Creature discomfort : : fauna-criticism, ethics and the representation of animals in Spanish American fiction and poetry / / by Scott M. DeVries.

• Superior document: Critical Animal Studies, Volume 4
• VerfasserIn: DeVries, Scott M., 1973-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, [Netherlands] ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : Brill Rodopi,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Critical animal studies ; Volume 4.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (337 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In Creature Discomfort: Fauna-criticism, Ethics, and the Representation of Animals in Spanish American Fiction and Poetry , Scott M. DeVries uncovers a tradition in Spanish American literature where animal-ethical representations anticipate many of the most pressing concerns from present debates in animal studies. The author documents moments from the corpus that articulate long-standing positions such as a defense of animal rights or advocacy for liberationism, that engage in literary philosophical meditations concerning mind theory and animal sentience, and that anticipate current ideas from Critical Animal Studies including the rejection of hierarchical differentiations between the categories human and nonhuman. Creature Discomfort innovates the notion of “fauna-criticism” as a new literary approach within animal studies; this kind of analysis emphasizes the reframing of literary history to expound animal ethical positions from literary texts, both those that have been considered canonical as well as those that have long been neglected. In this study, DeVries employs fauna-criticism to examine nonhuman sentience, animal interiority, and other ethical issues such as the livestock and pet industries, circuses, zoos, hunting, and species extinction in fictional narrative and poetry from the nineteenth century, modernista , Regional, indigenista , and contemporary periods of Spanish American literature.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- Horse, Ape, Mosquito: Animal Perspectives in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Texts -- The Beasts of Ecological Narrative: Intelligent Animals in the Environmental Novels of Luis Sepúlveda -- Swan Songs: The Animal as Muse, Symbol, and Object of Spanish American Modernismo -- Caged Verse: Animals in Poetry -- Meat: Regional Livestock Literature -- Harness, Harpoon, and Cage: Horses, Whaling, and Animal Entertainment in Regional Literature -- Tribal Creatures: Animals and Indigenista Literature -- A Dog and Hippo Show: Animals in Recent Fiction -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index.