Should Animals Be Soldiers? by Jane Desmond

Should Animals Be Soldiers? By Jane Desmond

April 24, 2012, on Huffington Post for the American Anthropological Association

Steven Spielberg’s latest heroic film, War Horse, is ultimately a sentimental love story between a young English man and his horse — a magnificent chestnut thoroughbred named Joey. Both man and horse go off to battle in World War I, get separated and barely survive the horrors of trench warfare, only to be reunited in a miraculous scene of mutual recognition amid the chaos of war. It is hard to resist the lure of this heart-tugging film, but beneath the emotion lies a more fundamental question: Should animals be used to fight human wars?

Spielberg realistically portrays the central role that six million horses played in that deadly war, serving as mounts for cavalry units, pulling ambulances to rescue the wounded and laboring to draw heavy artillery across mud-drenched terrain. The losses of human and animal life were both staggering.

But, the use of animals in war goes much farther back than WWI, and much farther forward too, and spans more species and places than we would expect. Elephants, camels, dogs, dolphins, sea lions and carrier pigeons have been used (or are currently in use) on the battle front in various parts of the world. Right now, for instance, the U.S. Army is exploring the use of the African giant pouched rat to detect landmines, and the Navy uses dolphins as underwater defense sentries to guard against intruders in U.S. ports.

I have a personal connection to this issue. Before I was born, my father, Alton Desmond, served in the dog training unit of the U.S. Coast Guard in WWII. One of my treasured possessions is a large photograph of him, his buddies and their German Shepherds training on a base in New England. The men are impossibly young and happy in their white uniforms, and the dogs by their sides look eager and muscular, poised to detect enemy infiltration of our nation’s coasts.

Read this full article by Jane on Huffington Post’s blog for the American Anthropological Association.

Matti Bunzl Presents the 2012 Chicago Humanities Festival’s Focus on America

The Chicago Tribune

By Mark Caro, April 10, 2012

“The Chicago Humanities Festival will look for America this fall, and an eclectic array of speakers and performers will be joining the search.”

“The festival on Tuesday announced its 23rd annual theme, ‘America,’ as well as its first batch of presenters. It includes world-renowned Alinea and Next chef Grant Achatz, who will discuss his innovative work in the context of American and international cuisines; New York Times columnist David Brooks, who will deliver the annual Franke Lecture on Economics; baritone Nathan Gunn, who recently starred in the Lyric Opera’s ‘Show Boat’ and will sing and discuss selections from the Great American Songbook; New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, who will address what Americans can learn from French cuisine; Stanford University Vice Provost Harry Elam discussing playwright August Wilson’s contributions to American theater and culture; and presentations by Brown University Africana Studies professor Tricia Rose (who wrote the influential 1994 book ‘Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America’), architectural historian Gwendolyn Wright (who co-hosts PBS’ ‘History Detectives’) and historian Charles Mann (who wrote the acclaimed ’1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus’).”

“The main chunk of the festival runs Nov. 1-11, which means that Election Day, Nov. 6, falls smack in the middle of it. Humanities Festival artistic director Matti Bunzl said Tuesday that he viewed that elephant (or donkey) in the room as the jumping-off point for programming this year’s events.”

“’For me the selling point was, what should an election be?’ he said on the phone from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is an anthropology professor. ‘What it should be, to me, is a conversation about the past, present and future of the country, and that’s an intellectual, cultural and historical conversation. That’s what the festival will be. It will be the kind of conversation the election should be but can’t be because of the reality of politics.’”

Ripan Malhi will also participate in the Festival events, presenting insights from his work in genetics and our understanding of the peopling of the Americas.

Read the full Tribune article, and learn more from Matti’s overview on the Festival web site.

Interview with Jane Desmond on Studies of Animal-Human Bonds

Illinois Public Radio’s Focus program of “interviews on global affairs and daily life” offers a recorded interview with Jane Desmond. From WILL radio’s web site: “Animals have been an essential part of human culture for a very long time. We humans have defined ourselves by stressing the differences we saw between us and them. But in recent years, a growing number of scholars has begun to look more closely at what we have in common, with the same goal, helping us to think about what makes us human. Our topic will be the human-animal bond.”

UI ANTH Professor Gottlieb Discusses Beauty in Media

After accepting an invitation to speak at the annual L’Oréal executives conference in Paris next month, a University anthropology professor shared the message she plans to express to top executives of the global cosmetic producer with students.

Alma Gottlieb presented students with a preview of that speech Wednesday during a lecture at the Spurlock Auditorium, which about 100 students and faculty members attended.

