A crowd of 1,200 students and scholars of psychology, religious studies and ethics -- plus teachers, parents, and others from the community -- attended a campus talk by Temple Grandin in February.
Grandin spoke on her experiences with autism and the emotional life of animals.
Grandin is a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University and the subject of a recent HBO film, "Temple Grandin." Her sensitivities and perceptions as a person with autism have informed her deep understanding of animal suffering, particularly livestock.
Watch Temple Grandin's UO talk and learn more about her life and work.
Grandin was invited to campus by Mark Unno, associate professor of religious studies (pictured above with Grandin), in conjunction with his winter-term course: "The Bull in the China Shop: The Oxen at the Intersection of Nature, Society, and Religion." Unno's course examined three East Asian views of how humans, animals, society and nature are related -- specifically, the slaughter and consumption of oxen as described in key passages in the texts of Mencius the Confucian, Zhuangzi the Daoist and Shinran the Pure Land Buddhist. His students also studied Grandin's writings.
Unno recalls reading Grandin's book, Thinking in Pictures, about 15 years ago and being struck by the ways in which she grappled with the relationship between animals, society and religion. His impression was that "she was really trying to find God or the Ultimate," he said.
In Thinking in Pictures, Grandin asserts that one must get away from language in order to understand animals. By cultivating her ability to think in pictures, she has developed an acute sense of animal emotions, especially the fear, disorientation, and panic they often experience in handling facilities -- a sensibility she has transformed into a set of ethical guidelines and humane technologies for the care and slaughter of livestock.
Unno holds the 2009-10 Coleman- Guitteau Professorship at the UO Oregon Humanities Center. This fellowship provided funding for Grandin's visit.
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Temple Grandin, perhaps the world's best known person with autism, drew an overflow crowd to her UO talk.
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