Do you think a therapy dog might love his job? How about a racehorse?
Dr. Kendra Coulter is teaching the first-ever Labour Studies course focused on nonhuman animals at a major university. From horses who get “flipped” like real estate until they finally go to slaughter, to grooms who die in poverty after careers caring for champion racehorses, Coulter shows us how animal work is enmeshed with capitalism and class.
But there are hopeful stories too: we will hear how Greek cities are socializing care of street dogs, what “red-green” and “blue-green” political alliances can teach us about changing exploitive industries, and how the gender shift in veterinarians may be improving the affordability of animal care.
The first offering of the course was a success and it will be taught again in the spring! Coulter gives her students the tools to tackle animal issues as social, economic and political problems, not just as individual choices about consumption.
Listen right now:
Animal Voices 