Cynewulf is one of the few named poets from the Anglo-Saxon period whose works have survived. Although little is known about his life, his poetic legacy provides insight into the religious and literary culture of early medieval England.
Life of Cynewulf
The details of Cynewulf's life remain largely a mystery. Scholars have pieced together information about him primarily from his surviving works, where he signed his name using runic letters. These signatures are embedded within the text of his poems.
Speculative Background:
Period: Cynewulf likely flourished in the late 8th or early 9th century.
Occupation: He may have been a cleric or monk, given the religious nature of his writings.
Location: He might have been associated with a monastic center, such as the abbeys in Northumbria or Mercia, regions known for their literary activity during this period.
Works of Cynewulf
Cynewulf's known works are religious poems that reflect deep Christian faith and knowledge of biblical stories. Four poems are traditionally attributed to him:
1. Juliana:
Summary: This poem tells the story of Saint Juliana, a Christian martyr who endures persecution and remains steadfast in her faith despite severe trials. She ultimately triumphs over her pagan suitor and the devil through her faith in God.
Themes: Martyrdom, Christian steadfastness, and divine intervention.
2. Elene:
Summary: "Elene" recounts the legend of Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, and her journey to find the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified. Through divine guidance, she discovers the cross and brings it back to the Christian world.
Themes: Faith, divine guidance, and the power of relics.
3. The Fates of the Apostles:
Summary: This shorter poem provides an account of the lives and martyrdoms of the twelve apostles. It highlights their missionary work and ultimate sacrifices for spreading Christianity.
Themes: Apostolic zeal, martyrdom, and the spread of Christianity.
4. Christ II (The Ascension):
Summary: This poem is the second part of a three-part series collectively known as "Christ." It focuses on the Ascension of Christ into heaven and the implications of this event for Christian theology and salvation.
Themes: Ascension, salvation, and Christian eschatology.
Literary Significance
1. Use of Runes:
Cynewulf’s use of runic signatures within his poems is a distinctive feature. These runes not only spell out his name but also contribute to the mystical and religious atmosphere of his works.
2. Religious Themes:
His works are deeply imbued with Christian doctrine and reflect the religious fervor of the Anglo-Saxon period. They emphasize faith, divine intervention, and the triumph of Christianity.
3. Poetic Style:
Cynewulf’s poetry is characterized by its alliterative verse, a hallmark of Old English poetry. His use of imagery, metaphor, and rich language demonstrates the sophisticated literary tradition of the time.
4. Influence:
Cynewulf’s works have had a lasting impact on the study of Old English literature. They provide valuable insights into the religious and cultural milieu of early medieval England.
Legacy
Cynewulf remains a significant figure in the study of Old English literature. His contributions to religious poetry highlight the blend of Christian and Anglo-Saxon traditions and underscore the importance of monastic scholarship in preserving and fostering literary culture during this period. Despite the mystery surrounding his life, Cynewulf’s signed works continue to be celebrated for their theological depth and poetic artistry.
The Old English period, also known as the Anglo-Saxon period, spans from the 5th century to the Norman Conquest in 1066. It is a foundational era in the history of England and its language. Here’s a detailed overview of the historical background of the Old English period:
Migration and Settlement (5th-6th Centuries)
1. Collapse of Roman Britain:
After the withdrawal of Roman legions in the early 5th century, Britain faced invasions from various tribes, leading to the decline of Roman influence and infrastructure.
2. Anglo-Saxon Migration:
Tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians began migrating to Britain from what is now Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
These groups established several kingdoms, including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and East Anglia.
Formation of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (6th-8th Centuries)
1. Kingdoms and Conflicts:
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were often in conflict with each other, striving for dominance.
Notable early kings include Æthelbert of Kent and Edwin of Northumbria.
2. Christianization:
The conversion to Christianity began with the mission of St. Augustine in 597, sent by Pope Gregory the Great.
Monasteries became centers of learning and culture, producing important literary works.
Viking Invasions and the Rise of Wessex (8th-10th Centuries)
1. Viking Raids:
Starting in the late 8th century, Viking raids disrupted the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, with major attacks on monasteries like Lindisfarne in 793.
The Vikings eventually settled in parts of England, leading to the establishment of the Danelaw in the north and east.
2. Alfred the Great:
King Alfred of Wessex (reigned 871-899) is renowned for his defense against the Vikings, his legal reforms, and his promotion of education and literacy.
