In these multidisciplinary essays, academic scholars and animal experts explore the nature of animal minds and the methods humans conventionally and unconventionally use to understand them. The collection features chapters by scholars working in psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, literary studies, and art, as well as chapters by and about people who live and work with animals, including the founder of a sanctuary for chickens, a fur trapper, a popular canine psychologist, a horse trainer, and an art photographer who captures everyday contact between humans and their animal companions.
Divided into five sections, the collection first considers the ways that humans live with animals and the influence of cohabitation on their perceptions of animals' minds. It follows with an examination of anthropomorphism as both a guide and hindrance to mapping animal consciousness. Chapters next examine the effects of embodiment on animals' minds and the role of animal-human interembodiment on humans' understandings of animals' minds. Final sections identify historical representations of difference between human and animal consciousness and their relevance to pre-established cultural attitudes, as well as the ways that representations of animals' minds target particular audiences and sometimes produce problematic outcomes. The editors conclude with a discussion of the relationship between the book's chapters and two pressing themes: the connection between human beliefs about animals' minds and human ethical behavior, and the challenges and conditions for knowing the minds of animals. By inviting readers to compare and contrast multiple, uncommon points of view, this collection offers a unique encounter with the diverse perspectives and theories now shaping animal studies.
- Critical Perspectives on Animals
- [ Contents ]
- Engaging Animal Minds: Matters of Perspective | Robert W. Mitchell and Julie A. Smith
- Part I | Living with Animals
- 1. The Mental Life of Chickens as Observed Through Their Social Relationships | Karen Davis
- 2. Tangible Affiliations: Photographic Representations of Touch Between Human and Animal Companions | Julia Schlosser
- 3. Beaver Voices: Grey Owl and Interspecies Communication | Albert Braz
- Part II | Anthropomorphisms
- 4. The Historical Animal Mind: “Sagacity” in Nineteenth-Century Britain | Rob Boddice
- 5. Science of the Monkey Mind: Primate Penchants and Human Pursuits | Sara Waller
- 6. Can Animals Make “Art”?: Popular and Scientific Discourses About Expressivity and Cognition in Primates | Jane C. Desmond
- Part III | Embodiments and Interembodiments
- 7. Toward a Privileging of the Nonverbal: Communication, Corporeal Synchrony, and Transcendence in Humans and Horses | Gala Argent
- 8. Thinking Like a Whale: Interdisciplinary Methods for the Study of Human-Animal Interactions | Traci Warkentin
- 9. The Meaning of “Energy” in Cesar Millan’s Discourse on Dogs | Julie A. Smith
- 10. Inner Experience as Perception(like) with Attitude | Robert W. Mitchell
- 11. The Voice of the Living: Becoming-Artistic and the Creaturely Refrain in D. H. Lawrence’s “Tortoise Shout” | Carrie Rohman
- 12. Unique Attributes of the Elephant Mind: Perspectives on the Human Mind | Benjamin L. Hart and Lynette A. Hart
- 13. Brains, Bodies, and Minds: Against a Hierarchy of Animal Faculties | David Dillard-Wright
- Part IV | Animal Versus Human Consciousness
- 14. Rethinking the Cognitive Abilities of Animals | Gary Steiner
- 15. Assessing Evidence for Animal Consciousness: The Question of Episodic Memory | Paula Droege
- 16. What Are Animals Conscious Of? | Alain Morin
- Part V | Tailoring Representations to Audiences
- 17. Chimpanzees Attribute Beliefs?: A New Approach to Answering an Old Nettled Question | Robert W. Lurz
- 18. Minding the Animal in Contemporary Art | Jessica Ullrich
- 19. Popular Beliefs and Understanding of the Dolphin Mind | Jessica Sickler, John Fraser, and Diana Reiss
- 20. Perceiving the Minds of Animals: Sociological Warfare, the Social Imaginary, and Mediated Representations of Animals Shaping Human Understandings of Animals | Brian M. Lowe
- Part VI | Synthesis
- 21. Animal Ethics and Animals’ Minds: Reflections | Julie A. Smith and Robert W. Mitchell
- Contributors
- Index
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
Login to your account