Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :The Question of the Animal
Inasmuch as the notion of what constitutes animality has traditionally been figured over and against what is supposed to constitute humanity, when the notion of humanity is undercut, then the concept of animality suffers a similar fate. The effect of the displacement of the human-animal distinction is that, today, thought is no longer certain how to proceed in this domain. Should the human-animal distinction be redrawn along different lines? And if so, along which lines, precisely? Or should it be abandoned altogether?
Hoo-boy. Let that one settle in a little bit.
Calarco's flow is something like this: animality and humanity have been understood as opposites, as binaries, like "good" and "bad". You can't have one without the other. We define them with reference to the other—humanity is the lack of animality, animality is the lack of humanity.
Calarco and other posthumanist philosophers are working to undercut the idea of humanity, and, he tells us, when this happens the idea of "animality" is also undercut. Since they're entangled like two threads of a single rope, the strand breaks apart when you mess with one of them.
So if this is so, he suggests, we have some explaining to do—this whole human/animal divide has been pretty dang important to human society—politics, ethics, government, science, the medical system, heck even sports—that football is made of pigskin. Without a firm division between the human and the animal, some people might start to get antsy about, well, everything.
So what to do? Must we just redraw the lines in a new way? Or can we dispense with them altogether? This is a big meta-question for animal studies. Because it's such a big question, we're not going to be able to answer this one for a while, if ever. In the meantime theorists will keep trying to pin the tail on this moving, live donkey (with blindfolds on).
Quote :The Question of the Animal
There is no doubt that we need to think unheard-of-thoughts about animals, that we need new languages, new artworks, new histories, even new sciences and philosophies.
This quote suggests that we can actually really get excited about animal studies. No Stuffy Philosopher talk here! This quote reads like a manifesto, with big bold ideas for the future that we get to create by thinking about humans' and animals' place in the world.
For Calarco, these new worlds and new ideas are going to be produced through the arts and culture. Check out how he calls for "new languages." Our language involves a ton of animal metaphors and figurative language derived from the nonhuman world—just think about the expressions "clever as a fox" or "dog-eat-dog world" or referring to mindlessness as "sheep-like." How can we build on this animal-heavy foundation to speak and write a language that enables animal agency to be given its due? How can we change the way we refer to animals?
He also calls for "new artworks." Wait: does this mean more paintings of dogs playing poker? Nope, it refers to contemporary artists working in the realm of animality, like these guys.
What about "new histories"? Environmental and animal historians are revising all kinds of ideas—see Reviel Netz's book Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity for an example of the intertwined history of humans, animals, and new technologies.
Yup, Calarco wants you for the future of animal studies.