Alfred’s successors continued to consolidate power, eventually leading to the unification of England.
Unification and Consolidation (10th-11th Centuries)
1. Unification Under Æthelstan:
Æthelstan (reigned 924-939) is often considered the first king of a unified England, extending his rule over previously independent territories.
2. Continued Viking Threats:
England faced renewed Viking threats, including invasions by Norsemen from Denmark and Norway.
King Cnut the Great, a Viking leader, ruled over England, Denmark, and Norway in the early 11th century, establishing a North Sea empire.
The Norman Conquest (1066)
1. Edward the Confessor:
Edward the Confessor’s reign (1042-1066) saw relative peace but also increasing Norman influence in England.
His death without a clear heir led to a succession crisis.
2. Battle of Hastings:
In 1066, William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, marking the end of the Old English period.
The Norman Conquest brought significant cultural and linguistic changes, blending Anglo-Saxon and Norman French elements.
Cultural and Literary Developments
1. Old English Literature:
Notable works include "Beowulf," "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," "The Dream of the Rood," and various religious and poetic texts.
Monastic scribes played a key role in preserving and producing manuscripts.
2. Language:
Old English, a Germanic language, evolved from the dialects of the Anglo-Saxon settlers.
The language was highly inflected, with a complex system of noun declensions and verb conjugations.
Significance
The Old English period laid the foundations for the English language and nation. The cultural, political, and linguistic developments of this era have had a lasting impact, influencing subsequent historical and literary traditions in England.
Widsith is an Old English poem found in the Exeter Book, one of the oldest and most important collections of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The poem is often considered a treasure trove of historical and legendary names and tribes, providing a rich tapestry of the early medieval world. Here's a summary of its content and significance:
Summary
Introduction:
The poem is presented as the account of a wandering bard named Widsith, whose name means "far-traveller." Widsith recounts his journeys and the various courts he has visited.
Catalogue of Kings and Tribes:
Widsith lists numerous rulers, tribes, and peoples he has encountered in his travels. This section includes historical and legendary figures, blending myth and reality.
Notable Kings and Heroes:
Some prominent names mentioned include Eormanric, king of the Ostrogoths; Hrothgar and Hrothulf from the Danish royal family (also mentioned in "Beowulf"); and Offa, a legendary king of the Angles.
Praise of Generosity:
Widsith praises the generosity of the kings and nobles he has met, emphasizing the importance of the reciprocal relationship between a lord and his bard.
Widsith's Own Tribe:
The poet also identifies himself as a member of the Myrgings, a lesser-known tribe, and describes the lands of the Angles and the Saxons.
Conclusion:
The poem concludes with Widsith reflecting on the role of the bard in society, highlighting the value of storytelling and the bard’s ability to preserve the deeds of great men through song.
Themes and Significance
Cultural Memory:
"Widsith" serves as a cultural memory of the Anglo-Saxon world, preserving the names and deeds of kings and tribes for posterity.
Role of the Bard:
The poem underscores the vital role of the bard in early medieval society, functioning as a historian, entertainer, and preserver of tradition.
Intermingling of History and Legend:
The blend of historical figures and legendary heroes illustrates how myth and history were intertwined in the Anglo-Saxon imagination.
Political Landscape:
The extensive catalogue of rulers and tribes offers insights into the political landscape of early medieval Europe, reflecting alliances, conflicts, and migrations.
"Widsith" is a unique and invaluable piece of Anglo-Saxon literature, providing a window into the worldviews, values, and historical consciousness of its time. It highlights the importance of oral tradition and the enduring power of storytelling in preserving cultural heritage.
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem that tells the story of its titular hero, Beowulf, and his heroic deeds. The poem is set in Scandinavia and is one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature. Here is a summary of the key events in the poem:
Summary
Part 1: Grendel's Terror
Introduction to Hrothgar and Heorot:
The poem begins with the history of the Danish royal family and King Hrothgar, who has built a great mead hall called Heorot.
Grendel's Attacks:
Heorot is plagued by the monster Grendel, who attacks the hall nightly, killing and terrorizing Hrothgar’s warriors.
Beowulf's Arrival:
Beowulf, a hero of the Geats (from what is now southern Sweden), hears of Hrothgar’s plight and sails to Denmark with his men to help.
