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Animal death is a complex, uncomfortable, depressing, motivating and sensitive topic. For those scholars participating in human-animal studies, it is – accompanied by the concept of 'life' – the ground upon which their studies commence, whether those studies are historical, archaeological, social, philosophical, or cultural. It is a tough subject to face, but as this volume demonstrates, one at the heart of human-animal relations and human-animal studies scholarship.
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Foreword by The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG
Introduction by Jay Johnston and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey
1. In the shadow of all this death by Deborah Bird Rose
2. Human and animal space in historic ‘pet’ cemeteries in London, New York and Paris by Hilda Kean
3. Necessary expendability: an exploration of nonhuman death in public by Tarsh Bates and Megan Schlipalius
4. Confronting corpses and theatre animals by Peta Tait
5. Respect for the (animal) dead by Chloë Taylor
6. Mining animal death for all it’s worth by Melissa Boyde
7. Reflecting on donkeys: images of death and redemption by Jill Bough
8. Picturing cruelty: chicken advocacy and visual culture by Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong
9. Learning from dead animals: horse sacrifice in ancient Salamis and the Hellenisation of Cyprus by Agata Mrva-Montoya
10. The last image: Julia Leigh’s The Hunter as film by Carol Freeman
11. Euthanasia and morally justifiable killing in a veterinary clinical context by Anne Fawcett
12. Preventing and giving death at the zoo: Heini Hediger’s ‘death due to behaviour’ by Matthew Chrulew
13. Nothing to see – something to see: white animals and exceptional life/death by Fiona Probyn-Rapsey
14. ‘Death-in-life’: curare, restrictionism and abolitionism in Victorian and Edwardian anti-vivisectionist thought by Greg Murrie
15. Huskies and hunters: living and dying in Arctic Greenland by Rick De Vos
16. On having a furry soul: transpecies identity and ontological indeterminacy in Otherkin subcultures by Jay Johnston
About the contributors
Index
Jay Johnston is a senior lecturer, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney and senior lecturer, School of Art History and Art Education, COFA, University of New South Wales.
Fiona Probyn-Rapsey is a professor in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong.
"The inspiring and inclusive ways in which the book challenges readers are enhanced by the chapters dealing with animal death in less predictable settings, and by its artistically oriented interrogations [...] no reader of the book need feel excluded from this at once descriptive and aspirational conception of life."
– Sam Cadman, Australian Book Review
"This collection is a worthwhile read for those concerned about animal ethics. As Chloe Taylor writes, "how we treat the dead has direct implications for how we treat the living"."
– Kelsi Nagy, Journal of Animal Ethics
"[...] books have power. Words convey moral dilemmas. Human beings are capable of being moral creatures. So it may prove with the present book. Dear reader, be warned. Reading about animal death may prove a life-changing experience. If you do not wish to be exposed to that possibility, read no further [...] In the end, by concentrating our attention on death in animals, in so many guises and circumstances, we, the human readers, are brought face to face with the reality of our world. It is a world of pain, fear and enormous stress and cruelty. It is a world that will not change anytime soon into a human community of vegetarians or vegans. But at least books like this are being written for public reflection."
– from the foreword by The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG
