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Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects

  • Edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Published on May 7, 2012 by punctum books

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Pages
295 pages
Languages
English
Dimensions
5⤫8 in.
ISBN (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-615-62535-5 (Paperback)
DOI
DOI: 10.21983/P3.0006.1.00(opens in new tab)
BISAC subject codes
BISAC: NAT010000, PHI005000
Thema subject codes
THEMA: DSB, JBCC2, PSAF

Animal, Mineral, Vegetable examines what happens when we cease to assume that only humans exert agency. Through a careful examination of medieval, early modern and contemporary lifeworlds, these essays collectively argue against ecological anthropocentricity. Sheep, wolves, camels, flowers, chairs, magnets, landscapes, refuse and gems are more than mere objects. They act; they withdraw; they make demands; they connect within lively networks that might foster a new humanism, or that might proceed with indifference towards human affairs. Through what ethics do we respond to these activities and forces? To what futures do these creatures and objects invite us, especially when they appear within the texts and cultures of the “distant” past.

Contents

  1. Frontmatter (i–xv)

    Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

  2. Introduction: All Things (1–8)

    Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

  3. With the World, or Bound to Face the Sky: the Postures of the Wild-Child of Hesse (9–34)

    Karl Steel

  4. Animals and the Medieval Culture of Empire (35–63)

    Sharon Kinoshita

  5. The Floral and the Human (65–90)

    Peggy McCracken

  6. Exemplary Rocks (91–121)

    Kellie Roberston

  7. Mineral Virtue (123–152)

    Valerie Allen

  8. You Are Here: A Manifesto (153–172)

    Eileen A. Joy

  9. Sheep Tracks: A Multi-Species Impression (173–209)

    Julian Yates

  10. The Renaissance Res Publica of Furniture (211–236)

    Julia Reinhard Lupton

  11. Powers of the Hoard: Further Notes on Material Agency (237–269)

    Jane Bennett

  12. Speaking Stones, John Muir, and a Slower (Non)Humanities (273–279)

    Lowell Duckert

  13. Ruinous Monument': Transporting Objects in Herbert's Persepolis (281–288)

    Nedda Mehdizadeh

  14. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Twenty Questions (289–295)

    Jonathan Gil Harris

  15. Backmatter (297–297)

    Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Biographies

  • Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

    (Editor)

    George Washington University, Arizona State University

    www.jeffreyjeromecohen.com(opens in new tab)

    Jeffrey Jerome Cohen(opens in new tab) is Professor of English and Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI) at the George Washington University(opens in new tab). His research explores what monsters promise; how postcolonial studies, queer theory, postmodernism and posthumanism might help us to better understand the literatures and cultures of the Middle Ages (and might be transformed by that encounter); the limits and the creativity of our taxonomic impulses; the complexities of time when thought outside of progress narratives; and ecotheory. He is the author of three books: Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages; Medieval Identity Machines; and Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles and the editor of four more. He blogs at In the Middle(opens in new tab).

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Genres

  • Biosphere
  • Posthumanism
  • Premodern

Keywords

  • cultural studies
  • materialism
  • object-oriented ontology
  • posthumanism
  • thing studies