Battle with Grendel:
Beowulf battles Grendel in Heorot, ultimately defeating him by tearing off his arm. Grendel flees to his lair, where he dies.
Part 2: Grendel's Mother
Grendel's Mother Attacks:
Grendel's mother, seeking revenge for her son's death, attacks Heorot and kills one of Hrothgar’s closest friends.
Beowulf's Quest:
Beowulf pursues Grendel's mother to her underwater lair. He fights and kills her with a giant's sword found in her lair.
Return to Heorot:
Beowulf returns to Heorot with Grendel's head and the hilt of the giant's sword as trophies. Hrothgar rewards Beowulf with treasures.
Part 3: The Dragon
Return to Geatland:
Beowulf returns home to Geatland, where he eventually becomes king and rules for fifty years.
The Dragon's Wrath:
A dragon, angered by the theft of a cup from its hoard, begins to terrorize Beowulf's kingdom.
Final Battle:
Beowulf, now an old man, decides to fight the dragon. With the help of his loyal warrior Wiglaf, he kills the dragon but is mortally wounded in the process.
Beowulf’s Death and Funeral:
Beowulf dies from his wounds. He is mourned by his people and given a hero's funeral. His body is burned on a great pyre, and a barrow is built in his memory by the sea.
Themes and Significance
Heroism and Valor:
Beowulf is depicted as the epitome of the heroic warrior, characterized by his bravery, strength, and sense of duty.
Good vs. Evil:
The poem contrasts the forces of good (Beowulf and his allies) against evil (Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon).
Fate and Mortality:
The inevitability of death and the concept of fate play significant roles, with Beowulf's actions driven by a sense of destiny.
Loyalty and Kinship:
The poem emphasizes the importance of loyalty to one's lord and kin, a central value in the warrior culture of the time.
"Beowulf" remains a cornerstone of medieval literature, offering insights into the culture, values, and storytelling traditions of the Anglo-Saxons.
Friedrich
Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey are often considered representatives of
nineteenth-century hermeneutics and hermeneutical philosophy. Schleiermacher's
thought is rooted in the modern appropriation and transformation of traditional
metaphysics and Protestant theology, with his early Romantic works focusing on
the intuition of the infinite and his absolute dependence on God. In contrast,
Dilthey developed an epistemic pluralism and moderate skepticism in response to
metaphysics, distinguishing between natural and human sciences based on their
contexts, methodologies, and objects.
Schleiermacher was a post-Katian thinker of religious transcendence and the
ethical ideal of the highest good that informs and orients ordinary life.
Dilthey, on the other hand, interpreted modernity as an irrevocable break with
premodern forms of thought, including Schleiermacher's dialectics.
Schleiermacher's faith and intuition of the divine lost priority as they became
one way of expressing lived-experience, mood, and worldview, and infinity
became an immanent yet self-interrupting characteristic of life.
Dilthey's works explore the central thread in his critique of historical
reason, focusing on the idea that understanding is an art rather than a
doctrine of science. Hermeneutics is a doctrine of art oriented according to
the idea of understanding given the universality of misunderstanding, and it
requires judgment or a sense of appropriate application that is cultivated.
Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, a philosophical, theological, and scientific
inquiry, emphasizes understanding, judgment, and the role of feeling, desire,
and affectivity in linguistic interaction, interpretation, and individuation.
He critiques rule-based hermeneutics and emphasizes the need for
contextualization and mediation to articulate God's word. Schleiermacher also
discusses psychological interpretation, which involves receptiveness to the
traces of the singularity of the other.
Individuals are irreducible to language, and language is used and created
through the language-forming power and style of individuals. Schleiermacher's
approach is not mere "external reconstruction" aiming at correctness,
but is oriented toward the question of truth through receptivity to what
addresses and claims us.
Language is the only presupposition and defines the scope of hermeneutics, but
it cannot close itself to what is other than language in a pure immanence of
linguistic integration or mediation. The infinitity of sense confronts language
on the side of both the whole and the individual.
Jean Grondin has emphasized the quest for the whole understood as completeness
in Romantic hermeneutics, but the whole is not so much a complete system as an
infinity of intercrossing relations that are ultimately referred to the
nonrelational. Dilthey characterized three senses of "whole" in
Schleiermacher's thought: organizing inner form, system, and relational context
or Zusammenhang.
Schleiermacher's hermeneutics emphasized the correctness of understanding
through theoretical articulation, but he did not presuppose correctness as the
sole model of truth. Interpretation calls for responsive feeling and
imagination, and Schleiermacher also called traces and seeds, which are the
presence of something that cannot be thought as presence, disclosure of
nondisclosedness, and revelation of that which is concealed as concealed.
Werner Hamacher explored Schleiermacher's appeal to the "trace" in
the context of recent literary theory.
Dilthey argued for a nonreductive experientialism in epistemology, expanding it
beyond cognitive or theoretical knowledge and transformating it. He interpreted
the processes of life immanently and in relation to a dynamic context that is
never fully visible. Dilthey believed that the metaphysical unity of the world
is incommensurable and cannot be conclusively combined. He rejected strong
holism in the philosophy of the social sciences and remained a role for weak
holism.
The primary intention of the human sciences is the empirical description of
individuality in its life-context. Dilthey's writings from the early 1890s
should be interpreted in the context of an interpretive psychology occurring in
the space and intersection of epistemology and life. Understanding is the
unending and irreducible intersection of prereflective elementary understanding
and reflexive interpretation between self and other, individual and context,
and singular and whole.
Dilthey's theory of the human sciences is not merely an epistemology but a
theory of knowledge that relates knowing to its context. The human sciences involve
the study of dynamic interconnected systems that articulate the intersection of
meaning, value, purpose, and force. Understanding, which should be construed
verbally as "to understand" (verstehen), is intrinsically
interpretive for Dilthey.
Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutic approach to studying history and culture
critiques historical reason, focusing on the complexity and concreteness of
life. Understanding is not merely subjective but mediated through human
expressions and practices, providing more than just scientific access to
objects. Dilthey's phenomenological descriptions show how historical life is
both about and matters to the individual in its relational context.
The human sciences aim for objectivity, universality, and truth, linking lived
experiences with social-historical structures. Schleiermacher and Dilthey focus
on the individuality, personality, style, and sensibility of the author in
their historical context. Their thought has been retrospectively designated as
"hermeneutical" owing to their interest in associated issues of sense
and meaning, context and historicity, understanding and interpretation, and in
the communicative and explicative dimensions of human life and inquiry.
Twentieth-century hermeneutics, beginning with Heidegger's critical reception
of Dilthey in the 1920s, emphasizes not only the linguistic character of
thought and the disclosive power of language but also its reversals,
limitations, and breakdowns. Interpretation is aimed at the individual and the
singular, as well as the context and the whole in their relational
interdependence. The hermeneutical circle occurs through both contextualization
and individuation, and is provisional and can always begin anew as more is
learned about the individual and the context.
Self-understanding is a complex and questionable concept, as the individual
does not have direct or unmediated self-knowledge. Meaning is inevitably of
"diverse provenance," or pluralistic, and involves a multiplicity of
elements and sources that entail addressing and researching the text, author,
context, and truth claims of a work to interpret and evaluate it.
Arthur Schopenhauer was a
cosmopolitan philosopher who incorporated Hindu and Buddhist writings into his
philosophical system. He saw the world as a blind, purposeless, and irrational
will dominating the world, including humans. Schopenhauer's philosophy is often
attributed to his analysis of the self and the world as the product of an
irrational, unconscious, and purposeless drive called "will." He
argued that life is purposeless, with no ultimate goal or meaning, and that the
only way to escape from these torments is by "seeing the world
aright," acknowledging the pointlessness and insignificance of our own
willing existence. Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition moved him
away from German idealism and towards British empiricists like Berkeley, Hume,
Locke, Reid, and Kant. He used this view of the "intellectual" nature
of perception to argue for the ideality of the perceived world. Schopenhauer's
basic idea of the world as representation had serious consequences for the
reception of his thinking, especially in Anglo-American philosophy in the early
twentieth century.
Friedrich Schopenhauer, a philosopher, argued that the world is an object in
relation to a subject, as the subject is the supporter of the world and the
universal condition of all that appears. He distinguished his position from
skepticism, realism, and idealism, which he accused of making the object the
effect of the subject. Schopenhauer argued that subject and object necessarily
presuppose one another, and the law of causality applies only within the world
of representations and objects. He argued that all causality is only in the
understanding and for the understanding. Schopenhauer was inspired by Plato,
Calderón de la Barca, and Shakespeare, who describe life and dreams as pages
from the same book. He agreed with Kant that experience is dependent on the
nature of the cognitive faculties and that the world cannot exist independently
of the cognizing subject. Schopenhauer's arguments are not very convincing, as
he is right to hold that the representation of a world free from a subject
presupposes a subject but not that the existence of a world independent of a
subject also does. He also criticizes Kant's "Transcendental
Aesthetic" and his transcendental idealism.
