- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This bookexplores the past and current traces that cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals used by humans have left in Anglophone literary fiction. In times of accelerated global warming, an acute pandemic, and breakthroughs in bioengineering practices, discussions on how to rethink the relationships to these animals have become as heated as perhaps never before. Livestock and Literature examines what literature has to contribute to these debates. In particular, it draws on counter-narratives to so-called livestock animals' commodification in selected science- and speculative fiction (SF) works from the twenty-first century. These texts imagine 'what if' scenarios where "livestock" practice resistance, transform into biotechnologically modified, postanimal beings, or live in close companionship to humans. Via these three points of access, the study delineates the formal and thematic strategies SF authors apply to challenge anthropocentric and speciesist thought patterns. The aim is to shed light on how these alternative storyworlds expand readers' understanding of the lives of farmed animals; seeking insight into how literature shapes human-animal relationships beyond the page.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Front Matter
- 1. Introduction: Animal Industry, Literature, and Imagining the Future
- 2. Accessing the Forms and Functions of Farmed Animal Narratives
- 3. (Re-)Imagining Farmed Animal Characters in and Through Science and Speculative Fiction
- 4. Eating Well in Margaret Atwoodâs MaddAddam Trilogy (2003â2013): Biotech Farmed Animals and a Hopeful Model of Multispecies Futurity
- 5. âI am sitting in a kitchen, talking to a sheepâ: Looking Through Postanimal Eyes in Adam Robertsâs BĂȘte (2014)
- 6. Beyond the Cages: Possibilities and Limitations of Reimagining Livestock in Literature
- Back Matter