Class Details
Humans and Animals: The History and Future of the Sixth Mass Extinction
For thousands of years, humans have radically altered the destiny of other species. Today, we do so at such an accelerating rate that it is widely proposed that we live on the brink of a Sixth Mass Extinction, comparable to the most destructive moments in the fossil record. In this course, we will explore humanity’s impact on animal biodiversity over the long course of our history – from the megafaunal extinctions of the Ice Age to the planetwide perils of the present. The goal is to integrate insights from both social and natural sciences to develop a deeper understanding of how humans fit into the story of life – and how and why we might seek to preserve the diversity that remains.
Enrollment
- Enrollment through your home campus; contact your OSLEP campus coordinator for information
- OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost-NO books to buy!
- Housing and meals provided
- In-person residential seminar
Scholar
Dr. Kyle Harper
University of Oklahoma
Kyle Harper is the G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty, Professor of Classics and Letters, Senior Advisor to the President, and Provost Emeritus at his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma. He is also a Fractal Faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute, and in 2023-24 the holder of an annual Chair at the Collège de France (chaire “Avenir Commun Durable”) in Paris. Harper has been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow in addition to a Junior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University.
Harper is a historian whose work seeks to integrate the natural sciences into the study of the human past. He writes on the history of humans as agents of ecological change and asks how we can approach questions such as biodiversity, health, climate change, and environmental sustainability from a historical perspective.
He is the author of six monographs. His first book, Slavery in the Late Roman World, was published in 2011 and awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize. His second, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality, appeared in 2013 and received the Award for Excellence in Historical Studies from the American Academy of Religion. His third, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, was first published in 2017 and subsequently translated into 12 languages. Harper’s fourth book, Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, is a global history of infectious disease spanning from human origins to COVID-19. It tells the story of humanity’s long and distinctive struggle with pathogenic microbes. It was the 2021 PROSE winner for best book in the history of science, technology, and medicine. In 2024, his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France was published as Changement climatique et dynamiques sociales. Du passé profond à l’avenir incertain.
His 2026 book, The Last Animal: Human History and the Fate of Life on Earth from the Ice Age to the Sixth Extinction, is a history of humans and other animals, emphasizing the ways that other animals have been instrumental in our success, and the ways that our success is a danger to global biodiversity on par with the most consequential events in the history of the planet.
Class Prep