Reflections on Co-Teaching “Little Animals in Art, Culture, and Museums” Dave Aftandilian, Department of Anthropology (Human-Animal Relationships Minor), Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX,
[email protected], & Nick Bontrager, Department of Art (New Media), Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX,
[email protected] In this paper, we will share our experiences co-teaching a new class in Spring 2018 called “Into the Small: Little Animals in Art, Culture, and Museums.” We developed this class as part of TCU’s new interdisciplinary minor on “Human-Animal Relationships” (HARE); it also counted toward majors or minors in our home departments of Anthropology and Studio Art. First, we will explain our goals for the class, and why we wanted to teach it. For instance, we focused on little animals, including insects, because they are often lesser known, ignored, or slighted (compared to other animals). Moreover, by helping the students shift their scales of reference from micro to macro and back, we hoped to help spark curiosity and inquiry both among them and among viewers of their artworks and exhibits. We also wanted to expose students to how different ways of knowing animals affect what we learn about them and how we view them, including using different senses and artistic techniques, as well as exploring the points of views of diverse people and cultures. Second, we will discuss the topics we covered in the class and why we selected them, from acoustic ecology to animal personhood to museum studies; the types of assignments we used to guide the students in engaging with them, including sketch book entries, art projects, and written papers; and how we assessed their work.