Arguments about Animal Ethics

(Paperback)

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Bringing together the expertise of rhetoricians in English and communication as well as media studies scholars, Arguments about Animal Ethics delves into the rhetorical and discursive practices of participants in controversies over the use of nonhuman animals for meat, entertainment, fur, and vivisection. Both sides of the debate are carefully analyzed, as the contributors examine how stakeholders persuade or fail to persuade audiences about the ethics of animal rights or the value of using animals. The essays in this volume cover a wide range of topics, such as the campaigns waged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (including the sexy vegetarian and nude campaigns), greyhound activists, the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, food manufacturers, and the biomedical research industry, as well as communication across the human-nonhuman animal boundary and the failure of the animal rights movement to protest research into genetically modifying living beings. Arguments about Animal Ethics' insightful analysis of the animal rights movement will appeal to communication scholars, as well as those interested in social change.

Reviews

Recommended. * Choice Reviews *
Navigating the relationships, distinctions, and commonalities between human and nonhuman animals is an aporia that spans human history from our more banal moments (i.e., implicating what we eat or wear everyday) to our more spectacular (i.e., involving protests or media events). Goodale and Blacks collection reminds us that taking the stakes of these relations seriously requires a robust sense of rhetorical critique that accounts for ethics, affect, ethos, pathos, and logos across a variety of media, forums, and experiences. This volume promises to provoke meaningful conversations that will help stretch our understanding of animal rights, ethics, social change, and rhetoric. -- Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Indiana University and author of Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Travel, Pollution, and Environmental Justice

Author Bio

Greg Goodale is assistant professor of communication studies at Northeastern University.
Jason Edward Black is assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Alabama.