Excerpts
Derrida & Animals
As I was saying to Darby recently, after he commented over at my spot about the frequency of my posting artworks of human-animal hybridity, in academia right now Animals are all the rage.
A recent edition of PMLA focused on Animal Studies, and a glance at the Penn CFP page reveals a growing number of conferences on the topic of Animals in literature, art, politics, etc.
Further proof of this growing trend can be seen in the rise of websites like The Inhumanities, as well as the swarm of books being published on the topic, including this new book of Derrida’s lectures being release on November 1st by University of Chicago Press:
The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1 launches the series with Derrida’s exploration of the persistent association of bestiality or animality with sovereignty. In this seminar from 2001–2002, Derrida continues his deconstruction of the traditional determinations of the human. The beast and the sovereign are connected, he contends, because neither animals nor kings are subject to the law—the sovereign stands above it, while the beast falls outside the law from below. He then traces this association through an astonishing array of texts, including La Fontaine’s fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” Hobbes’s biblical sea monster in Leviathan, D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake,” Machiavelli’s Prince with its elaborate comparison of princes and foxes, a historical account of Louis XIV attending an elephant autopsy, and Rousseau’s evocation of werewolves in The Social Contract.
Tags: derrida, university of chicago press
Rise of ecological concern in the zeitgeist?
Rise of ecological concern in the zeitgeist?
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s certainly part of it, Ken. But also, maybe it is culture’s way of reasserting nature into our overtly technological world? Like, if we talk about animals we are reconnecting with nature in some way. (Strange to be discussing the act of reconnecting with nature while on the internet.)
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s certainly part of it, Ken. But also, maybe it is culture’s way of reasserting nature into our overtly technological world? Like, if we talk about animals we are reconnecting with nature in some way. (Strange to be discussing the act of reconnecting with nature while on the internet.)
fyi: its SUPER OTTER FRIDAY!
fyi: its SUPER OTTER FRIDAY!
hey, cool post. I keep trying to make an evolutionary connection. that recent discovering ardi show on the disocervy channel was what got me thinking about it. like is there some subconscious desire in us to want to find missing links, to blend species to make better species…
hey, cool post. I keep trying to make an evolutionary connection. that recent discovering ardi show on the disocervy channel was what got me thinking about it. like is there some subconscious desire in us to want to find missing links, to blend species to make better species…
I agree; in turn, artists project/reflect/inflect the ecological anxiety, and, then, poof! Animals–nature–is a fictive concern, again.
I agree; in turn, artists project/reflect/inflect the ecological anxiety, and, then, poof! Animals–nature–is a fictive concern, again.
ACM just released an animal-themed “Bestiarium Vocabulum.” I had no idea it would be so fashionable… Website should be live with new images and such this week.
ACM just released an animal-themed “Bestiarium Vocabulum.” I had no idea it would be so fashionable… Website should be live with new images and such this week.
[…] tempi sulla presenza di animali (e ibridi uomo/animale) nella narrativa e nella saggistica (da Derrida in giù) degli ultimi tempi. Più modestamente, si legge su The Guardian, alla storia di Natale […]
There certainly is a growing interest in animals and animality. But that is alongside, not merely interchangeable with growing ecological concerns in the academia. I would suggest that part of it, like women’s studies, queer studies, and other sort of studies, is that the activism has become increasingly connected to intellectual production. And so there becomes a push to take these otherwise neglected beings seriously.
That would be a guess, I dunno.
There certainly is a growing interest in animals and animality. But that is alongside, not merely interchangeable with growing ecological concerns in the academia. I would suggest that part of it, like women’s studies, queer studies, and other sort of studies, is that the activism has become increasingly connected to intellectual production. And so there becomes a push to take these otherwise neglected beings seriously.
That would be a guess, I dunno.