Literary and theoretical texts for all your Animal Studies needs.
Primary Literary Texts
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
A family's life is disrupted by an unexpected present from their father—some socks? A box of candy? Nope. It's a young boy of indeterminate origins. Despair, abuse, and tragedy ensue. Don't worry...
Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
A boy and his dogs. A kid's novel. And it's a real tear jerker. Is this one really an interesting text for animal theorists? You better believe it. Children's literature isn't just kid stuff—cons...
When the Killing's Done, by T.C. Boyle
Really? Again? Strange animals and control-freak humans on islands—it's starting to seem like weird animal tales and islands just go together. Islands: Where the Wild Things Are.Boyle's novel is...
"A Report to an Academy," Franz Kafka
No islands this time! Just a weird ape giving a lecture. But what else could you expect from the Master of Strange, Franz Kafka?This story features a speaking ape named Red Peter who gives an addre...
Beowulf
In this famous Old English epic poem it's Monsters vs. Humans. Grendel (and Grendel's mom) are wreaking havoc on a bunch of merry mead drinkers in their castle. Luckily Beowulf shows up to show the...
Primary Theoretical Texts
The Open: Man and Animal, by Giorgio Agamben
Agamben is a contemporary Italian philosopher with some deep thoughts about animals, humans, and our relationships to language. In The Open, Agamben goes against the grain of our traditional ways o...
Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer is best known for his novels. But in this book he writes a nonfictional account of how he came to see animals and meat in a new light when he and his partner were having a chil...
Philosophy and Animal Life, edited by Stanley Cavell (2008)
In 2008 Stanley Cavell threw several philosophers and critics (all with different perspectives on animal issues and philosophy) into a room with padded walls for a week and didn't let them out unti...
What is Posthumanism? by Cary Wolfe
American literature critic Cary Wolfe is a theorist of posthumanism. Through a series of chapters that address systems theory, contemporary animal art, film, music, and philosophy, Wolfe argues tha...
Animal Stories: Narrating Across Species Lines, Susan McHugh
Our man Agamben thinks animals have a better relationship with language than we do, and you might want to keep that idea in mind when reading Susan McHugh's work. Her idea of narrating across speci...