"Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics" probes the multiple l... more "Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics" probes the multiple links between ecocriticism and animal studies, assessing the relations between animals, environments and poetics. While ecocriticism usually relies on a relational approach to explore phenomena related to the environment or ecology more broadly, animal studies tends to examine individual or species-specific aspects. As a consequence, ecocriticism concentrates on ecopoetical, animal studies on zoopoetical elements and modes of representation in literature (and the arts more generally). Bringing key concepts of ecocriticism and animal studies into dialogue, the volume explores new ways of thinking about and reading texts, animals, and environments – not as separate entities but as part of the same collective.
In countless ways, plants have been in literature from the start. They literally provide surfaces... more In countless ways, plants have been in literature from the start. They literally provide surfaces and tools of inscription, as well as figuratively inspire a diverse body of writing that ranges from documenting changing social and ecological conditions to probing the limits of the human imagination. The dependence of human along with all other life on vegetal bodies assures their omnipresence in literatures across all periods and cultures, positioning them as ready reference points for metaphors, similes, and other creative devices. As comestibles, landscape features, home décor, and of course paper, plants appear in the pages of virtually every literary text. But depictions of botanical life in action often prove portentous, particularly when they remind readers that plants move in mysterious ways. At the frontiers of ancient and medieval European settlements, the plant communities of forests served as vital sources of material and imaginative sustenance. Consequently, early modern...
Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches aims to publish scholarly work that addresses co... more Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches aims to publish scholarly work that addresses common challenges across the fields of plant and animal studies from interdisciplinary perspectives. The series welcomes monographs and edited collections that focus and reflect upon interactions of plants, animals, and humans in innovative ways. At a time of large-scale anthropogenic species extinction, there is a pressing need to promote scholarship that can help us envision more equitable and harmonious forms of coexistence on the planet. The series therefore encourages submissions explicitly geared to build bridges not only between plant and animal studies, but also leading-edge research on other forms of life or ways of being, including fungi, lichens, algae and other microorganisms, as well as scholarship on fantasy creatures, cryptids, semi-living beings, and even non-living forms of existence. The goal is to abolish an artificially compartmentalized view of the world in order to add to the ways of knowing that are beginning to grow through the interconnections between these related fields of study. Grounded in the humanities, Plants and Animals welcomes trans-disciplinary perspectives that engage with scholarship in the social sciences and in the natural sciences. https://www.peterlang.com/series/paia
... Reviewed by. Sarah Winter University of Connecticut, Storrs. Victorian Animal Dreams: Represe... more ... Reviewed by. Sarah Winter University of Connecticut, Storrs. Victorian Animal Dreams: Representations of Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture, edited by ... If, as Harriet Ritvo argues in her afterword, quoting Claude Levi-Strauss, "animals are good to think with" (275), then ...
Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches is a book series that aims to publish scholarly ... more Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches is a book series that aims to publish scholarly work that addresses common challenges across the fields of plant and animal studies by foregrounding interdisciplinary perspectives. Grounded in the humanities, Plants and Animals welcomes trans-disciplinary perspectives that engage with scholarship in the social sciences and in the natural sciences.
Humanimalia - a journal of human/animal interface studies, Oct 5, 2014
The publication of A New Zealand Book of Beasts will give some pause for thought. Of all the coun... more The publication of A New Zealand Book of Beasts will give some pause for thought. Of all the countries in the world, why should this one attract the attention of scholars interested in humans, animals, and human-animal relations? Has the field finally reached its antipodes? Or is there more to such a project than meets the northernhemispheric eye? The book itself makes a compelling case for Aotearoa New Zealand as a veritable hotspot of interest for human-animal studies. Ecologically, "as the last substantial landmass on the planet to be settled by Homo sapiens" it merits interest for the ways in which it "has been subject to the most rapidly extensive anthropogenic environmental change in recorded history" (25). Its people-who share the moniker of their native bird species, kiwis-have "the highest levels of pet ownership per capita in the Western world" (136). Yet, in a modern nation built on whaling and fur-seal hunting, and where now sheep as well as cattle vastly outnumber human populations, its
"Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics" probes the multiple l... more "Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics" probes the multiple links between ecocriticism and animal studies, assessing the relations between animals, environments and poetics. While ecocriticism usually relies on a relational approach to explore phenomena related to the environment or ecology more broadly, animal studies tends to examine individual or species-specific aspects. As a consequence, ecocriticism concentrates on ecopoetical, animal studies on zoopoetical elements and modes of representation in literature (and the arts more generally). Bringing key concepts of ecocriticism and animal studies into dialogue, the volume explores new ways of thinking about and reading texts, animals, and environments – not as separate entities but as part of the same collective.
