Wildlife & Fisheries Biology: Philosophy & Pract of Fishing

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Instructor permission required No fishing experience needed. Fishing license is recommended. Course fee $15.00 Special Topics courses cannot carry CC designations.

How do we relate to fish, and how should we embody those relationships? In this course, we will read and discuss a range of literature, science, and philosophy about human relationships with fish and fishing while simultaneously learning how to catch fish in Vermont. Through collaboration with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, students will learn a wide range of skills, from making one’s own fishing rod from willow to fly fishing. Class discussions each week will involve engagement with a wide range of views from around the world on fishing, and conversations about ongoing ethical questions, from catch-and-release to stocking to how to ethically relate to fish in research settings. Through these relational engagements with other species, we will work to enact ideas of reciprocity, multispecies world-building, and intersubjective encounter (concepts we will learn about in class!). Some of the authors we will encounter are Daniel Dennett, Val Plumwood, Emma Marris, Martin Mueller, Aldo Leopold, Walt Whitman, Zoe Todd, and many more.