Zoology/Wildlife Ecology 335
REQUIRED READINGS
Spring Semester 2006
The Ape and The Sushi Master
Frans de Waal, Basic Books, 2001.
You are encouraged to read this book cover to cover, initially not as a text book, but as an interesting book with thought-provoking information. Well before the first exam I will provide you with a list of questions that you should be able to answer from the book, so that you can go back and master whatever argument or details are necessary for the course.
The topic of the book’s chapters aren’t arranged in the same order as the lectures, so even though I encourage you to read the book cover to cover, here is a list that matches the chapters to the content of the lectures:
Lecture Most Relevant Chapters
1/17: Introduction Prologue
1/19: Humans and Other Animals Chapter One
1/24, 1/31, 2/2, 2/7: Tool Use, Culture, Ethology Chapters Five, Six and Seven
2/21 & 2/23: Chapters Nine and Ten
Covenant of the Wild
Stephen Budiansky, Yale University Press, 1991.
This is a thought-provoking book that is best read cover to cover. Unlike Frans de Waal, the author of Ape and the Sushi Master, Budiansky is not a scientist, he is a journalist who is interested in science and who proposes a hypothesis about the evolution of domestication. His hypothesis has a some scientific support behind it, (as you’ll see, it’s not actually his idea but a popularization of the ideas of many) but be sure to read this book skeptically (as you should all books, even texts); we’ll be deconstructing the logic of some of his arguments during the semester. On the day of the relevant lecture (1/26), you will receive a set of questions about the book that you will be expected to be able to answer.
Philosophy Reading Packet (provided in class)
We will be reading articles by Singer, Regan, Leopold,
Van de Veer and Callicott, published in People, Penguins, and Plastic Trees
(1995, Ed. Pierce and VanDeVeer). There may be additional readings as the semester
progresses, we’ll let you know as soon as possible if there are. The Philosophy
section of the course begins on March 9th, and will be an important part of
your term paper. Because of that, it’s important for you to master the
information in the philosophy lectures and reading before you finalize your
term paper.