Leslie Irvine is an Associate Professor of Sociology at The University of Colorado, Boulder. She specializes in the areas of self and human-animal interaction and has published several works about those topics including books such as, “My Dog Always Eats First: Homeless People and Their Animals” and “The Self in Society.”

Irvine came to Fort Lewis College on Thursday Dec. 4, to offer a lecture on the topic of her study. The lecture was held in Noble 130 at 6:30 p.m.

“The main idea of the event was to explore animal emotion and cognition: how they think and what they feel,” said student Theresa O’Hare. “The lecture also explored a prominent question in sociology: what is the self?”

Professors Keri Brandt and Cathy Hartney are currently teaching an honors forum at FLC called Minding Animals.

“Dr. Brandt has worked with Leslie Irvine in the past and when she asked the class if we would be interested in bringing her to campus, we jumped at the opportunity,” O’Hare said.

Irvine’s lecture outlined the basic principles of her research. She discussed some of the struggles she faced when tackling the subject for research. The idea came to her while she was in graduate school. She became most interested in the study of defining the self in regards to animals.

After surveying a number of pet adopters in Boulder, Irvine began to see trends in peoples’ perceptions of their pets’ personalities, she said.

The common themes she identified allowed her to apply definitions of self to animals. Factors included controlling of actions, awareness of consequences of those actions, the ability to express emotions and memory in a physical capacity, she said.

“We know that animals have categorical affects,” Irvine said, discussing the emotions that animals are capable of feeling.

O’Hare is a senior majoring in philosophy. She started the Veg Club at FLC in collaboration with Caleb Ontiveros last fall.

“We are both vegans and are particularly interested in the study of ethics within philosophy,” she said. “Through examining ethical arguments, we came to veganism and wanted to provide a club for other students with dietary preferences to come together.”

The club is not exclusive to those with dietary preferences, O’Hare said. The Veg Club has tried to explore the impacts of an individual's diet, environmental and social impacts and ethical implications. 

“We involve ourselves in the lives of animals every day, from companion animals, farmed animals and animals that coexist in cities and wildernesses with us,” O’Hare said. “So, we ought to know who they really are. We ought to respect their selfhood.”