Human-Animal Boundary (eBook)

Exploring the Line in Philosophy and Fiction

Nandita Batra, Mario Wenning (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
242 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-5783-2 (ISBN)

Infos

The Human–Animal Boundary shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the question “what is human?” with the question “what is animal?” The objective is to expand the imaginative scope of human–animal relationships by combining perspectives from different disciplines, traditions, and cultural backgrounds.

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Throughout the centuries philosophers and poets alike have defended an essential difference-rather than a porous transition-between the human and animal. Attempts to assign essential properties to humans (e.g., language, reason, or morality) often reflected ulterior aims to defend a privileged position for humans..This book shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the questions "e;What is human?"e; and "e;What is animal?"e; What makes this collection unique is that it fills a lacuna in critical animal studies and the growing field of ecocriticism. It is the first collection that establishes a productive encounter between philosophical perspectives on the human-animal boundary and those that draw on fictional literature. The objective is to establish a dialogue between those disciplines with the goal of expanding the imaginative scope of human-animal relationships. The contributions thus do not only trace and deconstruct the boundaries dividing humans and nonhuman animals, they also present the reader with alternative perspectives on the porous continuum and surprising reversal of what appears as human and what as nonhuman.

Autor

Nandita Batra is currently Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez. She is the editor of Of Mice and Men: Animals and Human Culture and This Watery World: Humans and the Sea.Mario Wenning is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macau. He is the editor of Comparative Perspectives on the Philosophy of Nature and Contemporary Perspectives on Critical Theory and Systems Theory.

Inhalt

IntroductionNandita Batra and Mario WenningI. Contesting Exceptionalism1. Bridging the Abyss: Re-interpreting Heidegger’s Animals as a Basis for inter-species Understanding Joshua A. Bergamin2. Ramayana’s Hanuman—Animal, Human or DivineSukanya B. Senapati3. Aesop: Figuring the Human/Animal BoundaryJohn HartiganII. Representing the Human-Animal Boundary4. ‘Zones of Non-Knowledge’: Facing The Open with R. M. Rilke, Martin Heidegger, and Giorgio Agamben Sabine Lenore Müller5. The Avoidance of Moral Responsibility towards Animals: Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and the Human Animal BoundaryTomaž Grušovnik6. The Cattle in the Long Cedar Springs DrawGary Comstock7. Re-writing the Human-Animal Divide: Humanism and Octavia Butler’s “Amborg”Aparajita Nanda8. Milton’s ElephantJames P. ConlanIII. Re-Situating the Human/Animal Boundary9. The Moral Duties of DolphinsSara Gavrell Ortiz10. Great Apes and Lesser Humans: Goodall and the Geographic Entangled in UhuruKristian Bjørkdahl11. The Empress and the Beast: Finding a Philosophical Voice in FictionAlison Suen12. A Bestiary for the Anthropocene: The End of Nature and the Future of Animal Life on Planet Earth Eduardo Mendieta

Produkt-Details

• Reihe/Serie: Ecocritical Theory and Practice
• Co-Autor: Joshua A. Bergamin, Sara Gavrell Ortiz, Sukanya Behura Senapati, Alison Suen, Kristian Bjorkdahl, Gary Comstock, James P. Conlan, Tomaz Grusovnik, John Hartigan, Eduardo Mendieta, Sabine Lenore Muller, Aparajita Nanda
• Zusatzinfo: 4 Illustrations including: - 2 Black & White Illustrations; - 2 Tables.
• Verlagsort: Lanham
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: animal rights • Anthropocene • Critical Animal Studies • East and West • Ecocriticism • Gender • human-animal relationships • Literature • Philosophy • Race • Vegetarianism
• ISBN-10: 1-4985-5783-X / 149855783X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4985-5783-2 / 9781498557832