The History of Animals: A Philosophy

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Oxana Timofeeva's The History of Animals: A Philosophy is an original and ambitious treatment of the "animal question". While philosophers have always made distinctions between human beings and animals, Timofeeva imagines a world free of such walls and borders. Timofeeva shows the way towards the full acceptance of our animality; an acceptance which does not mean the return to our animal roots, or anything similar. The freedom generated by this acceptance operates through negativity; is an effect of the rejection of the very core of metaphysical philosophy and Christian culture, traditionally opposed to our animal nature and seemingly detached from it. With a foreword by Slavoj iek, this book is accessible, jargon-free and ideal for students and all those interested in re-imagining how we engage with animals and the environment.

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[A] unique and extensive historical analysis of various conceptions of the animal and animality in Western thought Timofeevas scholarship is impressive ... [The] book is thought provoking and an excellent resource for those interested in the place of the animal and animality in Western thought. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *
Oxana Timofeeva's The History of Animals is an original and sweeping treatment of the "animal question". While philosophers have always made distinctions between human beings and animals, Timofeeva imagines a world free of such walls and borders. * Anthony Paul Smith, Assistant Professor of Philosophical Theology, La Salle University, USA *
If philosophy is the love of wisdom, then Oxana Timofeevas The History of Animals is a work of philosophy as the love for animals. Refusing to simply condemn philosophy for its mistreatment of animals, this book reconstructs how philosophers from Aristotle to Deleuze might be read to restore the philosophical dignity of animals. The History of Animals teaches us, us humans, to join with all the revolutionary animals to win a new world. -- Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory, University of Chichester, UK
This is a tour de force of originality and scholarship. Neither affirming the ethical or metaphysical equivalence of animals with humans, nor restoring an essential divide, her powerful genealogy of the animal in modern thought destroys any sense of purity or simplicity. What has come to be known as the human has configured itself through a series of impossible relations to species that are at one and the same time enigmatic, proximate, anthropomorphized, alien and companionable. This book is a must read for anyone working in posthumanism or animal studies. -- Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Author Bio

Oxana Timofeeva is Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Sociology at the European University at St. Petersberg, Russia. Slavoj iek is one of the world's leading contemporary cultural critics and a hugely prolific author. He is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, UK, and Visiting Professor at the New School for Social Research, New York, USA.