Pedagogy in Translation: Teaching Animal Law in China
| Author | Andrew Jensen Kerr |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321005813505458 |
| Published date | 01 January 2014 |
| Date | 01 January 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Essays |
Military-Madrasa-Mullah Complex 33
India Quarterly, 66, 2 (2010): 133–149
A Global Threat 33
Essay
Pedagogy in Translation: Teaching
Animal Law in China
Andrew Jensen Kerr
Abstract
This essay reflects on the didactic process of teaching a course on Animal Law in Mainland China and
surveys the opportunity for Chinese and other Asian legal students and scholars to contribute to this
emerging academic field. The author first clarifies his pedagogical ambitions in crafting a curriculum
centred on a comparative approach to animal law. He notes the variable successes of his teaching
strategies, offering techniques to better contextualize this at times foreign material for international
students. The author then considers the unique ‘structural’ characteristics of animal law that make it
an empowering vehicle in legal education, such as its signature ability to connect trans-legal theoretical
frameworks to new, unanswered questions and its inherent practical connection to the individual’s
development as an actualized citizen. In the final section of his essay, the author highlights areas of
substantive animal law that could benefit from revision by non-Western thinkers. Areas particularly rich
in content include cultural patterns in the discourse and rhetoric of animal law, definitional problems
pre-conditional to animal legal theory and issues in transnational animal law. This essay functions at the
intersection of international education, legal pedagogy and animal law but also considers trans-legal
issues of wider import.
Introduction: Context and Scope
The last 20 years have witnessed a dialectic in the construction of animal law as a coherent field of
thought to its being a course offering within Western law schools. The number of Animal Law classes
has increased markedly in this time, from the occasional adjunct-taught seminar to becoming an essential
Andrew Jensen Kerr (B.A. Wesleyan 2005; J.D. Columbia 2011) is a Senior Lecturer at the Peking University
School of Transnational Law.
Asian Journal of Legal Education
1(1) 33–44
© 2014 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/2321005813505458
http://ale.sagepub.com
Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to Founding Dean Jeffrey Lehman for accepting the author’s offer to teach an Animal
Law seminar, as well as to the editorial staff of the Asian Journal of Legal Education for their invaluable comments and suggestions.
He thanks Mom and Dad, Alec, Lucy, Brandon McCartney and Bernice for their perennial inspiration. He also thanks his
courageous Animal Law students (and auditors), Colin Gillespie and the rest of the PKU-STL community for their collegial vibes
and positive energy.
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