This clear and concise book provides a critical analysis of three central philosophical frameworks in the field of critical animal studies that is intended for specialists and non-specialists alike.

A transformative vision for human-animal relations on personal, social, and environmental levels.

The Three Ethologies offers a fresh, affirmative vision for rebuilding human-animal relations. Venturing beyond the usual scholarly and activist emphasis on restricting harm, Matthew Calarco develops a new philosophy for understanding animal behavior--a practice known as ethology--through three distinct but interrelated lenses: mental ethology, which rebuilds individual subjectivity; social ethology, which rethinks our communal relations; and environmental ethology, which reconfigures our relationship to the land we co-inhabit with our animal kin. Drawing on developments in philosophy, (eco)feminist theory, critical geography, Indigenous studies, and the environmental humanities, Calarco casts an inspiring vision of how ethological living can help us to reimagine our ideas about goodness, truth, and beauty.

Giorgio Agamben has come to be recognized in recent years as one of the most provocative and imaginative thinkers in contemporary philosophy and political theory. The essays gathered together in this volume shed light on his extensive body of writings and assess the significance of his work for debates across a wide range of fields, including philosophy, political theory, Jewish studies, and animal studies. The authors discuss material extending across the entire range of Agamben's writings, including such early works as Language and Death and more recent and widely acknowledged works such as Homo Sacer. Readers will find useful discussions of key concepts and theories in Agamben's work, such as sovereignty and bare life, along with more critical analyses of the political stakes and consequences of his theoretical and political interventions.

Current debates in the environmental humanities, animal studies, and related fields increasingly revolve around this question: What to do with the human? Is the human a category worth preserving? Should it be replaced with the post-human? Should marginalized and minoritarian groups advocate for a universal humanism? What is the relationship between humanism and anthropocentrism? Is a genuinely non-anthropocentric mode of thinking and living possible for human beings?
This book argues that the writings of twentieth-century poet Robinson Jeffers offer twenty-first-century readers a number of crucial insights concerning such questions and timely advice about how not to be human. For Jeffers, our tendency to turn inward on ourselves and to indulge in human narcissism is at the heart of the social, economic, and existential ills that plague modern societies. As a remedy, Jeffers recommends turning ourselves outward--beyond the self and beyond the human--and learning to affirm and even love the inhuman cosmos in all of its terrible beauty. In articulating this vision of inhumanism, Jeffers develops a full-orbed and radical non-anthropocentrism that stretches across ethical, political, ontological, and aesthetic registers. In the process, Jeffers helps us find our way back to ourselves, but this time no longer as human in the traditional sense but as plain members of the inhuman world. With his inhumanist philosophy and poetics, Jeffers not only anticipates the most pressing questions and cutting-edge debates of our present moment but also challenges us to reconsider some of the key dogmas that underpin familiar discourses surrounding the Anthropocene and posthumanist philosophies and ecopoetics.

The aim of this Element is to provide a novel framework for gaining a critical grasp on the present situation concerning animals. It offers reflections on resisting the established order as well as suggestions on what forms alternative, pro-animal ways of life might take. The central argument of the book is that the search for an anthropological difference - that is, for a marker of human uniqueness determined by way of a sharp human/animal distinction - should be set aside. In place of this traditional way of differentiating human beings from animals, the author sketches an alternative way of thinking and living in relation to animals based on indistinction, a concept that points toward the unexpected and profound ways in which human beings share in animal life, death, and potentiality. The implications of this approach are then examined in view of practical and theoretical discussions in the environmental humanities and related fields.

Are animals capable of wonder? Can they be said to possess language and reason? What can animals teach us about how to live well? How can they help us to see the limitations of human civilization? Is it possible to draw firm distinctions between humans and animals? And how might asking and answering questions like these lead us to rethink human-animal relations in an age of catastrophic ecological destruction?

In this accessible and engaging book, Matthew Calarco explores key issues in the philosophy of animals and their significance for our contemporary world. He leads readers on a spirited tour of historical and contemporary philosophy, ranging from Plato to Donna Haraway and from the Cynics to the Jains. Calarco unearths surprising insights about animals from a number of philosophers while also underscoring ways in which the philosophical tradition has failed to challenge the dogma of human-centeredness. Along the way, he indicates how mainstream Western philosophy is both complemented and challenged by non-Western traditions and noncanonical theories about animals. Throughout, Calarco uses examples from contemporary culture to illustrate how philosophical theories about animals are deeply relevant to our lives today. The Boundaries of Human Nature shows readers why philosophy can help transform not just the way we think about animals but also how we interact with them.

