This introduction to the journal’s special issue on Interspecies takes stock of the recent intellectual histories of animal studies and posthumanism, arguing for interspecies as a way to navigate new directions in these intellectual formations. Interspecies is a framing paradigm … Continue reading “Interspecies”
Issue: Issue 106 Interspecies
The Paradoxical Politics of Viral Containment; or, How Scale Undoes Us One and All
ed cohenAbstract: How do we contain emerging viral epidemics? This is a question that obsesses us of late. Not yet ten years into the third millennium, the world has already weathered a bevy of actual or feared viral epidemics: HIV/AIDS, sudden … Continue reading “The Paradoxical Politics of Viral Containment; or, How Scale Undoes Us One and All”
Outside
alphonso lingisWhen we love someone, we are attached to his or her surface colors, forms, warmth, movements. We avoid envisioning the inner organs and contents of his or her body. The external colors and patterns of other species are snares for … Continue reading “Outside”
Monkey Business: Interspecies Longing and Scientific Prophecy in Experimental Xenotransplantation
lesley a. sharpWithin contemporary realms of experimental medicine, xenotransplantation ranks as the quintessential example of attempts at interspecies science. Driven by widespread anxieties over national (and, increasingly, global) scarcities in transplantable human parts, xenotransplantation is driven by the moral imperative to alleviate … Continue reading “Monkey Business: Interspecies Longing and Scientific Prophecy in Experimental Xenotransplantation”
Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate and the Whole History of the Cacao
james delbourgoThis essay explores the interpenetration of the botanical and the human in Hans Sloane’s engagement with cacao as a species and chocolate as a commodity, in relation to his late seventeenth-century voyage to Jamaica, and subsequent claims that he invented … Continue reading “Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate and the Whole History of the Cacao”
Abu Zubaydah and the Caterpillar
neel ahujaThis article offers a critique of the recently declassified U.S. Department of Justice memorandum that authorized the CIA to torture the suspected al-Qa’idah member Abu Zubaydah by placing him in a confinement box with an insect. The CIA claims that … Continue reading “Abu Zubaydah and the Caterpillar”
Specimens as Spectacles: Reframing Fetal Remains
suzanne ankerQuestions about the meaning of the human species have also raised the issue of its representation, and in this article the authors consider the role of bio-art in the production of the specimen as spectacle. Something we look both at … Continue reading “Specimens as Spectacles: Reframing Fetal Remains”
Vermin Beings: On Pestiferous Animals and Human Game
clapperton chakanetsa mavhungaThis article examines the descent of human beings into human game (animal hunted for food and sport) and even further into a vermin being (pestiferous being in need of elimination). It goes beyond the realm of similitude, that is, the … Continue reading “Vermin Beings: On Pestiferous Animals and Human Game”
Carnivorous Virility; or, Becoming-Dog
carla frecceroThe killing of San Francisco resident Diane Whipple in front of her Pacific Heights apartment door in San Francisco in 2001 by Presa Canario dogs provides a framework in this article for identifying a “carnivorous virility” in the merging of … Continue reading “Carnivorous Virility; or, Becoming-Dog”