O’Key, D. (2023) 2: Animal Studies. The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, 31 (1). pp. 24-44. ISSN 1077-4254
Abstract
In this chapter I survey, highlight, and critically reflect on recent work in animal studies, a field that continues to yield deeply researched scholarship and incisive works of critical and cultural theory, all in spite of its relative lack of institutional footholds. This is my first outing as a YWCCT reviewer, and so my ambition for this initial venture is modest. I wish, quite straightforwardly, to explore a handful of publications that caught my attention in 2022. I do not pretend to have a robust rationale for my criteria for inclusion. Instead, let me say that these are all publications that excited me in some way, that excited something in me, and that I believe will excite others too. I have divided the chapter into four sections: 1. ‘Living Machines of Imperialism’ examines two postcolonial animal histories, Saheed Aderinto’s Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa and Jonathan Saha’s Colonizing Animals; 2. ‘I Dream of Dogs’ briefly considers Lydia Pyne’s Endlings before focusing on Margret Grebowicz’s short book of cultural critique on dog ownership, Rescue Me; 3. ‘The Gay Frog Is the Opposite of the Gay Penguin’ turns to recent issues of Humanimalia and Green Letters, and a special section of Environmental Humanities, co-edited by Sarah Bezan and Ina Linge; and 4. ‘Inside the Slaughterhouse’ looks at recent publications in the Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature series, concentrating mostly on Sune Borkfelt’s Reading Slaughter. I end the chapter by reflecting on the links between these publications; I introduce my own monograph, Creaturely Forms in Contemporary Literature, to tie together the review’s key ideas. In all of this I have tried not to impose a grand narrative on the books reviewed, nor isolate them as symptoms of broader ideological tendencies. Yet if there is an argument here it is this: animal studies continues to remind us that human–animal relations are not natural, timeless, or inevitable. They are historical. They can be transformed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The English Association. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of English (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number LEVERHULME TRUST (THE) ECF-2021-164 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 01 Dec 2023 15:59 |
Last Modified: | 01 Dec 2023 15:59 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/ywcct/mbad002 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:205943 |
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Filename: Author_accepted_YWCCT_–_chapter_on_Animal_Studies_copy.pdf
