Description
Book SynopsisAnimal Alterity uses readings of science fiction texts to explore the centrality of animals for our ways of thinking about human. It argues that the academic field of animal studies and the popular genre of science fiction share a number a critical concerns: thinking about otherness and the nature of human being; desiring communication across species difference; and interrogating the social and ethical consequences of changes in science and technology. We are living in a complex set of contradictory and conflicting relations with non-human animals. This book maps this complex terrain, arguing that we are better able to perceive options for a transformed politics if we perceive our various material relations with non-human animals within a deeper understanding of the functions of the category ‘animal’.
Trade ReviewAnimal Alterity is an engaging, intelligent study which is perceptively and accessibly theorised, and refreshingly innovative.
Peter WrightAn intriguing and enlightening book. Nicely produced, well-edited and comprehensive, reflecting a great deal of effort by the author to collect and synthesize the sometimes disparate material ... it is definitely recommended for a university research library.
Christopher Basnett, SFRA Review 295 Winter * SFRA Review 295 Winter *
Table of Contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and Human–Animal Studies
- 1. Always-Already Meat: The Human–Animal Boundary and Ethics
- 2. The Mirror Test: Humans, Animals and Sentience
- 3. The Animal Responds: Language, Animals and Science Fiction
- 4. ‘The Female Is Somewhat Duller’: Gender and Animals
- 5. Sapien Orientalism: Animals, Colonialism, Science Fiction
- 6. Existing for Their Own Reasons: Animal Aliens
- 7. A Rope over an Abyss: Humans as Animals
- 8. The Modern Epimetheus: Animals and/as Technology
- Conclusion. ‘Other Fashionings of Life’: Science Fiction, Human–Animal Studies and the Future of Subjectivity
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
