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BIDDEFORD, Maine

Humane Society recognizes literature scholar Susan McHugh for distinguished course on animals, literature and society

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation's largest animal protection organization, and the Animals and Society Institute have announced the winners of the 12th annual Animals and Society Course awards. 

The award recognizes academic excellence in college and university classes that explore the relationships between animals and people.

Susan McHugh, Ph.D., UNE associate professor, Department of English and Language Studies, was recognized with an Honorable Mention in the Distinguished Established Course Award for her class, "Animals, Literature, and Culture."   The course demonstrates the value of literary studies in showing how and why species differences endure as the most lasting markers of social distinction.

Submissions were evaluated based on depth and rigor within the topic, impact on the study of animals and society, and originality of approach. 

Animal Studies

"At this point, there is hardly an academic field in which animal studies is not thriving as an important sub-discipline," said Bernard Unti, Ph.D, senior policy adviser and special assistant to the CEO of the HSUS.

"For 12 years, we have recognized the best higher education classes about animals and society, and we continue to see dramatic expansion in the diversity and depth of the courses offered," said Kenneth Shapiro, Ph.D., executive director of the Animals and Society Institute.

"I am thrilled to receive this honor for teaching a course so integral to my research in literary animal studies," said McHugh.  "The opportunity to integrate scholarship with teaching is what makes UNE's College of Arts and Sciences so special, and I'm grateful to be in a department designed to showcase leading-edge areas like human-animal studies."

Susan McHugh

Susan McHugh teaches courses in writing, literary theory, and animal studies.  She is the author of Animal Stories: Narrating across Species Lines, appearing this spring in the University of Minnesota Press's Posthumanities series, as well as Dog, a volume in Reaktion Books' groundbreaking Animal series.

She has published dozens of essays in edited collections and peer-reviewed journals, including Critical Inquiry, Literature and Medicine, and PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America.  Her ongoing research focuses on the intersections of biological and cultural extinction. 

McHugh is a member of the editorial boards of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Humanimalia: A Journal of Human-Animal Interface Studies, and Society & Animals.  She serves as an advisory board member for the H-Animal Discussion Network, as an International Associate of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies, and as faculty advisor to Zephyr: UNE's Journal of Artistic Expression.  She was a founding fellow of UNE's Center for Global Humanities.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.