In "Transcendental Logic," Karl Kant discusses the role of
understanding in our intuitive perceptions. He argues that our knowledge comes
from two sources: receptivity of impressions and spontaneity of concepts.
Schopenhauer criticizes Kant's vague use of terms like Anschauung, Perzeption,
and Wahrnehmung, and uses the concepts "perception" and
"intuition" interchangeably.
Kant divides objective perception into intuition (immediate) and concept
(mediate). Schopenhauer characterizes the understanding's activity as phenomenologically
"immediate" instead of inferential or discursive. In visual
perception, the understanding connects subjective sensations with an external
cause, creating a world of objects through the application of time and space
and the category of causality.
However, Schopenhauer's account of perception and the role of the understanding
is called for. He unjustly identifies subjective sensations with physiological
elements and fails to make clear how the manifold of light's affections on the
retina can provide anything like an "image." Paul Guyer argues that
Kant's transcendental method has been replaced by a phenomenological approach,
suggesting that sense impressions do not correspond with the objective
intuition of a world of physical objects.
Schopenhauer's hierarchy of the senses is remarkably close to Kant's, focusing
on the senses that Schopenhauer considers the "most noble" of all:
hearing and sight. He believes that the less noise one can bear, the more
intellectually gifted one is, and that the amount of noise we can bear is
inversely proportionate with intelligence. Hearing, along with sight, is the
sense of language and reason, the faculty of abstract reasoning, and distracts
great minds easily from their noble art of thinking.
Schopenhauer's theory of knowledge, aesthetics, and ethics emphasizes the
importance of sight and intuition in our experiences. He argues that sight is
the most important sense because it is not directly connected to the will,
making it the aesthetic organ par excellence. Schopenhauer's theory of
perception and cognition explores the concept of pure knowledge, which is
experienced through the senses. He argues that visual perception is the easiest
way to experience purely aesthetic pleasure, as it has no direct connection with
the will.
Schopenhauer's view of sight as the only truly objective senses is
controversial, as it threatens to disturb Schopenhauer's hierarchy of the
senses and seems to underestimate the sense of hearing. Additionally, there is
an unprecedented privilege attached to the transcendental form of space.
In Fourfold Root, Schopenhauer states that perceptions of sight ultimately
refer to touch, and sight can be regarded as an imperfect touch extending to a
distance and using rays of light as long feelers. This raises questions about
the nature of pure knowledge and the role of the senses in our experiences.
Schopenhauer posits that visual perception occurs unconsciously and is
accompanied by two systematic forms of "deceit": the illusion of
immediacy (time) and the illusion of the sensation itself giving us the objects
directly. The illusion of immediacy is strongest in visual perception and is
also the most deceitful.
Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition raises questions about the
nature of pure knowledge and the role of the senses in our experiences. While
he acknowledges the potential benefits of seeing and touch, he also
acknowledges the challenges and paradoxes associated with these concepts.
Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition posits that the intellect, a
physiologically linked to the brain, is an instrument of the will. He believes
that empirical cognition is driven by human needs, interests, and affects, and
that the intellect can be disturbed by the will. In aesthetic consciousness,
the "real self" appears to have vanished and is replaced by a
"better" or "higher" consciousness, which turns away from
the will and considers things as non-related to it. Schopenhauer distances
himself from the Western tradition's belief that intellect and reason are the
most perfect hallmark of humanity. Instead, he believes that cognition that is
not in service of the will remains possible, known as aesthetic cognition. This
state of awareness occurs when we perceive external objects and become
empirically aware of the world. Schopenhauer's aesthetic experience is
characterized by a state of extraordinary tranquility, where individual
striving, suffering, desiring, and worrying no longer occur. This heightened,
"objective" state of consciousness discards the embodied, willing
self and frees us from the pressures and torments of will.
