Bringing together leading scholars from Belgium, Canada, France, and the United States, French Thinking about Animals makes available for the first time to an Anglophone readership a rich variety of interdisciplinary approaches to the animal question in France. While the work of French thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari has been available in English for many years, French Thinking about Animals opens up a much broader cross-cultural dialogue within animal studies. These original essays, many of which have been translated especially for this volume, draw on anthropology, ethology, geography, history, legal studies, phenomenology, and philosophy to interrogate human-animal relationships. They explore the many ways in which animals signify in French history, society, and intellectual history, illustrating the exciting new perspectives being developed about the animal question in the French-speaking world today. Built on the strength and diversity of these contributions, French Thinking about Animals demonstrates the interdisciplinary and internationalism that are needed if we hope to transform the interactions of humans and nonhuman animals in contemporary society.
ContentsForeword by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène VilmerIntroductionPart 1. Animal HistoriesBuilding an Animal History - Éric BaratayA Tale of Three Chameleons: The Animal between Science and Literature in the Age of Louis XIV - Peter SahlinsThe Colonial Zoo - Walter PutnamPart 2. Animal Philosophies and RepresentationsThe Unexpected Resemblance between Dualism and Continuism, or How to Break a Philosophical Stalemate - Florence BurgatLike the Fingers of the Hand: Thinking the Human in the Texture of Animality - Dominique LestelAnimality and Contemporary French Literary Studies: Overview and Perspectives - Anne SimonPart 3. Animal IntimaciesWhy “I Had Not Read Derrida”: Often Too Close, Always Too Far Away - Vinciane DespretChercher la chatte: Derrida’s Queer Feminine Animality - Carla FrecceroPaternalism or Legal Protection of Animals? Bestiality and the French Judicial System - Marcela IacubPart 4. Animals and EnvironmentOn Being Living Beings: Renewing Perceptions of Our World, Our Society, and Ourselves - Isabelle DelannoyThe Greenway: A Study of Shared Animal/Human Mobility - Nathalie BlancWild, Domestic, or Technical: What Status for Animals? - Marie-Hélène ParizeauBibliographyContributorsIndex
