Philosophy and Animal Studies: Calarco, Castricano, and Diamond

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Aaltola
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Review Paper ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Cora Diamond

AbstractRecently, animal studies has started to gain popularity. This interdisciplinary field investigates the human-animal relationship from different perspectives, including philosophy, cultural studies, and biology. In 2008, at least three books explored themes related to animal studies: Matthew Calarco, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal; Jodey Castricano (Ed.), Animal Subjects: An Ethics Reader in a Posthuman World; and Cora Diamond, Cary Wolfe, et al. (Eds.) Philosophy and Animal Life. Each volume approaches animal studies from a different viewpoint (Continental philosophy, interdisciplinary, and Wittgensteinian), but they also share many themes. This review paper discusses the differences and similarities between the volumes and highlights the directions in which animal studies is developing. It is argued that an emphasis on "direct" perception or experience of animality and heterogeneity, and an exploration of otherness, are elements that all these books share, and that are relevant to animal studies.

“A Winged but Grounded Bird”: Morrison’s Mixed Treatment of Animality in The Bluest Eye

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Rachel Warner
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
Language History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Mixed Treatment ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
New Models ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract This literary analysis of Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), answers the call issued by scholars in the growing interdisciplinary field of animal studies to privilege nonhuman animal others as its central analytical focus. It thus examines the productive and harmful overlaps between Black subjects and animality and determines how Morrison speaks to both a history of racist dehumanization as well as manners of ameliorating such oppression. In prioritizing the intersection of human subjectivity and nonhuman others, the article explores new models for human-animal relationships, including animals as sensual partners and animals as looking subjects. Ultimately, this article looks to Morrison’s canonical novel portraying the scapegoating practices that can destroy Black girlhood to unearth the profound significance of nonhuman others to language, history, and communities.

scholarly journals On the Fringe: Sheepdogs and Their Status Within Bronze Age Ontologies in Scandinavia

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-120
Author(s):  
Kristin Armstrong Oma
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depositional Patterns ◽  
Human Animal

This contribution draws mainly on images of dogs, humans and sheep from Nordic Bronze Age rock art sources, but living arrangements within the household and depositional patterns of dog bones on settlements are also considered to extrapolate an understanding of the physical reality and ontological role of sheepdogs within the social aspects of the practice of herding. I use theories from the interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies to understand how socialisation, habituation and trust create a seamless choreography between human, dog and sheep.

scholarly journals Hope against hope: COVID-19 and the space for political imagination

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110045
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gross
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Devised Theatre ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Future

COVID-19 has loosened neoliberalism’s hegemonic grip on the future. Amid the enormous suffering experienced internationally, there is much discussion of how to ‘Build Back Better’, and hope for a more caring, just and sustainable world. But competing futures are being imagined and planned. Hope is never politically neutral, and the content of collective hope is a key site of political struggle. This is partly a question of space: who has the literal and discursive space in which to develop visions of the future? The following article considers the role that cultural studies can play in this struggle. ‘Conjunctural analysis’ has a key task, making visible the competing futures contained within the present. But cultural studies should go further: combining conjunctural analysis with methods drawn from a range of scholarly and activist traditions – including critical pedagogy, devised theatre and the interdisciplinary field of futures studies – that deliberately create spaces for imagining new futures.

scholarly journals Development and Application of the Owner-Bird Relationship Scale (OBRS) to Assess the Relation of Humans to Their Pet Birds

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Burmeister ◽  
Katrin Drasch ◽  
Monika Rinder ◽  
Sebastian Prechsl ◽  
Andrea Peschel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Pet Birds ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Only a few birds besides domestic pigeons and poultry can be described as domesticated. Therefore, keeping a pet bird can be challenging, and the human-avian relationship will have a major influence on the quality of this cohabitation. Studies that focus on characterizing the owner-bird relationship generally use adapted cat/dog scales which may not identify its specific features. Following a sociological approach, a concept of human-animal relationship was developed leading to three types of human-animal relationship (impersonal, personal, and close personal). This concept was used to develop a 21-item owner-bird-relationship scale (OBRS). This scale was applied to measure the relationship between pet bird owners (or keepers) (n = 1,444) and their birds in an online survey performed in Germany. Factor analysis revealed that the relationship between owner and bird consisted of four dimensions: the tendency of the owner to anthropomorphize the bird; the social support the bird provides for the owner; the empathy, attentiveness, and respect of the owner toward the bird; and the relationship of the bird toward the owner. More than one quarter of the German bird owners of this sample showed an impersonal, half a personal, and less than a quarter a close personal relationship to their bird. The relationship varied with the socio-demographic characteristics of the owners, such as gender, marital status, and education. This scale supports more comprehensive quantitative research into the human-bird relationship in the broad field of human-animal studies including the psychology and sociology of animals as well as animal welfare and veterinary medicine.

Introduction to special section on human-animal studies: Humanistic psychology contributions of Team Woof.

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-576
Author(s):  
Harris L. Friedman ◽  
Tina Bloom ◽  
Melissa Trevathan-Minnis
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Humanistic Psychology ◽  
Human Animal

scholarly journals "Bitter to your Stomach, but Sweet as Honey in your Mouth": Vegetarianism, Animals and Working Towards an Ecospiritual Poetry'

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hester Jones
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemma ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Animal World

The first part of this article outlines traditional and Christian ethical arguments about animal autonomy, in particular as these relate to the question of vegetarian practice; it goes on (in the second section) to indicate some ways in which more recent feminist and eco-feminist arguments help to steer a path through what has become something of an ethical dilemma. Some of these arguments point to the arts as most helpfully articulating, or at least beginning to imagine, ways of relating to the animal world. Consequently, the essay concludes by illustrating how one of the arts – poetry – may indeed point to what could be called an eco-spiritual approach to animal life, in particular through its use of metaphorical language, and thus offer a challenge to points of view that justify human dominion over non-human animal life.   La primera parte de este artículo esboza argumentos éticos tradicionales y cristianos sobre la autonomía animal, en especial cuando tienen relación con la cuestión de la práctica vegetariana. La segunda sección muestra alguna de las maneras en las que algunos de los argumentos feministas y ecofeministas más recientes ayudan a abrir un camino a través de lo que se ha convertido en algo parecido a un dilema ético. En algunos de estos argumentos, las artes son consideradas como mecanismos que nos pueden servir para articular más eficazmente - o, al menos, para empezar a imaginar - modos de relación con el mundo animal. Por consiguiente, este artículo concluye ilustrando cómo una de las artes - la poesía - puede efectivamente apuntar lo que podría ser considerado como una aproximación ecoespiritual a la vida animal, en particular a través de su uso del lenguaje metafórico y, por tanto, cuestionar los puntos de vista que justifican el dominio humano sobre la vida animal no humana.  

scholarly journals [Review] Peter Godfrey-Smith. Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 336 pp.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 290-297
Author(s):  
David Herman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
The Mind

Animal Studies Journal 2021 10(1): [Review] Peter Godfrey-Smith. Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 336 pp.

scholarly journals The Radical-Teaching Debate

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (3) ◽  
pp. 817-817
Author(s):  
Margaret Morganroth Gullette
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Broad Area ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Area Of Study

As many articles in the March 2009 issue of PMLA imply, the question of ability is central to any consideration of the human. For example, in “Human, All Too Human: ‘Animal Studies’ and the Humanities” (124.2 [2009]: 564–75), Cary Wolfe shows how the humanities transgresses its own limits and thereby shifts its locus and center. Insofar as this broad area of study is the appropriate venue for reflection on the discursive boundary of the human, it must erase that boundary.

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