Aesthetic perception, according to Schopenhauer, is a state of awareness that
transcends personal desires and offers freedom from the constant striving and
suffering. It is not just a heightened state of awareness but also a superior
form of cognition, as ordinary empirical cognition is guided by personal needs,
affects, and interests. Schopenhauer believes that aesthetic perception is a
sign of "the gift of genius" to attain and maintain a pure state of
dispassionate, "pure perception" and cognition.
Aesthetic, will-less perception, which Schopenhauer identifies with Spinoza's
notion of knowledge "sub aeternitatis specie," offers insight into
the timeless kernel of things, the universal essences of the perceived objects,
beyond mere appearance. These eternal essences are called the (Platonic) Ideas,
the "eternal forms" behind the mere appearances of common empirical
cognition.
Schopenhauer's aesthetics theory differs from Kant's view that aesthetic
judgment cannot be based on certain concepts. He argues that the forms of space
and time, and the understanding or intellect, ground and construct the world as
representation, characterized by plurality. However, his metaphysical view of
the thing-in-self is enmeshed in his claims, and his semi-Platonic account of
the Ideas is more Platonic than Kantian.
Schopenhauer's accounts of ordinary and aesthetic perception offer a critical
supplement to empiricist and Kantian theories of cognition and perception. He
suggests that the intellect is driven by human willing, and that aesthetic
perception allows the cerebral system to operate detached from the will. This
will-less aesthetic cognition is pleasurable, offering relief from suffering
and generating deeper insight into the timeless universals behind the mere
appearances of things.
Animal studies is a growing field
that explores the relationship between humans and animals in literature, art,
and culture. It encompasses various works such as William Faulkner's Go Down,
Moses, and Ernest Hemingway's Go Down, as well as works by Damien Hirst, Joseph
Beuys, Sue Coe, William Wegman, Bill Viola, Carolee Schneeman, Lynn Randolph,
and Patricia Piccinini. The concept of the animal has been central in earlier
periods, with scholars suggesting that the idea of the animal was inherited
from the Enlightenment and thinkers like Descartes and Kant. Beyond literature,
art, and culture, the Western philosophical canon and its thinking of the
animal/human difference are being reconfigured and reinterpreted. There is also
a crossover between philosophy and the legal sphere in animal rights law,
animal television, and popular texts like Michael Polllan's The Omnivore's
Dilemma.
The emergence of animal studies has been marked by a growing number of
conferences, symposiums, publication venues, and special journal issues devoted
to the topic in North America and abroad. This interdisciplinarity is
inseparable from its very genesis, making it more justifiable for animal
studies than it was for feminist scholarship or queer theory in its early days.
Animal studies would not exist without the work done in field ecology and
cognitive ethology over the past twenty to thirty years.
Scattered work on the animal was carried out in various fields in the
humanities and social sciences as far back as the 1980s, with the landmark
publication of Donna Haraway's Primate Visions opeing the 1990s with a
remarkable interdisciplinary synthesis that defined a new, resolutely cultural
studies era in what would come to be called animal studies. However, what
appears different about the emergence of animal studies in our moment is the
gradual opening up of a theoretical and critical space of its own.
The series Posthumanities at the University of Minnesota Press has published
important titles by Leonard Lawlor, Gary Francione, Stanley Cavell and
cocontributors, and Matthew Calarco, among others. The number of special
journal issues over the past few years has also increased, with the new online
journal Humanimalia, the robust H-Animal corner of the H-Net humanities online
forum, the Journal for Critical Animal Studies, and Society and Animals
published by the Animals and Society Institute.
New work on animals, such as Nigel Rothfels's, moves away from an earlier form
of history that focused on human ideas and attitudes towards animals. Instead,
it traces the ways in which humans construct and are constructed by animals in
the past. This raises the question of how the internal disciplinarity of
history, literary studies, and philosophy is unsettled when animals are taken
seriously, not just as another topic but as one with unique demands. Scholars
in animal studies are challenged by the discourses and conceptual schemata that
have shaped our understanding of and relations to animals, as well as the
specificity of nonhuman animals and their nongeneric nature. This
irreducibility of the question of the animal is linked to the problem of
animals' ethical standing as direct or indirect subjects of justice.
