Gender and Sexuality in Critical Animal Studies

About this book

Gender and Sexuality in Critical Animal Studies explores nonhuman animals' experiences of gender, physiological sex, and sexuality while in nature and captivity. The contributors analyze nonhuman oppression issues such as reproductive freedom, deconstructing dichotomous thinking, and promoting animal liberation within and beyond the academy. The scholar-activists featured in this collection investigate injustice in news stories, literature, and other media that shape human perceptions and treatment toward nonhumans. Each chapter confronts problematic social constructions of gender, physiological sex, or sexuality by applying literary theory, cultural studies, disability studies, queer studies, ecocriticism, and more to promote justice and equity for nonhuman animals.

Contents

Introduction: The Entanglements of Sexuality, Gender, and Species in Critical Animal Studies / Amber E. George

Part I: Challenging Speciesism, Patriarchy, and Heterosexism in Literature
Chapter 1: Animals and the Absent Referent in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale / Kelly Svoboda
Chapter 2: “the animals and birds were left in peace”: Katharine Burdekin’s Queer Utopian Ecology / Sarah D’Stair

Part II: Liberating Nonhumans in the Classroom and Laboratory
Chapter 3: Queering Our Relations with Nonhuman Animals: Multispecies Sexuality Beyond the Laboratory / Mitch Goldsmith
Chapter 4: Teaching to Become Intersectional Allies: Engaged Activism, Ecofeminism, Anarchism, and Building Resistance in the Classroom / Damla Isik

Part III: Disrupting the Gendered and Sexual Violence Against Nonhuman Animals
Chapter 5: The “Unnatural,” “Immoral” Hyena and the Implications for Conservation Strategy / Annika Hugosson
Chapter 6: Humanity and Honeybees: The Inhumane Treatment of Honey Bees and Where We Go From Here / Samantha Orsulak
Chapter 7: Of Rats and Women: A Cross-Species Read of Space and Place / Samentha Sepúlveda and Emily Plec

Part IV: Biological and Reproductive Justice for Nonhumans
Chapter 8: Reproduction or the Lack Thereof: A Mode of Oppression, a Means to Liberation? / Sarah Tomasello, April Piazza, Nathan Poirier
Chapter 9: Intersex Inclusion: Indeterminant Sex and Gender Acceptance for Nonhuman Animals / Amber E. George

Part V: Decoding the Sexual Subjectivity of Nonhumans
Chapter 10: Can the Animal Consent? Zoophilia and the Limits of Logocentrism / Anastassiya Andrianova
Chapter 11: The Zoo Closet: On Whether Bestiality is a Queer Liberation Ethic / Jess Ison

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Biography

Amber E. George is an assistant professor at Galen College.