In countless ways, plants have been in literature from the start. They literally provide surfaces... more In countless ways, plants have been in literature from the start. They literally provide surfaces and tools of inscription, as well as figuratively inspire a diverse body of writing that ranges from documenting changing social and ecological conditions to probing the limits of the human imagination. The dependence of human along with all other life on vegetal bodies assures their omnipresence in literatures across all periods and cultures, positioning them as ready reference points for metaphors, similes, and other creative devices. As comestibles, landscape features, home décor, and of course paper, plants appear in the pages of virtually every literary text. But depictions of botanical life in action often prove portentous, particularly when they remind readers that plants move in mysterious ways. At the frontiers of ancient and medieval European settlements, the plant communities of forests served as vital sources of material and imaginative sustenance. Consequently, early modern...
Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches aims to publish scholarly work that addresses co... more Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches aims to publish scholarly work that addresses common challenges across the fields of plant and animal studies from interdisciplinary perspectives. The series welcomes monographs and edited collections that focus and reflect upon interactions of plants, animals, and humans in innovative ways. At a time of large-scale anthropogenic species extinction, there is a pressing need to promote scholarship that can help us envision more equitable and harmonious forms of coexistence on the planet. The series therefore encourages submissions explicitly geared to build bridges not only between plant and animal studies, but also leading-edge research on other forms of life or ways of being, including fungi, lichens, algae and other microorganisms, as well as scholarship on fantasy creatures, cryptids, semi-living beings, and even non-living forms of existence. The goal is to abolish an artificially compartmentalized view of the world in order to add to the ways of knowing that are beginning to grow through the interconnections between these related fields of study. Grounded in the humanities, Plants and Animals welcomes trans-disciplinary perspectives that engage with scholarship in the social sciences and in the natural sciences. https://www.peterlang.com/series/paia
... Reviewed by. Sarah Winter University of Connecticut, Storrs. Victorian Animal Dreams: Represe... more ... Reviewed by. Sarah Winter University of Connecticut, Storrs. Victorian Animal Dreams: Representations of Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture, edited by ... If, as Harriet Ritvo argues in her afterword, quoting Claude Levi-Strauss, "animals are good to think with" (275), then ...
Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches is a book series that aims to publish scholarly ... more Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches is a book series that aims to publish scholarly work that addresses common challenges across the fields of plant and animal studies by foregrounding interdisciplinary perspectives. Grounded in the humanities, Plants and Animals welcomes trans-disciplinary perspectives that engage with scholarship in the social sciences and in the natural sciences.
Humanimalia - a journal of human/animal interface studies, Oct 5, 2014
The publication of A New Zealand Book of Beasts will give some pause for thought. Of all the coun... more The publication of A New Zealand Book of Beasts will give some pause for thought. Of all the countries in the world, why should this one attract the attention of scholars interested in humans, animals, and human-animal relations? Has the field finally reached its antipodes? Or is there more to such a project than meets the northernhemispheric eye? The book itself makes a compelling case for Aotearoa New Zealand as a veritable hotspot of interest for human-animal studies. Ecologically, "as the last substantial landmass on the planet to be settled by Homo sapiens" it merits interest for the ways in which it "has been subject to the most rapidly extensive anthropogenic environmental change in recorded history" (25). Its people-who share the moniker of their native bird species, kiwis-have "the highest levels of pet ownership per capita in the Western world" (136). Yet, in a modern nation built on whaling and fur-seal hunting, and where now sheep as well as cattle vastly outnumber human populations, its
PROMO DISCOUNT CODE: Purchase directly from Columbia University Press website with the code CUP20... more PROMO DISCOUNT CODE: Purchase directly from Columbia University Press website with the code CUP20 to receive an instant 20% discount.
