the next generation of business leaderhip searches for market-based solutions, assesses risks and opportunities, and develops new potential markets.4<\/a> Eating Animals<\/em> provides a vehicle for thinking through the links between business strategies, environmental health, and a food economy that is both sustainable and worth sustaining. Pointing toward longstanding problems in production and new directions in consumer demand, Eating Animals<\/em> provides a forum to discuss the innovative approaches business leaders will need to take to find solutions that work for both the fiscal and ethical bottom line. Farm Forward is also prepared to help professors develop long-term partnerships with farmers for community-based service-learning projects or business planning that has real world utility in building high-welfare, sustainable poultry farms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n\n\n\t

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English<\/h2>\n

From medieval representations of animals5<\/a> to J.M. Coetzee\u2019s interweaving of animal and postcolonial narratives,6<\/a> top English departments around the country are incorporating texts like Eating Animals not only to explore questions about animals but also what animals tell us about humanity, culture, and the creation of meaning. In Eating Animals, one of the nation\u2019s foremost literary icons employs a broad range of theoretical and methodological tools to weave a socially-embedded personal narrative about the self and 21st century American animal agriculture. In so doing Foer has created a text that can help students learn to \u201cread critically and imaginatively\u2014to appreciate the power of language (and narrative) to shape thought and represent the world\u2014to be sensitive to the ways in which literature is created and achieves its effects.\u201d7<\/a><\/p>\n

In particular, we suggest reading chapter 1: \u201cStorytelling,\u201d chapter 2: \u201cAll or Nothing or Something Else,\u201d and chapter 3: \u201cWords \/ Meaning.\u201d Each of these three chapters represents a distinct literary technique. Each uses narrative in significantly different ways and describes different segments of contemporary American culture. Also of note are the discussions of Kafka (beginning pg 36) and Derrida (pg 108).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n\n\n\t

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Environmental Studies<\/h2>\n

A cutting edge conference at the Princeton Environmental Institute recently addressed the connections between animal agriculture, environmental protection, resource management, and corporate and public policy effects.8<\/a> Eating Animals<\/em> maps similar connections and provides an engaging text for reflecting on the pressing problems in environmental studies. Additionally, Foer analyzes and critiques the ways environmental problems are framed in public discourse and attempts to change the way we think about ecological goods such as sustainability. As attention to the framing of environmental issues is increasingly a part of environmental studies, for example in the graduate curriculum of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University,9<\/a> Eating Animals<\/em> becomes a powerful tool for promoting high-level discussion. Read two pages omitted from the published version of Eating Animals<\/em><\/a> that challenge our thinking about \u201csustainability\u201d (these pages are available exclusively through this website).<\/p>\n

In particular, we suggest reading chapter 6: \u201cSlices of Paradise \/ Pieces of Shit\u201d (especially pg 174-199). This chapter addresses some of the most obvious environmental problems stemming from factory farming and animal agriculture. In the latter part of the chapter, Foer includes the problem of waste disposal and the lasting effects of waste spills and water pollution. He also discusses the consequences of overfishing and its effects on marine life and oceanic health. Also see Foer\u2019s \u201cdictionary\u201d entry on \u201cenvironmentalism\u201d in chapter 3: \u201cWords \/ Meaning\u201d pg 58.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n\n\n\t

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Philosophy<\/h2>\n

As new courses at top universities such as John Hopkins University,10<\/a> Princeton University,11<\/a> and Stanford University12<\/a> demonstrate, animals have gained prominence as a topic of serious philosophical inquiry in areas from ethics to metaphysics, phenomenology to political philosophy. Especially as philosophers and the study of philosophy begin to take a new shape within the academy and the public sphere,13<\/a> engaging philosophically with timely and complex issues such as animal agriculture is invaluable for the thriving of philosophic inquiry. Eating Animals<\/em> can be used as a companion to any number of other texts on the philosophy of animal agency, animal consciousness, animals in society, animals and ontology, and animal ethics. Eating Animals<\/em> also offers a postmodern approach to meaning, ethics, and animal consumption that is useful for demonstrating the construction of contemporary moral arguments in the public sphere.<\/p>\n

Suggested Special Topic in Philosophy: Ethics<\/h3>\n

Eating Animals<\/em> interweaves multiple perspectives and narratives: farmers, animal advocates, and slaughterhouse workers are all given turns to present and justify their perspectives on animal agriculture. Each of the book’s firsthand accounts, including Foer\u2019s, take a unique ethical shape; some accounts treat animals ethical agents while others consider animals only as recipients or beneficiaries of ethical action. The accounts also vary in their use of deontological or consequentialist, normative or applied ethical systems. Consider evaluating the different narratives to discern which ethical framework each deploys. Narrative sections include:<\/p>\n