Conference: March 12-14, 2010, “Darwin’s Reach”

Darwin’s Reach: Celebrating Darwin’s Legacy Across Academic Disciplines.

Found at The Bookhouse: The Emotional Lives of Animals

One of my favorite bookstores in Minneapolis is The Bookhouse. Today, I found an amazing, illustrated version of The Origin of Species. While I revisited it several times while browsing, enough so that it felt like it needed to be mine, I couldn’t quite justify the expense. However, I did pick up a copy of, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals.

When I taught “The Human Animal” at MCAD, the most interesting aspect of my research was the discovery of animal-human hybrids, animals like Koko the gorilla, or Alex, the talking parrot.

The story that affected me most, at the time, was the story of Lucy, on of many lab-raised chimpanzees trained during 1970s language experiments released back into the wild when those experiments fell out of favor. Lucy returned regularly to the clearing into which she was released, desperately signing, “Home! Home! Take me home!” to those people with whom she had worked. While she eventually formed relationships with other chimps, she only communicated with them using sign language, and had to teach other chimps signs in order to be understood. The question I am most interested in working with for this course, is that of the origin of ethical feeling within animality, the capacity for feelings exhibited by animals. Is the moral voice indexed to animality? A feeling for justice?