Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Akbar, My Heart: Caregiving For A Dog During Covid-19, Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond

Animal Studies Journal

Covid-19 originates with humans’ instrumentalization of other animals, an “inconvenient truth” elided by scientists procuring a vaccine while refusing to contend with the captivity, slaughter and encroachment on wild animals’ habitats that brought the fatal disease upon us. The interlocking of homo sapiens’ and other species’ suffering is, of course, glaringly evidenced by disproportionate Black and brown death due to Covid-19 worldwide, itself intensifying the foundational pandemic of anti-Black violence.

“Akbar, My Heart” contemplates transpecies loss in a relational frame, attending to the entanglement of white supremacy with anthropocentrism at the same time that I reflect on caregiving for my …

Learning To Read Equine Agency: Sense And Sensitivity At The Intersection Of Scientific, Tacit And Situated Knowledges, Sanna Karkulehto, Nora Schuurman

Animal Studies Journal

The aim of this essay is to address the challenges and problems in communicating with horses and interpreting their communication in everyday handling and training situations. We seek ways to learn more about equine communication and agency in the prevention of cruelty against animals and in enhancing animal welfare. We ask how it would be possible to learn to read the subtle signs of equine communication and agency in a sensible, sensitive, and ethical way to increase the health and wellbeing of horses that humans interact with. We have placed this theoretical examination in a multidisciplinary framework that consists of …

Turning Seventy, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

The author's ruminations on the occasion of him reaching the age of 70 years old.

Tim Key And Gogol's Overcoat: Review 2, Kari Hesthamar

RadioDoc Review

The documentary Tim Key and Gogol’s Overcoat is based on the short story The Overcoat by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. The Ukrainian-born Russian was one of the major authors of the 19th century, who tried to demonstrate what Tsarist Russia entailed. The Overcoat, published in 1842, is a satire of the civil service and petty officialdom. It is about how an external object transforms a person's self-esteem and others' opinions of a man of low rank.

As the program unfolds, the boundaries between fact and fiction become more blurred, and the weave between St Petersburg and London, between Akaky Akakievich (protagonist …

Tim Key And Gogol's Overcoat: Review 1, Michelle Rayner

RadioDoc Review

This finely wrought fusion of fiction and realism is an illuminating, enchanting, listening experience. On one level it can be heard as a playful riff on absurdism, on art, by a clever comedian (Tim Key) who harbours an obsession with one book and its author: Gogol’s The Overcoat. And yet on another level it offers a wry and gentle insight into, among other things, the nature of the human condition. Key's tone is intimate and confessional as he attempts to deconstruct the meaning (or meaninglessness) of Gogol’s story. The program wears its structural architecture lightly, combining the element of …