The Humane Society and the Animals and Society Institute have announced the winners of the Animals and Society Course Awards for 2010:

‘The Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s largest animal protection organization, and the Animals and Society Institute are pleased to announce the winners of the 12th annual Animals and Society Course awards. This prestigious award recognizes academic excellence in college and university classes that explore the relationships between animals and people.

“At this point, there is hardly an academic field in which animal studies is not thriving as an important sub-discipline,” said Dr. Bernard Unti, Senior Policy Adviser and Special Assistant to the CEO of The HSUS.

“For 12 years, we have recognized the best higher education classes about animals and society, and we continue to see dramatic expansion in the diversity and depth of the courses offered,” said Kenneth Shapiro, Ph.D., executive director of the Animals and Society Institute.

Of the dozen submissions received, several were from universities overseas- including Germany and Wales.

Award categories include the Distinguished New Course Award and the Distinguished Established Course Award. Judges from The HSUS and the Animals and Society Institute evaluate the submissions using criteria such as depth and rigor within the topic, impact on the study of animals and society, and originality of approach.

The academic departments of the established and new course award winners will each receive $1,500.

• Distinguished New Course Award: “Food, Animals, and the Environment.”
Christopher Schlottmann, Environmental Studies and Animal Studies Program, New York University.  (New York, N.Y.)

Food, Animals, and the Environment” plows new ground in situating animals both conceptually and practically within the environmental studies curriculum. The course embodies a searching approach to the place of animals within the food system and the environment, a topic gaining increased public and scholarly scrutiny.

• Distinguished Established Course Award: “Human-Animal Interactions in Anthropological Perspective I.”
Samantha Hurn, Lecturer in Anthropology, School of Archaeology, History, and Anthropology, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.(Lampeter, Wales)

The course demonstrates the maturity of the field of anthrozoology within anthropology, and embodies the rich conceptualization and rigor that anthropologists have achieved in reconsidering the place of nonhuman animals in their discipline.

• Honorable Mention, Distinguished Established Course Award: “Animals, Literature, and Culture.”
Susan McHugh, Assistant Professor of English, University of New England (Biddeford, Maine.)

The course demonstrates the value of literary studies in showing how and why species differences endure as the most lasting markers of social distinction.

Congratulations to all of this year’s award winners!’