Posthumanism synthesizes philosophical, literary, and artistic responses to technological advancements, globalization, and mass extinction in the Anthropocene. It asks what it can mean to be human in an increasingly more-than-human world that has lost faith in the ideal of humanism, the autonomous, rational subject, and it models generative alternatives cognizant of the demands of social and ecological justice. Amid rising social justice movements, collapsing economic structures, and the dwindling power of cultural institutions, posthumanism advances thinking on new and previously unenvisionable challenges.
Posthumanism in Art and Science is an anthology of indispensable statements and artworks that provide an unprecedented mapping of this intellectual and aesthetic development in a global context. It features groundbreaking theorists including Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Mel Y. Chen, Michael Marder, Alexander Weheliye, Anna Tsing, Timothy Morton, N. Katherine Hayles, Bruno Latour, Francesca Ferrando, and Cary Wolfe, as well as innovative, influential artists and curators such as Yvonne Rainer, Skawennati, Chus Martínez, William Wegman, Nandipha Mntambo, Cassils, Pauline Oliveros, and Doo-sung Yoo. These provocative and compelling works, including previously unpublished interviews and essays, speak to the ongoing conceptual and political challenge of posthumanist thinking in a time of unprecedented cultural and environmental crises.
An essential primer and reference for educators, students, artists, and art enthusiasts, this volume offers a powerful framework for rethinking anthropocentric certitudes and reenvisioning equitable and sustainable futures.
Love in a Time of Slaughters: Human-Animal Stories Against Genocide and Extinction, 2019
Love in a Time of Slaughters examines a diverse array of contemporary creative narratives in whic... more Love in a Time of Slaughters examines a diverse array of contemporary creative narratives in which genocide and extinction blur species lines in order to show how such stories can promote the preservation of biological and cultural diversity in a time of man-made threats to species survival. From Indigenous novels and Japanese anime to art installations and truth commission reports, Susan McHugh analyzes source material from a variety of regions and cultures to highlight cases where traditional knowledge works in tandem with modern ways of thinking about human-animal relations. In contrast to success stories of such relationships, the narratives McHugh highlights show the vulnerabilities of affective bonds as well as the kinds of loss shared when interspecific relationships are annihilated. In this thoughtful critique, McHugh explores the potential of these narratives to become a more powerful, urgent strategy of resistance to the forces that work to dehumanize people, eradicate animals, and threaten biodiversity. As we unevenly contribute to the sixth great extinction, this timely, compelling study sheds light on what constitutes an effective response from a humanities-focused, interdisciplinary perspective. McHugh' s work will appeal to scholars working at the crossroads of human-animal studies, literature, and visual culture, as well as artists and activists who are interested in the intersections of animal politics with genocide and Indigeneity.
This volume illuminates how creative representations remain sites of ongoing struggles to engage ... more This volume illuminates how creative representations remain sites of ongoing struggles to engage with animals in indigenous epistemologies. Traditionally imagined in relation to spiritual realms and the occult, animals have always been more than primitive symbols of human relations. Whether as animist gods, familiars, conduits to ancestors, totems, talismans, or co-creators of multispecies cosmologies, animals act as vital players in the lives of cultures. From early days in colonial contact zones through contemporary expressions in art, film, and literature, the volume’s unique emphasis on Southern Africa and North America – historical loci of the greatest ranges of species and linguistic diversity – help to situate how indigenous knowledges of human-animal relations are being adapted to modern conditions of life shared across species lines.
Animals´ omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and yet remarkably distant from h... more Animals´ omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and yet remarkably distant from humans. Human and animal lives have always been entangled, but the way we see and practice the relationships between humans and animals – as close, intertwined, or clearly separate – varies from time to
time and between cultures, societies, and even situations.
By putting these complex relationships in focus, this anthology investigates the ways in which human society deals with its co-existence with animals. The volume was produced within the frame of the interdisciplinary “Animal Turn”-research group which during eight months in 2013–2014 was hosted by the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, Lund university, Sweden. Along with invited scholars and artists, members of this group contribute with different perspectives on the complexities and critical issues evoked when the human-animal relationship is in focus.
The anthology covers a wide range of topics: From discussions on new disciplinary paths and theoretical perspectives, empirical case-studies, and artistic work, towards more explicitly critical approaches to issues of animal welfare.
Phenomena such as vegansexuality, anthropomorphism, wildlife crimes, and the death of honey-bees are being discussed. How we gain knowledge of other species and creatures is one important issue in focus. What does, for
example, the notion of wonderment play in this production of knowledge?
