Speaking for Animals: Animal Autobiographical Writing

Description

For thousands of years, in the myths and folktales of people around the world, animals have spoken in human tongues. Western and non-Western literary and folkloric traditions are filled with both speaking animals, some of whom even narrate or write their own autobiographies. Animals speak, famously, in children’s stories and in cartoons and films, and today, social networking sites and blogs are both sites in which animals―primarily pets―write about their daily lives and interests. Speaking for Animals is a compilation of chapters written from a variety of disciplines that attempts to get a handle on this cross cultural and longstanding tradition of animal speaking and writing. It looks at speaking animals in literature, religious texts, poetry, social networking sites, comic books, and in animal welfare materials and even library catalogs, and addresses not just the "whys" of speaking animals, but the implications, for the animals and for ourselves. Cover Speaking for Animals Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Figures Introduction PART I (Mis) Representing Animals: The Limits and Possibilities of Representation 1 What Do We Want from Talking Animals? Reflections on Literary Representations of Animal Voices and Minds 2 Our Animals, Ourselves: Representing Animal Minds in Timothy and The White Bone 3 Investigations of a Dog, by a Dog: Between Anthropocentrism and Canine-Centrism PART II Animals in Human Traditions 4 With Dogs and Lions as Witnesses: Speaking Animals in the History of Christianity 5 The Speaking Animal: Non-Human Voices in Comics 6 Who’ll Let the Dogs In? Animals, Authorship, and the Library Catalog PART III Animal Self, Human Self 7 Mistresses as Masters: Voicing Female Power Through the Subject Animal in Two Nineteenth-Century Animal Autobiographies 8 Catster.com: Creating Feline Identities Online 9 Identity, Community, and Grief: The Role of Bunspace in Human and Rabbit Lives PART IV Interspecies Communication and Connection 10 Talking Dogs, Companion Capital, and the Limits of Bio-Political Fitness 11 If We Could Talk to the Animals: On Changing the (Post) Human Subject PART V Speaking and Knowing: Accessing Animal Subjectivity 12 The Power of Testimony: The Speaking Animal’s Plea for Understanding in a Selection of Eighteenth-Century British Poetry 13 “Straight from the Horse’s Mouth”: Equine Memoirs and Autobiographies 14 First Friend, First Words: Speaking of/to Talking Dogs PART VI The Ethics and Value of Speaking for Animals 15 Horse Talk: Horses and Human(e) Discourses 16 Speaking For Dogs: The Role of Dog Biographies in Improving Canine Welfare in Bangkok, Thailand 17 Billy and Kani Contributors Index