Animals, Literature and the Politics of Representation

About this book

Animals, Literature and the Politics of Representation addresses the question of animal rights in the context of literary criticism. Working from a committed position, it asks the question, "What would literary studies look like if we took animal rights seriously?" It offers critical surveys of the main themes in the history of animal rights and some of the more important contemporary positions together with readings of a wide range of literary texts from classical antiquity to the year 2001.

Contents

- A Very Brief Prelude
- Introduction: What is an Animal?
- The Animal in Some Contemporary Thought: A Survey
- Animal Rights in History: A Survey
- A Chapter of Vulgar Errors
- The Animal as Symbol
- Anthropomorphism: The Non-Human as Human
- Transformation: The Human as Non-Human and Vice Versa
- Towards a Conclusion and a Way Forward
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Index

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Biography

John Simons is Head of the School of Humanities and Arts at Edge Hill College of Higher Education. Professor Simons has published extensively on literary topics ranging from the Middle English romances to the contemporary novel and has also written on the history of cricket, the social significance of vegetarianism and the recent war in Kosovo.