Animal studies, a field of study that focuses on the human connection to
animals, has been gaining attention in recent years. This field has been
influenced by fields like cognitive ethology, which has explored the
relationship between animals and humans. Animal studies studies both a material
entity (nonhuman beings) and a discourse of species difference, which is not
limited to their application to nonhumans alone. It is a socially and ethically
responsive cultural studies working to stay ahead of new social movements, such
as "animal rights," which is an academic expression of a larger
democratic impulse towards greater inclusiveness of every gender, race, sexual
orientation, or species. However, the rapid adoption of the cultural studies
template for animal studies poses a challenge to the disciplinarity of the
humanities and cultural studies. Animal studies can only be addressed
adequately if they confront questions on two levels: content, thematics, and
the object of knowledge, and the theoretical and methodological approach. This
approach allows for the incorporation of humanism and liberalism, extending the
sphere of consideration to previously marginalized groups.
Animal studies, a subfield of cultural studies, has faced challenges in its
pursuit of a more comprehensive understanding of human behavior and the world
around us. The field has been criticized for its disciplinary incoherence and
vagueness, which has led to the preservation of a historically, ideologically,
and intellectually specific form of subjectivity while masking it as pluralism.
This incoherence serves to maintain a certain historically, ideologically, and
intellectually specific form of subjectivity while masking it as pluralism,
including the extension of pluralism to nonhuman animals.
Animal studies challenges the schema of the knowing subject and its anthropocentric
underpinnings, which are sustained and reproduced in current disciplinary
protocols of cultural studies and literary studies. This has led to the
reproduction of an ideologically familiar mode of subjectivity based on liberal
humanism.
An interdisciplinary field of inquiry, animal studies should not be viewed as
simply the latest flavor of the month. While the distinction between
"subjectivity" and "agency" is useful in understanding how
animals and our interactions with them have historically shaped our world, it
does not provide insight into the ethical differences that occur in our
interactions with inanimate and sentient agents. The literary and philosophical
end of animal studies has been interested in these differences, but this
perspective differs from the Gramscian notion of critical consciousness that
underpins many diverse approaches in cultural studies.
The text explores the relationship between the human and the animal in animal
studies, arguing that critical consciousness exposes the intersubjectivity of
meaning and exposes the structures that organize how we know and how knowledge
is transmitted and accepted. It also highlights the cultural studies model,
where animals are now recognized as agents in the enterprise. This picture of
critical consciousness closes off the human from the animal, reinforcing the
human/animal divide in a less visible but more fundamental way.
Derrida's essay "The Animal That Therefore I Am" is arguably the
single most important event in the brief history of animal studies. He
questions the nature of the "auto-" of the human as the
"autobiographical animal" and the concept of the human that
"man" "recounts to himself" to enable his recognition of
the nonhuman other in a gesture of "benevolence" characteristic of
liberal humanism.
Derrida's work on the animal enables us to address the problem of ethnocentrism
raised earlier in Diamond's observation about what we have made of our
relations to animals, without leaving us impaled on the other horn of the
dilemma—either Gramscian critical consciousness or the broader issue of the
human-animal divide. By examining the nature of the "auto-" of
humanist subjectivity, we can better understand the embodied finitude that we
share with nonhuman animals and the implications of our understanding of the
human-animal relationship.
Derrida's argument in animal studies argues that human beings are not the
"auto-" of humanism, but rather radically other and already in- or
ahuman in their very being. This means that what we call "we" covers
over a more radical not being able that makes our conceptual life possible.
Animal studies should be more invested in fundamentally rethinking the question
of what knowledge is, how it is limited by the overdeterminations and
partialities of our "species-being." This second type of finitude is
shared by humans and nonhumans when they begin to interact and communicate.
Animal studies intersects with the larger problematic of posthumanism,
returning us to the thickness and finitude of human embodiment and to human
evolution as itself a specific form of animality. By paying serious attention
to the diversity of animal forms and ways of being in the world, we are forced
to conclude that the human/animal distinction is nonsensical. On the strength
of that weakness, we are returned to a new sense of the materiality and
particularity not just of the animal and its multitude of forms but also of
that animal called the human.
In the second half of the rubric animal studies, it is important to emphasize
that one can engage in a humanist or a posthumanist practice of a discipline.
Just because a historian or literary critic devotes attention to the topic or
theme of nonhuman animals doesn't mean that a familiar form of humanism isn't
being maintained through internal disciplinary practices that rely on a
specific schema of the knowing subject and the kind of knowledge they can have.
