What Are the Animals to Us?: Approaches from Science, Religion, Folklore, Literature, and Art - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 157233472X ISBN 13: 9781572334724

Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press, 2006

Synopsis

From the first woolly mammoths painted in exquisite detail on Paleolithic cave walls to contemporary depictions of anthropomorphized mice as heroes of animated films and fiction, animals have played crucial roles in human cultures around the world. In What Are the Animals to Us? scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines explore the diverse meanings of animals in science, religion, folklore, literature, and art.The contributors focus especially on analyzing cultural products about animals. The chapters in the first section of the book, “From Totems to Tales,” interpret folklore of cats, foxes, snakes, and frogs in various cultures, while the chapters in thesection on “Real Toads in Imaginary Gardens” concern themselves with literary and historical representations of reindeer, wild birds, tigers, and other animals. The chapters in “Holy Dogs and Scared Bunnies” consider the roles of animals in art and religion. In the section on “Ethics, Ethology, and Konrad Lorenz,” the contributors evaluate the legacy of this cofounder of the science of animal behavior in the light of recent revelations about Lorenz’s National Socialist past. Finally, an extensive afterword offers theoretical and practical ways in which readers might better understand animal others in their own right, and discusses the ethical implications of such an understanding.Accessible and lively, What Are the Animals to Us? is a uniquely wide-ranging and well-written interdisciplinary introduction to the emerging field of animal studies that offers not just novel approaches to the study of what animals mean to people but also fresh insights into a broad range of topics, from environmental history to animal behavior, postmodern art to Christian theology.

About this title

About the Author

Dave Aftandilian is preceptor and program coordinator for the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Chicago. He is editor in chief of the “Nature in Legend and Story Newsletter” and cofounder of the University of Chicago Religion and Environment Initiative. Marion W. Copeland is tutor and lecturer in the M.S. program at the Center for Animals and Public Policy, Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and professor emerita of English at Holyoke Community College. She is the author of Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) and Cockroach. David Scofield Wilson is senior lecturer emeritus in American Studies at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of In the Presence of Nature and coeditor of Rooted in America: Foodlore of Popular Fruits and Vegetables.

Review

“A fine compendium of uniformly excellent essays.”—Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado; author of Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues and editor of the Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 157233472X
• ISBN 13: 9781572334724
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Aftandilian Dave