Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal (Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, 39)

Animal Alterity uses readings of science fiction texts to explore the centrality of animals for our ways of thinking about human. It argues that the academic field of animal studies and the popular genre of science fiction share a number a critical concerns: thinking about otherness and the nature of human being; desiring communication across species difference; and interrogating the social and ethical consequences of changes in science and technology. We are living in a complex set of contradictory and conflicting relations with non-human animals. This book maps this complex terrain, arguing that we are better able to perceive options for a transformed politics if we perceive our various material relations with non-human animals within a deeper understanding of the functions of the category ‘animal’. This Title Uses Readings Of Science Fiction Texts To Explore How Animals Are Central To Our Perception Of Humanity. Arguing That The Academic Field Of Animal Studies And The Popular Genre Of Science Fiction Share A Number A Critical Concerns, The Author Expresses An Urgent Need To Reconsider The Human-animal Boundary In A World Of Genetic Engineering, Factory Farming, Species Extinctions, And Increasing Evidence Of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, And Tool Use. Mapping The Complex Terrain Of Human Relations With Non-human Animals, The Book Offers An Intervention Into The Contentious Ongoing Discussions Of The Post-human. Always-already Meat : The Human-animal Boundary And Ethics -- The Mirror Test : Humans, Animals And Sentience -- The Animal Responds : Language, Animals And Science Fiction -- 'the Female Is Somewhat Duller' : Gender And Animals -- Sapien Orientalism : Animals, Colonialism, Science Fiction -- Existing For Their Own Reasons : Animal Aliens -- A Rope Over An Abyss : Human As Animals -- The Modern Epimetheus : Animals And/as Technology. Sherryl Vint. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [245]-256) And Index. Animal Alterity uses readings of science fiction texts to explore the centrality of animals for our ways of thinking about being human. It argues that the academic field of animal studies and the popular genre of science fiction share a number of critical concerns: thinking about otherness and the nature of human being; desiring communication across species difference; and interrogating the social and ethical consequences of changes in science and technology We are living in a complex set of contradictory and confilicting relations with non-human animals. This book maps this complex terrain, arguing that we are better able to perceive options for a transformed politics if we perceive our various material relations wiht non-human animals withing a deeper understanding of the functions of the category ànimal' Ànimal Alterity is an engaging, intelligent study which is perceptively and accessibly theorised, and refreshingly innovative.' Dr Peter Wright, Edge Hill University --Book Jacket Professor Philip Armstrong, Co-director, New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies, University of Canterbury T̀his book challenged my thinking and extended my reading pleasure, and you can't ask for more than that.'