Description
Book SynopsisExplores the relationship between race, sexuality, and animality in literature and philosophy.
Trade ReviewBestial Traces is a brave book! Arguing that our sentiments on animals are unavoidably implicated in politically contentious notions of race and sexuality, Peterson examines this entangled relation in Poe, Wright, Roth, and Coetzee. Insisting that the “irrational phantasm” of race cannot simply be thought away or eradicated in an act of pure disavowal, he seeks to exploit a 'lesser disavowal' to deconstruct racist and metaphysical conventions that imbricate animals and race. Peterson’s analysis is sure and sharply honed, his chapters theoretically sophisticated, and his reading of literary texts is finely nuanced. This is an ethical book that searches for less violent relations with others and it makes a superb contribution to our discourses on race, sexuality, and animals, as well as to 19th and 20th century American studies.
---—Russell Samolsky, University of California, Santa Barbara“Masterfully researched, creatively argued, and beautifully written.”
---—Akria Mizuta Lippit, University of Southern California
