In October, a diverse group of scholars, journalists, farmers and chefs gathered in Henry R. Luce Hall for a three-day interdisciplinary conference on a singular subject: the pig. Jointly convened by Yale’s Program in Agrarian Studies, the Yale Sustainable Food Program, and the Duke University Women’s Studies Program, the conference explored the multifaceted relationships that hogs and humans have developed over the course of history. The pig, as a subject of inquiry, focuses a lens sharply on the evolution of animal-human relations, and on the contemporary ecological, moral, and alimentary implications of these relationships. Key themes considered at the conference included: pig domestication; the markers and taboos of religious identities as expressed in relationship to pork; ethical issues in farming and selling pork and pork products; the role of the pig in various environments such as the city or the garden farm; and representations of pigs in the popular imagination.
http://newsletter.macmillan.yale.edu/newsletter/fall-2015/hogs-and-humans-global-and-historical-context
