How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters
(Hardback, 1)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters
By (Author) Karl Steel
University of Minnesota Press
University of Minnesota Press
13th April 2020
1
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Philosophical traditions and schools of thought
European history: medieval period, middle ages
828.109
Physical Properties
Hardback
280
Width 140mm, Height 216mm, Spine 38mm
Description
From pet keeping to sky burials, a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of and challenge to human particularity in medieval texts Mainstream medieval thought, like much of mainstream modern thought, habitually argued that because humans alone had language, reason, and immortal souls, all other life was simply theirs for the taking. But out
Reviews
"The book as a whole is fascinating and Steel's choice of material very exciting."CHOICE
"How Not to Make a Human gives medievalists a stronger voice in conversations about ecocriticism, posthumanism, and critical animal studies. At the same time, it can inspire non-medievalists with its revisedand ultimately much more fruitfulset of medieval inheritances for ecocritical thought."ISLE
"A real strength in the book is Steels ability to trace narrative threads through temporal, linguistic, and manuscript sources and analogues."Speculum
"A compelling meditation on how humans are unmade, combining premodern notions of spontaneous generation with ecofeminist theories of compost."Environmental History
Author Bio
Karl Steel is associate professor of English at Brooklyn College and author of How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages.
