The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies

Abstract

Provides a scholarly overview of the field of vegan literary studies, traversing the relationship between literature and veganism across a range of periods, cultures, and genres Examines literature, literary history, and literary genres through a vegan studies lens Provides an extensive annotated bibliography summarising existing work within the emergent field of vegan studies Offers an invaluable resource for both established scholars and students looking to incorporate vegan literary studies in their own work Includes cutting edge work from an international group of scholars specializing in literary research Highlights the work of emerging and established scholars in this growing field of inquiry Vegan literary studies has been crystallised over the past few years as a dynamic new specialism, with a transhistorical and transnational scope that both nuances and expands literary history and provides new tools and paradigms through which to approach literary analysis. Vegan studies has emerged alongside the ‘animal turn’ in the humanities. However, while veganism is often considered as a facet of animal studies, broadly conceived, it is also a distinct entity, an ethical delineator that for many scholars marks a complicated boundary between theoretical pursuit and lived experience. This collection of 25 essays maps and engages with that which might be termed the 'vegan turn' in literary theoretical analysis via essays that explore literature from across a range of historical periods, cultures and textual forms. It provides thematic explorations (such as veganism and race and veganism and gender) and covers a wide range of genres (from the philosophical essay to speculative fiction, and from poetry to the graphic novel, to name a few). The volume also provides an extensive annotated bibliography summarising existing work within the emergent field of vegan studies.