Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:54:55.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Animals, Anomalies, and Inorganic Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

De-oedipalizing the Animal Other

The animal has ceased to be one of the privileged terms that indexes the european subject's relation to otherness. The metaphysics of otherness rested on an assumed political anatomy, implicitly modeled on ideals of whiteness, masculinity, normality, youth, and health. All other modes of embodiment, in the sense of both dialectical otherness (nonwhite, nonmasculine, nonnormal, nonyoung, nonhealthy) and categorical otherness (zoomorphic, disabled, or malformed), were pathologized and cast on the other side of normality—that is, viewed as anomalous, deviant, and monstrous. This morphological normativity was inherently anthropocentric, gendered, and racialized. It confirmed the dominant subject as much in what he included as his core characteristics as in what he excluded as other.

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Ansell Pearson, Keith. Viroid Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Balibar, Étienne. We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Trans-national Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004. Print. Trans. of Nous, citoyens d'Europe? Les frontières, l'État, le peuple. Paris: Decouverte, 2001.Google Scholar
Rosi, Braidotti. Metamorphoses: Towards A Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Rosi, Braidotti. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
Rosi, Braidotti. Transpositions: Of Nomadic Ethics. Cambridge: Polity, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. New York: Seaver-Viking, 1977. Print. Trans. of L'anti-Oedipe. Capitalisme et schizophrénie I. Paris: Minuit, 1972.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Print. Trans. of Mille plateaux. Capitalisme et schizophrénie II. Paris: Minuit, 1980.Google Scholar
Anthony, Faiola. “Animal Trafficking Sucks Life from Amazon Rain Forest.” Guardian Weekly 27 Dec. 2001–2 Jan. 2002: 7. Print.Google Scholar
Gatens, Moira, and Lloyd, Genevieve. Collective Imaginings: Spinoza, Past and Present. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Paul, Gilroy. Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of Relation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997. Print. Trans. of Poétique de la relation. Paris: Gallimard, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, Gabriele, and Braidotti, Rosi, eds. Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women's Studies. London: Zed, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Guardian Weekly 14–20 Aug. 2003: 2. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donna, Haraway. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Donna, Haraway. Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_Oncomouse™. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Edgar, Morin. Penser l'Europe. Paris: Gallimard, 1987. Print.Google Scholar
Nicholas, Rose. “The Politics of Life Itself.” Theory, Culture and Society 18.6 (2001): 130. Print.Google Scholar
Steven, Shaviro. “Two Lessons from Burroughs.” Posthuman Bodies. Ed. Halberstam, Judith and Livingston, Ira. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. 3856. Print.Google Scholar
Vron, Ware. Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History. London: Verso, 1992. Print.Google Scholar