Beastly Modernisms: The Figure of the Animal in Modernist Literature and Culture

Description

A contemporary collection of scholarly essays exploring the vibrant intersections of modernist studies and critical animal studies Presents the diverse range of intersections between modernist and critical animal studies Includes cutting-edge research contributions from a heterogenous and interdisciplinary range of modernist scholars Offers a key research resource for scholars in modernist studies, critical animal studies and cognate areas Provides a classroom-ready collection of essays relevant to undergraduate and graduate courses on modernist writing and critical animal studies The intersection of modernist studies and critical animal studies is a new, progressive field that raises crucial questions about what it means to live with animals in modernity. Beastly Modernisms gathers essays from leading figures in the field alongside emerging scholars who, together, revisit canonical figures and decentre the canons and geographies of modernism. Grounded in interdisciplinary approaches, the contributions work with cultural history and theoretical frameworks to unearth the multispecies dynamics of twentieth-century literature and culture. The chapters in Beastly Modernisms present a diverse range of approaches and topics, exploring dogs in Virginia Woolf to Republican China, animals and gender in surrealism to African-American texts, Sámi reindeer to rat propaganda, modernist jellyfish to metamodernist beasts, 1940s poetry to Indian Partition stories, charting the current and future state of modernist animal studies. CONTENTS FIGURES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION: ‘BEASTLY MODERNISMS’ Part I: Companion Species 1 META MODERNIST BEASTS, OR FLUSH’S FUTURE: CERIDWEN DOVEY’S ONLY THE ANIMALS AND SIGRID NUNEZ’S MITZ: THE MARMOSET OF BLOOMSBURY 2 CAN FLUSH COUNT?: VIRGINIA WOOLF, ANIMALITY AND NUMBERS 3 CANINE COMPANIONS, RACE AND AFFECTIVE ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN FLORENCE AYSCOUGH’S THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CHINESE DOG (1926) AND MARY GAUNT’S A BROKEN JOURNEY (1919) Part II : Beastly Traces 4 MAKING AN IMPRESSION DEEPLY : AUTHORISING ANIMALS IN D. H. LAWRENCE 5 FOLLOWING THE BEAST FAMILIAR: DJUNA BARNES’S FAMILY DRAMAS 6 THE TAXIDERMIC IMAGINARY IN MODERNIST LITERAT URE Part III: Animal, Nation, Empire 7 SPECIES CLEANSING: THE RHETORIC OF RAT CONTROL IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF POLAND 1945–1956 8 THE BARKING DOG AND CRYING BIRD IN PARTITION STORIES: BEASTLY MODERNISM AND THE SUBALTERN ANIMISM OF MANTO, RAKESH AND ANAND 9 RESISTANT REINDEERS: HUMAN–ANIMAL RELATIONS AND CULTURAL SELF-APPROPRIATION IN SÁMI ART AND LITERATURE Part IV: Intersections, Encounters 10. ANIMAL–HUMAN ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE CANADIAN WILD ANIMAL STORIES OF CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS 11 ENCOUNTERING FEMALE HUMAN ANIMAL BECOMINGS IN LEONORA CARRINGTON ’S SURREALIST HYBRID TALES 12 MODERN INTERSECTIONS: READING ANITA SCOTT COLEMAN’S ANIMALS Part V: Extinction, War, Proliferation 13 1940s AVIAN NOIR 14 UNHOMING THE PIGEON: AHMED ALI’S TWILIGHT IN DELHI 15. THE MODERNIST JELLY FISH AFTERWORD: THE ANIMAL IN THE MIRROR NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Index