Abstract
Matthew Chrulew reviews two publications: The Open: Man and Animal , by Giorgio Agamben (Kevin Attell, translator; W. Hamacher, editor. California: Stanford University Press; 2004. MERIDIAN: Crossing Aesthetics series), and Animal Philosophy: Essential Readings in Continental Thought , edited by Matthew Calarco and Peter Atterton (London and New York: Continuum; 2004).
Highlights
Debates on the relationship between the ‘human’ and ‘animal’ have exploded in the last thirty years, but it is only recently that Continental thinkers have begun fully to participate in this field
The critical theory that draws so heavily on this philosophical tradition has until recently been more concerned to undermine ‘nature’ than to rethink its status from an engaged position. This is changing: there is a growing cluster of sophisticated critical theory that is ethically committed to animals (Baker 2000; Wolfe 2003)
One central project is to extend the Continental critique of humanism to the category of species
Summary
Debates on the relationship between the ‘human’ and ‘animal’ have exploded in the last thirty years, but it is only recently that Continental thinkers have begun fully to participate in this field. Both of the prominent volumes being reviewed – Calarco and Atterton’s Animal Philosophy and Agamben’s The Open – follow and attest to this change.
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