[Read the rest of the article here: http://www.dailyillini.com/index.php/article/2012/03/ui_professor_discusses_beauty_in_media]

Lisa Lucero Contributes to Task Force on Climate Change

Lisa Lucero, professor of anthropology, was appointed to the American Anthropological Association’s new Task Force on Climate Change. The task force was created to bring anthropology’s contributions to issues of environmental concern into the spotlight. Lucero will promote and develop anthropological contributions to climate change-related issues with eight other members of the task force.

Project, Conference Attuned to Changing Demographics in Colleges

At its Feb. 22 meeting, the University of Illinois Student Senate passed a resolution encouraging Facebook users to avoid posting racially insensitive material on a memes page associated with the school. The page administrators voluntarily removed the posts deemed offensive, but the debate continued in the Opinions section of the Daily Illini, a student newspaper. Few of the racially charged memes referred to African-Americans or Latinos; most referred to students of Asian heritage.

The memes controversy exemplifies the type of issues that are the focus of the American University Meets the Pacific Century Project – a social science research laboratory guided by U. of I. professors Nancy Abelmann (anthropology, Asian American studies, East Asian languages and cultures), Soo Ah Kwon (Asian American studies, human and community development), Tim F. Liao (sociology, statistics) and Adrienne Lo (anthropology). Started in the spring of 2010, the AUPC Project is hosting the first conference to address this topic on March 9-10 (Friday and Saturday), with speakers from colleges in the U.S. and Canada as well as Yonsei University, the oldest private university in South Korea.

The conference will focus on the fastest-growing segments of international students – Asian undergraduates – with presentations on topics ranging from the social conditions in China and South Korea that drive education migration to the ways these students are changing American colleges and universities.

Read full article in University News.

 

Prof. Moodie Receives Ruth Benedict Global Citizenship Award

Award Recipient Announcement from Dr. Robert Borofsky –

On behalf of the Center for a Public Anthropology, I am pleased to announce that one of Illinois’ faculty, Prof. Ellen Moodie in the Anthropology Department, has won Public Anthropology’s Ruth Benedict Global Citizenship Award. Named to honor one of the 20th century’s most prominent anthropologists, this award recognizes Dr. Moodie’s exceptionally effective participation in Public Anthropology’s Community Action Online Project as well her wider activities in the public sphere. Only a select few — less than 1% of the faculty teaching introductory anthropology courses across North America — receive this award.

Prof. Moodie is to be commended for how she takes classroom knowledge and applies it to real world challenges, thereby encouraging students to be responsible global citizens. In actively addressing important ethical concerns within anthropology, Prof. Moodie is providing students with the thinking and writing skills needed for active citizenship.

Congratulations to Prof. Moodie, the Anthropology Department, and the University of Illinois on this honor.

Regards,
Dr. Rob Borofsky
Director, Center for a Public Anthropology
Professor of Anthropology, Hawaii Pacific University
Editor, California Series in Public Anthropology

Gov. Scott of Florida Disses Anthropology

Gov. Scott of Florida has singled out anthropology as an example of a wasteful college degree that neither trains students with useful job skills nor benefits the state of Florida.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can read excerpts of his comments (made on a Florida radio show this past Mon.), and a critique by Mother Jones’ national security reporter,  Adam Weinstein, here: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/rick-scott-liberal-arts-majors-drop-dead-anthropology

A group of anthropology students at the U. of South Florida has waged a vigorous protest against this accusation.  They have created a terrific slideshow online showcasing multiple anthropological research projects they are conducting that directly benefit the citizens of Florida.  You can see their wonderful slideshow here:

http://prezi.com/vmvomt3sj3fd/this-is-anthropology/

And our own Prof. Virginia Dominguez, as president of the American Anthropological Association,  has co-authored an open letter to Gov. Scott inviting him to meet with her to learn of anthropology’s robust contributions to science, the economy, and Florida’s “well-being”; you can read Prof. Dominguez’s letter here:

http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/upload/Letter-to-Gov-Scott.PDF

Prof. Lehman’s Career Work Celebrated

F. K. Lehman (Chit Hlaing), professor emeritus of anthropology, was honored with his biography and a collection of articles recently published in the Journal of Burma Studies. The articles highlight his career and contributions to anthropological and religious studies over the course of 50 years. Articles presented include authors Juliane Schober, Ann Maxwell Hill, and Penny Van Esterik.

African Diaspora Archaeology Talks in Brazil and China

Chris Fennell presented a keynote talk, entitled “Archaeology and African Diaspora Legacies in the Americas,” at the XVI Congress of the Brazilian Archaeological Society and the XVI Worldwide Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, on September 9, 2011, at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Florianopolis, Brazil. He is scheduled to present another invited lecture, entitled “African Diaspora Archaeology and Interdisciplinary Challenges,” on October 13, 2011, to the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China. Best wishes for clear skies.