How were species classified in pre-Christian Europe? How is the relationship between domesticated and farmed animals and humans practiced and understood? How is it portrayed in literature, or in contemporary social media?
Many animals are key actors in these discussions, such as dogs, cows, bees, horses, pigeons, the brown bear, just to mention a few, as well as some creatures more difficult to classify as either humans or animals. All of these play a part in the questions that is at the core of the investigations carried out
in this volume: How to produce knowledge that creates possibilities for an ethically and environmentally sustainable future.
Special issue of the journal Antennae co-edited with Susan McHugh, including a short essay by me ... more Special issue of the journal Antennae co-edited with Susan McHugh, including a short essay by me called 'An Illustrated Theriography'.
What are the temporalities, histories, and post-mortem animal embodiments of taxidermic forms and... more What are the temporalities, histories, and post-mortem animal embodiments of taxidermic forms and fictions? In her seminal essay, "Teddy Bear Patriarchy," Donna Haraway proclaims that the taxidermic form operates as a "servant of the real," while feminist scholars Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey illuminate how skin produces its own dermographics (inhabiting the spaces of landscape and the discourses of nationhood) and temporalities (aging, preservation, decay). Skin, Pauline Wakeham further suggests, produces signs in the reconstruction of Aboriginality through the colonial conquest of living forms, and Chantal Nadeau explores how fur is intimately tied to the inscription of sexual desire onto the female form. The Afterlives of Animals: A Museum Menagerie edited by Samuel J.M.M. Alberti similarly negotiates the museological imperative to capture and archive animal flesh, and the studies of Rachel Polinquin (The Breathless Zoo) as well as Bryndís Snaebjörnsdottír and Mark Wilson (Nanoq: Flat out and Bluesome: A Cultural Life of Polar Bears) explore how affect circulates around taxidermic forms. Investigating cultural, literary, cinematic, poetic, artistic and historical engagements with practices of taxidermy, this panel will invite a discussion of the histories and futures of animal flesh, the performativity of the taxidermic animal, and its exposures, preservations, fetishizations, proximal encounters, inter-embodiments, and temporalities. In our exploration of taxidermic forms and fictions, we will develop methods, frameworks, and paradigms that enable us to contextualize taxidermic practice in the wake of the anthropocene, an era of unparalleled species loss. How can thinking through the flesh-both human and nonhuman-initiate creative possibilities for an alternative present? How are literature, film, poetics, and art responding to the history of natural science, which has so meticulously recreated a microcosm of the world by preserving species that stand in as exceptional prototypes? What is the impact of the decay of these forms in the natural history museum? And even more pressing: what are the ethics of cutting and flaying animal bodies and fetishizing their forms? Can we attribute agency and subjectivity to the taxidermic animal? What would an ethical repurposing of taxidermy look like? Ruminating on these (and related) research questions, this panel will serve as a response to the recent flux of critical and creative work being produced on the subject of the taxidermy. The roundtable will consist of a panel of 20-minute presentations followed by a discussion period. Students and scholars of all disciplines are invited to participate. Please email 250-word abstracts to Susan McHugh and Sarah Bezan at [email protected] and [email protected] by April 15th, 2017. research categories: environmental and ecological humanities human-animal studies, critical animal studies, critical posthumanism(s) new materialism; material ecocriticism taxidermic fiction, art, poetry, film history of natural science; natural or human history cultural anthropologies cli-fi (climate change film and fiction)
Texts, Animals, Environments: Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics, 2019
"Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics" probes the
multiple links between ecocr... more "Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics" probes the multiple links between ecocriticism and animal studies, assessing the relations between animals, environments and poetics. While ecocriticism usually relies on a relational approach to explore phenomena related to the environment or ecology more broadly, animal studies tends to examine individual or species-specific aspects. As a consequence, ecocriticism concentrates on ecopoetical, animal studies on zoopoetical elements and modes of representation in literature (and the arts more generally). Bringing key concepts of ecocriticism and animal studies into dialogue, the volume explores new ways of thinking about and reading texts, animals, and environments – not as separate entities but as part of the same collective.
