Creaturely Forms in Contemporary Literature: Narrating the War Against Animals (New Horizons in Contemporary Writing)

This book began its life as a doctoral thesis at the University of Leeds. There, I benefited immensely from the guidance, encouragement and meticulous commentary of my supervisors, Helen Finch and Sam Durrant, as well as from the incisive criticisms of my examiners, Bob McKay and Graham Huggan. I am grateful to Stuart Taberner for his insightful reflections on early drafts. I also extend my gratitude to Jane Featherstone, whose generous donation to the university funded my studies. The ideas and arguments of this book have grown out of countless critical conversations with many teachers and intellectual comrades. At Leeds, I want to thank everyone who joined my Creaturely Life reading group. To Ian Fairley and Nick Ray, for listening intently. To Jane Taylor, for your playful curiosity about the subject-object continuum. To Daniel Hartley, for energizing the intellectual atmosphere. And to Stefan Skrimshire, for your collaboration and mentorship. For friendship and solidarity along the way, especially during two rounds of strike action in the snow, I thank Angelos Koutsourakis, "We are living through a period of planetary crisis, a time in which the mass production and consumption of some animals is made possible by the mass extinction of many others. What is the role of literature in responding to this war against animals? How might literary criticism read for animals? In Creaturely Forms in Contemporary Literature, Dominic O'Key develops the bold argument that deep attention to literary form enables us to rethink human-animal relations. Through chapters on W. G. Sebald, J. M. Coetzee and Mahasweta Devi, as well as close readings of works by Arundhati Roy and Richard Powers, O'Key reveals how literary forms can unsettle the fictions of human supremacy and craft alternative, creaturely forms of relation. An intervention into both the humanism of literary theory and the representational focus of animal studies, this provocative work makes the case for a new formalism in light of our obligation to fellow creatures."-- Provided by publisher Introduction -- 1 The war against animals: Reading for creaturely life -- 2 W. G. Sebald's creaturely melancholia -- 3 J. M. Coetzee's creaturely trouble -- 4 Mahasweta Devi's creaturely love -- Conclusion: From anthropological machines to creaturely forms