Bestial traces: race, sexuality, animality

by Peterson, Christopher

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Title Statements

Full title :Bestial traces : race, sexuality, animality / Christopher Peterson.

Summary

In contemporary race and sexuality studies, the topic of animality emerges almost exclusively in order to index the dehumanization that makes discrimination possible. "Bestial Traces" argues that a more fundamental disavowal of human animality conditions the bestialization of racial and sexual minorities. Hence, when conservative politicians equate homosexuality with bestiality, they betray an anxious effort to deny the animality inherent in all sexuality. Focusing on literary texts by Edgar Allan Poe, Joel Chandler Harris, Richard Wright, Philip Roth, and J.M. Coetzee, together with philosophical texts by Derrida, Heidegger, Agamben, Freud, and Nietzsche, Peterson maintains that the representation of social and political others as animals can be mitigated but never finally abolished. All forms of belonging inevitably exclude some others as "beasts." Though one might argue that absolute political equality and inclusion remain desirable, even if ultimately unattainable, ideals, "Bestial Traces" shows that, by maintaining such principles, we exacerbate rather than ameliorate violence because we fail to confront how discrimination and exclusion condition all social relations.

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2013.
Edition:1st ed

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):Fordham University Press
Place of Publication:New York
Language:eng
Publication Date:2013.

The Physical Object

Description:viii, 200 pages ; : 24 cm

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9780823245208, 0823245209, 9780823245215, 0823245217
oclc:ocn792885741
LC Classification:PS217.P44
Dewey Decimal:810.9/353

Aping apes: Edgar Allan Poe's "The murders in the Rue Morgue" and Richard Wright's Native son -- Slavery's bestiary: Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus tales -- Autoimmunity and ante-racism: Philip Roth's The human stain -- Ashamed of shame: J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace.

Subjects

Altérité dans la littérature American literature American literature -- History and crit… American literature -- History and crit… Anthropologie philosophique dans la lit… Australian Criticism, interpretation, etc Das Animalische Literatur Littérature américaine -- Histoire et c… Littérature américaine -- Histoire et c… Other (Philosophy) in literature Philosophical anthropology in literature Race -- Dans la littérature Race in literature Rasse Rassismus USA