Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World (WLU Press,
2008) challenged cultural studies to include nonhuman animals within its
purview. While the "question of the animal" ricochets across the academy
and reverberates within the public sphere, Animal Subjects 2.0 builds
on the previous book and takes stock of this explosive turn. It focuses
on both critical animal studies and posthumanism, two intertwining
conversations that ask us to reconsider common sense understandings of
other animals and what it means to be human.
This collection demonstrates that many pressing contemporary social
problems--how and why the oppression and exploitation of our species
persist--are entangled with our treatment of other animals and the
environment. Decades into the interrogation of our ethical and political
responsibilities toward other animals, fissures within the academy
deepen as the interest in animal ethics and politics proliferates.
Although ideological fault lines have inspired important debates about
how to address the very material concerns informing these theoretical
discussions, Animal Subjects 2.0 brings together divergent voices to
suggest how to foster richer human-animal relations, and to cultivate
new ways of thinking and being with the rest of animalkind. This
collection demonstrates that appreciation of difference, not just
similarity, is necessary for a more inclusive and compassionate world.
Linking issues of gender, disability, culture, race, and sexuality into
species, Animal Subjects 2.0 maps vibrant developments in the emergent
fields of critical animal studies and posthumanist thought.