While historiography is dominated by attempts that try to standardize and de-individualize the be... more While historiography is dominated by attempts that try to standardize and de-individualize the behavior of animals, history proves to be littered with records of the exceptional lives of unusual animals. This book introduces animal biography as an approach to the re-framing of animals as both objects of knowledge as well as subjects of individual lives. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective and bringing together scholars from, among others, literary, historical and cultural studies, the texts collected in this volume seek to refine animal biography as a research method and framework to studying, capturing, representing and acknowledging animal others as individuals. From Heini Hediger's biting monitor, Hachikō and Murr to celluloid ape Caesar and the mourning of Topsy's gruesome death, the authors discuss how animal biographies are discovered and explored through connections with humans that can be traced in archives, ethological fieldwork and novels, and probe the means of constructing animal biographies from taxidermy to film, literature and social media. Thus, they invite deeper conversations with socio-political and cultural contexts that allow animal biographies to provide narratives that reach beyond individual life stories, while experimenting with particular forms of animal biographies that might trigger animal activism and concerns for animal well-being, spur historical interest and enrich the literary imagination.
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Papers by Susan McHugh
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/posthumanism-in-art-and-science/9780231196673
Posthumanism synthesizes philosophical, literary, and artistic responses to technological advancements, globalization, and mass extinction in the Anthropocene. It asks what it can mean to be human in an increasingly more-than-human world that has lost faith in the ideal of humanism, the autonomous, rational subject, and it models generative alternatives cognizant of the demands of social and ecological justice. Amid rising social justice movements, collapsing economic structures, and the dwindling power of cultural institutions, posthumanism advances thinking on new and previously unenvisionable challenges.
Posthumanism in Art and Science is an anthology of indispensable statements and artworks that provide an unprecedented mapping of this intellectual and aesthetic development in a global context. It features groundbreaking theorists including Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Mel Y. Chen, Michael Marder, Alexander Weheliye, Anna Tsing, Timothy Morton, N. Katherine Hayles, Bruno Latour, Francesca Ferrando, and Cary Wolfe, as well as innovative, influential artists and curators such as Yvonne Rainer, Skawennati, Chus Martínez, William Wegman, Nandipha Mntambo, Cassils, Pauline Oliveros, and Doo-sung Yoo. These provocative and compelling works, including previously unpublished interviews and essays, speak to the ongoing conceptual and political challenge of posthumanist thinking in a time of unprecedented cultural and environmental crises.
An essential primer and reference for educators, students, artists, and art enthusiasts, this volume offers a powerful framework for rethinking anthropocentric certitudes and reenvisioning equitable and sustainable futures.
time and between cultures, societies, and even situations.
By putting these complex relationships in focus, this anthology investigates the ways in which human society deals with its co-existence with animals. The volume was produced within the frame of the interdisciplinary “Animal Turn”-research group which during eight months in 2013–2014 was hosted by the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, Lund university, Sweden. Along with invited scholars and artists, members of this group contribute with different perspectives on the complexities and critical issues evoked when the human-animal relationship is in focus.
The anthology covers a wide range of topics: From discussions on new disciplinary paths and theoretical perspectives, empirical case-studies, and artistic work, towards more explicitly critical approaches to issues of animal welfare.
Phenomena such as vegansexuality, anthropomorphism, wildlife crimes, and the death of honey-bees are being discussed. How we gain knowledge of other species and creatures is one important issue in focus. What does, for
example, the notion of wonderment play in this production of knowledge?
How were species classified in pre-Christian Europe? How is the relationship between domesticated and farmed animals and humans practiced and understood? How is it portrayed in literature, or in contemporary social media?
Many animals are key actors in these discussions, such as dogs, cows, bees, horses, pigeons, the brown bear, just to mention a few, as well as some creatures more difficult to classify as either humans or animals. All of these play a part in the questions that is at the core of the investigations carried out
in this volume: How to produce knowledge that creates possibilities for an ethically and environmentally sustainable future.
multiple links between ecocriticism and animal studies, assessing the
relations between animals, environments and poetics. While ecocriticism usually relies on a relational approach to explore phenomena related to the environment or ecology more broadly, animal studies tends to examine individual or species-specific aspects. As a consequence, ecocriticism concentrates on ecopoetical, animal studies on zoopoetical elements and modes of representation in literature (and the arts more generally). Bringing key concepts of ecocriticism and animal studies into dialogue, the volume explores new ways of thinking about and reading texts, animals, and environments – not as separate entities but as part of the same collective.