Release the Moths: Critical Animal Studies and the Posthumanist Impulse

Abstract

Posthumanism and critical animal studies are grounded in different theoretical frameworks and have different orientations and agendas. The present essay works through some dimensions of posthumanist thought together with critical animal studies by exploring ‘the edges’ in certain points of contact between the fields and their material and metaphorical problems and possibilities. My main objective is to begin to develop some of the most productive dimensions of posthumanism in relation to critical animal studies in a call for a critical posthumanist approach to the messy knowledge forms and politics emerging from human/animal relationships by asking the question: Under what conditions does cross-contamination take place between the two fields, and to what effects? The essay proposes two different responses to dealing with issues exposed by the juxtaposition of posthumanism and critical animal studies, and argues that this juxtaposition also accommodates a potential to instigate unexpected processes of knowledge development in both fields.