Themester 2018 has ended, but exploration of the animal-human connection can continue over winter break and beyond. We asked College faculty and students who were involved in this year’s Themester for reading and viewing suggestions. Several took a break from finals to answer.
Life of Pi (2012), directed by Ang Lee. This film explores an unlikely Animal/Human relationship, specifically that of a teenage boy and a Bengal tiger. Through their relationship we see the development of a profound spirituality and the necessity of perseverance. It’s an adaptation of Yann Martel’s book of the same name, which I haven’t read, but is highly recommended.
Noelle Ibrahim
Themester 2018 Intern
Junior majoring in English
Unbranded (2015), directed by Phillip Baribeau. A group of men set upon the task of riding nearly wild horses all the way from Mexico to Canada, working to prove the value of the American Mustang. The documentary shows the incredible strength of the travelers, both human and horse.
Rose Melton
Themester 2018 Intern
Sophomore majoring in Neuroscience
The Selfish Gene (1976), written by Richard Dawkins. This book explores how animals propagate their genetic material across generations. It is a classic book, and the insight that our genes are somewhat purposive is intriguing.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (2016), written by Frans De Wall. This book provides a contemporary overview of some of the incredible feats performed by animals, including aspects of cognition that was previously thought to be uniquely human.
Dr. Jonathon Crystal
Themester 2018 Advisory Committee
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Director, Comparative Cognition Lab
The Red Canary (2003), written by Tim Birkhead. This is a wonderful book on the history of people who kept birds, training birds to sing, and to produce canaries with red color. It is great to learn our relationship with birds, and it is written in a style like a novel, not a textbook. Another book by Tim Birkhead is The Wisdom of Birds (2008), about the history of ornithology. It’s a thick book, but it contains beautiful illustrations.
Kanzi (1994), written by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin. The ape at the brink of the human mind. This is a good book to read in relation to the Animal Communication Course. It provides information in detail the scientific voyage of a dedicated scientist who has been working with chimpanzees and bonobos for half a century. It is possible to see what she thought and how she made the way through to make things work out in working with animals. Anybody who are interested in working with animal behavior—not only people who are interested in primates—can learn a lot from it.
Dr. Sachiko Koyama
Themester 2018 Advisory Committee
Virginia Woolf’s 1933 novel Flush: a Biography. Woolf is best known for such ground-breaking, challenging masterpieces of Modernist prose as Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando. But this fictionalized biography of the pet cocker spaniel of the eminent Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, partly based on the letters of Elizabeth Barrett and her husband Robert Browning, offers a delightful and easier introduction to her work. We see Victorian London through the eyes of Flush, and experience his joys and terrors -- including grappling with the trauma of learning to share his mistress with Robert Browning, and being dog-napped by dog thieves. It’s charming and fascinating.
Dr. Ivan Kreilkamp
Themester 2018 Advisory Committee
Department of English
Author of Minor Creatures: Persons, Animals, and the Victorian Novel (2018)
One of my favorite books is the short novel Timbuktu by American author Paul Auster (published in 1999). I don’t want to spoil it, but one of the main plot lines involves the relationship between a person and a dog. Indeed, four-footed “Mr. Bones” is a main character. What I really find fascinating about the novel is how Auster anthropomorphizes Mr. Bones productively, in a limited manner, and also how he captures the differences in the way that humans and dogs “see” the world (Mr. Bones is much more interested in smells than his human friend). Auster avoids the Aesopian fantasy of having the dog speak and explain himself clearly in articulated language; nor can this fictional dog perform unbelievable feats that a real dog could not. However, Mr. Bones is intelligent, has strong feelings and emotions, and in some ways seems like a person. And the bond between the human animal and the non-human animal rings very true.
Steven Wagschal
Themester 2018 Advisory Committee
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Author of Minding Animals in the Old and New Worlds: A Cognitive Historical Analysis (2018)
In case you missed it, senior Tamara Lane explored the role animals play in film in this IU Libraries Media Beat post.