Dave Aftandilian

Dave Aftandilian (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is associate professor of anthropology and director of the Human-Animal Relationships (HARE) minor at Texas Christian University. He also co-chairs the Tarrant County Food Policy Council’s Working Group on Community Gardens and Urban Agriculture. He is the editor of What Are the Animals to Us? Approaches from Science, Religion, Folklore, Literature, and Art (Tennessee, 2007) and coeditor of both City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness (with Gavin Van Horn; University of Chicago Press, 2015) and Grounding Education in the Environmental Humanities: Exploring Place-Based Pedagogies in the South (with Lucas Johnston; Routledge, forthcoming Fall 2018). His most recent book project is an undergraduate textbook on “Animals and Religion” that he is lead-editing, which will be published by Routledge.

His research and teaching focus on animals, religion, and culture; food justice; Native American religions and ecology; and nature-based contemplative practices and pedagogies. TCU web site here. Dave uses contemplative pedagogy in the following classes:

ANTH 30743: Animals, Religion & Culture
ANTH 30783: Anth. Approaches to Nature & the Sacred
ANTH 30823: Native American Religions & Ecology