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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
What We Owe To Our Audience: The Hermeneutical Responsibility Of Fiction Creators, Kathryn Wojtkiewicz
What We Owe To Our Audience: The Hermeneutical Responsibility Of Fiction Creators, Kathryn Wojtkiewicz
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The goal of this project is to provide a theoretical underpinning for the belief that creators of fiction should dedicate time to diversifying the cast of characters in their fictions, and to avoiding harmful stereotypes when doing so. I establish this as a hermeneutical responsibility: because of the epistemic influence fictions can wield over their audiences, trafficking in harmful stereotypes of marginalized identities (instances of which I call Bad Representation Problems) or excluding marginalized identities entirely (which I call No Representation Problems) from one’s fictions can reinforce harmful beliefs about real people with those identities. The more popular the fiction, …
Wildlife Emotions: Animal Rights As Examined Through A Cognitivist Lens, Kristy Schultz
Wildlife Emotions: Animal Rights As Examined Through A Cognitivist Lens, Kristy Schultz
The Hilltop Review
The aim of this article is to revisit and redefine the scope of a Kantian rights-based theory to include non-human animals. Generally, rights-based theories are predicated on a Kantian deontology that excludes all but rational subjects from possessing of basic rights. Historically, non-human animals—once thought to act on impulse and desire alone—have been excluded from rights-based considerations. However, more recent literature from emotions theorist Martha Nussbaum suggests an alternative picture for non-human animals. Cognitivist theories like Nussbaum’s, alongside intensive scientific research, support the notion that non-human animals show signs of intentionality and possess the capacity to emote. If Nussbaum’s theory …