Animals in Culture, Ethics and Law

Values and beliefs associated with animals manifest themselves in art, literature, religion, ethics and other facets of human culture. Changes in representations of animals in culture thus may reflect underlying changes in human relationships with animals and nature; moreover, they may foreshadow changes in treatment of animals at the individual and community level, and ultimately, in law and policy. As part of the Center for Animals and Public Policy's broader mission to build understanding of human-animal relationships, CAPP students and faculty explore changes in the portrayal of animals in culture, as symbols, as objects that sustain human life and well-being, and as individual subjects of lives rooted in their unique biology and life history.