Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

Abstract

In Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration, Sarah E. McFarland and Ryan Hediger lead ecocriticism into promising new territory with an outstanding collection of essays exploring the unique sites of interaction between humanity and our companion species—sites where traditional notions of “animals” and “agency” are unhinged. Subtly interweaving critical animal studies with environmental justice discourse, contributors from a wide range of fields upend the nostalgic philosophy that Homo sapiens are distinct from animals because we alone are capable of expressing agency. Always contingent, “agency” is variously described by the contributors as an assemblage of free will, cognitive and physical ability, socially defined morality, and the ability to act as an agent of change. As Hediger puts it in his essay on (dis)ability in the work of Temple Grandin and Jim Harrison, “nonhuman forms of agency can appear when we adjust our ways of perceiving it to particular scenarios—contexts—and to different forms of life” (231). Thoughtfully organized to reinforce an inductive approach to the topic, the book's first section offers research on animals expressing agency, while Section 2 considers representations of agency in literature, Section 3 explores sites where human interaction is mediated by animals, and Section 4 deconstructs “humanimals” who defy conventional species distinctions.