Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction

by Derek Ryan

Overview

A critical introduction to theoretical approaches to animals and animality
From caged orangutans to roasted pig, from dog training to horse phobias, from communicating bees to ruminating cows, Derek Ryan explores how animals are encountered in theoretical discourse. Across four thematically organised chapters on ‘Animals as Humans’, ‘Animal Ontology’, ‘Animal Life’ and ‘Animal Ethics’ he offers extended discussions of Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze, Singer, Nussbaum, Adams and Haraway among others, as well as lively readings of contemporary literary texts by Carter, Coetzee, Auster and Foer. Intended as a resource for researchers, students, teachers and all those interested in human-animal relationships, Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction provides an accessible and authoritative account of the challenges and potential in thinking about and with animals.

Key Features
Provides a wide-ranging discussion of theoretical approaches to animals in modern and contemporary philosophy
Offers an accessible guide to key concepts in animal theory
Intervenes in current debates by critically engaging with theoretical issues and suggesting new ways to consider human-animal relations
Includes close readings of four contemporary literary texts to supplement the theoretical discussion
Contains a list of ‘Key Texts’ and ‘Further Reading’ at the end of each chapter

Derek Ryan is Lecturer in Modernist Literature at the University of Kent and author of Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life (Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2013). His other publications include articles and essays that combine interests in modernism, philosophy and animal studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748682201
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	06/14/2015
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Derek Ryan is Senior Lecturer in Modernist Literature at the University of Kent and author of Bloomsbury, Beasts and British Modernist Literature (2022), Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction (2015) and Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life (2013). He is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Animals (2023) and co-editor of several volumes including Cross-Channel Modernisms (2020), Reading Literary Animals (2019) and The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group (2018). He is Literature Subject Editor for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism and co-editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Edition of Virginia Woolf's Flush: A Biography.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Animals as Humans; 2. Animal Ontology; 3. Animal Life; 4. Animal Ethics; Index

What People are Saying About This

University of New England, USA - Professor Susan McHugh

An exceptional introduction for scholars, teachers, and others seeking to engage the struggle with ‘the animal’ and ‘nonhuman’ in theory, Animal Theory concisely traces the transdisciplinary revolution in thought that drives the academic field of animal studies.

Editorial Reviews

An exceptional introduction for scholars, teachers, and others seeking to engage the struggle with ‘the animal’ and ‘nonhuman’ in theory, Animal Theory concisely traces the transdisciplinary revolution in thought that drives the academic field of animal studies.

University of New England, USA - Professor Susan McHugh

An exceptional introduction for scholars, teachers, and others seeking to engage the struggle with 'the animal' and 'nonhuman' in theory, Animal Theory concisely traces the transdisciplinary revolution in thought that drives the academic field of animal studies.
— Professor Susan McHugh, University of New England

From the Publisher