Description
Book SynopsisAnimal Texts examines critical works of American Environmental Literature for how they portray, discuss, and represent animals. By interweaving animal studies, literary animal studies, animal science, and close readings, the author establishes critical animal concepts for environmental literature that expand the understanding and knowledge of animal lives to promote conservation and meaningful reflection on current human-animal relationships. Lauren E. Perry-Rummel demonstrates the grave importance and promise these writers saw in the animals alongside them by examining the textual proof of how America's great environmental writers viewed animals. The author’s tracing of animal texts begins with late nineteenth century American texts from Sarah Orne Jewett, Jack London, into the mid-early twentieth century, ecologically focused works of Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, into the later twentieth century with the musings of Edward Abbey and the devastating memoir of Terry Tempest Williams, and ending with the contemporary species-centric works of Nate Blakeslee and Dan Flores.
Table of ContentsTable of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1:
Animal Subjects: The White Heron, Wolf-Dog, and Surviving the Industrialized World
Chapter 2:
Animal Time: Carson and Leopold on the Ecological Importance of Animal Presence in Clocks and Calendars
Chapter 3:
The Animal in Abbey’s Country: Rethinking Animal Consciousness
Chapter 4:
Memories Are for the Birds: Terry Tempest Williams’s Memoir of Animal Understanding
Chapter 5:
Animal Texts: How Animal Studies Enabled the Literary Success of Coyote America and American Wolf and Gave Voice to American Animals
Conclusion
References
About the Author
