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 …

Reflections On Anthropocentrism, Anthropomorphism And Impossible Fiction: Towards A Typological Spectrum Of Fictional Animals, Sam Cadman

Animal Studies Journal

There is growing consensus among animal studies scholars that fictional representations of animals, far from representing a discrete site of literary theory, offer insights into broader sociocultural forces and systems relevant to human-animal relations. This article aims to contribute to this developing corpus of interdisciplinary knowledge, and to aid attempts by creative practitioners to self-reflexively challenge the human/animal binary, by laying groundwork for a typological spectrum that might enable assessment of the relative anthropocentrism manifested by different conceptions of fictional animals. I consider philosophical and ethical questions surrounding attempted representations of animal subjectivity in human language, and employ key theoretical …