Are animals capable of wonder? Can they be said to possess language and reason? What can animals teach us about how to live well? How can they help us to see the limitations of human civilization? Is it possible to draw firm distinctions between humans and animals? And how might asking and answering questions like these lead us to rethink human-animal relations in an age of catastrophic ecological destruction?

In this accessible and engaging book, Matthew Calarco explores key issues in the philosophy of animals and their significance for our contemporary world. He leads readers on a spirited tour of historical and contemporary philosophy, ranging from Plato to Donna Haraway and from the Cynics to the Jains. Calarco unearths surprising insights about animals from a number of philosophers while also underscoring ways in which the philosophical tradition has failed to challenge the dogma of human-centeredness. Along the way, he indicates how mainstream Western philosophy is both complemented and challenged by non-Western traditions and noncanonical theories about animals. Throughout, Calarco uses examples from contemporary culture to illustrate how philosophical theories about animals are deeply relevant to our lives today. The Boundaries of Human Nature shows readers why philosophy can help transform not just the way we think about animals but also how we interact with them.

Roadkill is a recurrent but often unthought feature of modern life. Yet, consideration of the broader significance of the myriad social, ethical, and political issues related to roadkill has largely gone missing from mainstream scholarship and activism. This neglect persists even in fields such as mobility studies and animal studies that would otherwise seem to have a vested interest in the topic. This book aims to bring roadkill to the foreground of current discussions among scholars and activists in these fields in order to demonstrate that roadkill is a uniquely important site from which to understand and contest the machinations of the dominant social order. It argues that a careful examination of roadkill can help both to uncover the hidden violence of contemporary human-centered systems of mobility and to develop alternative modes of mobility for a renewed social life in common with our more-than-human kin.

Giorgio Agamben has come to be recognized in recent years as one of the most provocative and imaginative thinkers in contemporary philosophy and political theory. The essays gathered together in this volume shed light on his extensive body of writings and assess the significance of his work for debates across a wide range of fields, including philosophy, political theory, Jewish studies, and animal studies. The authors discuss material extending across the entire range of Agamben's writings, including such early works as Language and Death and more recent and widely acknowledged works such as Homo Sacer. Readers will find useful discussions of key concepts and theories in Agamben's work, such as sovereignty and bare life, along with more critical analyses of the political stakes and consequences of his theoretical and political interventions.

Zoographies challenges the anthropocentrism of the Continental philosophical tradition and advances the position that, while some distinctions are valid, humans and animals are best viewed as part of an ontological whole. Matthew Calarco draws on ethological and evolutionary evidence and the work of Heidegger, who called for a radicalized responsibility toward all forms of life. He also turns to Levinas, who raised questions about the nature and scope of ethics; Agamben, who held the anthropological machine responsible for the horrors of the twentieth century; and Derrida, who initiated a nonanthropocentric ethics. Calarco concludes with a call for the abolition of classical versions of the human-animal distinction and asks that we devise new ways of thinking about and living with animals.

Zoographies challenges the anthropocentrism of the Continental philosophical tradition and advances the position that, while some distinctions are valid, humans and animals are best viewed as part of an ontological whole. Matthew Calarco draws on ethological and evolutionary evidence and the work of Heidegger, who called for a radicalized responsibility toward all forms of life. He also turns to Levinas, who raised questions about the nature and scope of ethics; Agamben, who held the anthropological machine responsible for the horrors of the twentieth century; and Derrida, who initiated a nonanthropocentric ethics. Calarco concludes with a call for the abolition of classical versions of the human-animal distinction and asks that we devise new ways of thinking about and living with animals.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A transformative vision for human-animal relations on personal, social, and environmental levels.

The Three Ethologies offers a fresh, affirmative vision for rebuilding human-animal relations. Venturing beyond the usual scholarly and activist emphasis on restricting harm, Matthew Calarco develops a new philosophy for understanding animal behavior--a practice known as ethology--through three distinct but interrelated lenses: mental ethology, which rebuilds individual subjectivity; social ethology, which rethinks our communal relations; and environmental ethology, which reconfigures our relationship to the land we co-inhabit with our animal kin. Drawing on developments in philosophy, (eco)feminist theory, critical geography, Indigenous studies, and the environmental humanities, Calarco casts an inspiring vision of how ethological living can help us to reimagine our ideas about goodness, truth, and beauty.

The Continental Ethics Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writings on ethics and moral philosophy from the major figures in Continental thought. The carefully selected readings are divided into five sections: Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, Existentialism, Critical Theory, Postmodernism, Psychoanalysis and Feminism. All of the authors and their writings are introduced and placed in philosophical context by the editors. The Continental Ethics Reader is an ideal point of entry to the most pressing issues and most important thinkers of the Continental tradition, and provides a thorough and much needed introduction to the field.