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The Animal Turn
Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story
It’s no secret that animals are considered objects in the fields of law, commerce, and science, characterized as property and commodities. Animals, Mind, and The Inside Story challenges this ascription and establishes that animals are living subjects, who have minds and opinions of their own and care about what happens to them. Donovan contends that animals’ voices or standpoints should be part of any human decisions concerning their ethical treatment. Elaborating on feminist care theory and critical animal standpoint theory, the author provides compelling evidence for animal subjectivity, exploring in the process the nature of subjectivity and consciousness while drawing from recent developments in quantum and emergence theories that point away from the dominant ontology of Cartesian objectivism. Through these explorations, Donovan proposes that a new narrative is emerging in the arts and sciences—an inside story that re-subjectifies natural life and leaves behind the deadening Midas touch of Cartesian objectivism.
- GenresNonfiction
148 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2022
2 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Josephine Donovan
41 books20 followersJosephine Donovan is the author of twelve books of nonfiction and the editor of four. A complete list of her publications is available on her web site:
http://english.umaine.edu/people/jose.... Her fields of specialization include animal ethics, feminist criticism and theory, American women’s literature (especially nineteenth-century), and early modern women’s literature. Her work has been translated into seven languages (Japanese, French, Turkish, Swedish, Greek, German, and Chinese).
Her most recent books are: Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story (2022); The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America (2020), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Aware; and The Aesthetics of Care: On the Literary Treatment of Animals. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016). Recently published: a second, revised edition of Women and the Rise of the Novel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013) St. Martin’s, 1999; paperback, 2000). It was termed “a work of extraordinary significance” by the Choice reviewer, who wrote, “Donovan has defined the field clearly, forthrightly, often brilliantly. All future discussion of the subject begins here” (October 2000). Also recently published was European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres (Bloomsbury, 2010), a work in comparative literature.
Donovan’s best-known book, Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions, first published in 1985, is now in its fourth edition (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) Amazon.com notes, “this book has established itself as the classic survey and analysis of the roots and development of feminist theory.” A selection of other reviews of Donovan’s books may be found on her web site.
Two of her books, Sarah Orne Jewett and Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love have recently been reprinted in revised editions on-line and in “print-on-demand” form by Cybereditions.
Born in Manila in 1941, Donovan was evacuated from the Philippines with her mother a few months before Pearl Harbor. Her father, a Captain in the U. S. Army, remained in the Philippines where he was captured by the Japanese in 1942, remaining a P.O.W. for the duration. His memoirs, edited by his daughter, were recently published as P.O.W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II.
She graduated, cum laude, from Bryn Mawr College in 1962 with a major in history, after spending her Junior Year in Europe. After graduation she worked as a Copy Desk clerk at The Washington Post and Time Magazine and as a general assignment reporter on a small newspaper in upstate New York. During this period she completed a course in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967 and 1971, respectively. She has held academic positions at several universities and worked for a time as a Copy Editor for G. K. Hall in Boston. She is Emerita Professor of English at the University of Maine.
http://english.umaine.edu/people/jose.... Her fields of specialization include animal ethics, feminist criticism and theory, American women’s literature (especially nineteenth-century), and early modern women’s literature. Her work has been translated into seven languages (Japanese, French, Turkish, Swedish, Greek, German, and Chinese).
Her most recent books are: Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story (2022); The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America (2020), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Aware; and The Aesthetics of Care: On the Literary Treatment of Animals. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016). Recently published: a second, revised edition of Women and the Rise of the Novel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013) St. Martin’s, 1999; paperback, 2000). It was termed “a work of extraordinary significance” by the Choice reviewer, who wrote, “Donovan has defined the field clearly, forthrightly, often brilliantly. All future discussion of the subject begins here” (October 2000). Also recently published was European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres (Bloomsbury, 2010), a work in comparative literature.
Donovan’s best-known book, Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions, first published in 1985, is now in its fourth edition (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) Amazon.com notes, “this book has established itself as the classic survey and analysis of the roots and development of feminist theory.” A selection of other reviews of Donovan’s books may be found on her web site.
Two of her books, Sarah Orne Jewett and Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love have recently been reprinted in revised editions on-line and in “print-on-demand” form by Cybereditions.
Born in Manila in 1941, Donovan was evacuated from the Philippines with her mother a few months before Pearl Harbor. Her father, a Captain in the U. S. Army, remained in the Philippines where he was captured by the Japanese in 1942, remaining a P.O.W. for the duration. His memoirs, edited by his daughter, were recently published as P.O.W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II.
She graduated, cum laude, from Bryn Mawr College in 1962 with a major in history, after spending her Junior Year in Europe. After graduation she worked as a Copy Desk clerk at The Washington Post and Time Magazine and as a general assignment reporter on a small newspaper in upstate New York. During this period she completed a course in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967 and 1971, respectively. She has held academic positions at several universities and worked for a time as a Copy Editor for G. K. Hall in Boston. She is Emerita Professor of English at the University of Maine.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 26, 2022
Animals, Mind, and Matter from Josephine Donovan is a wonderful reassessment of how our interactions with animals should be governed.
Animals are not simply sentient but have feelings and desires. Exactly the way humans do? No, but then I'm not sure any two humans think and feel exactly the same ways. Animals communicate with us, unfortunately we either can't fully understand them or, more often than not, claim plausible deniability about their feelings and ignore them. Donovan combines recent research that shows how much they think with ideas on how we can take their perspective into account in our interactions.
I recently read another book, Martha Nussbaum's Justice for Animals, that offers another alternative to the Cartesian perspective. Both books are well worth reading, they have some strong similarities while coming from slightly different perspectives. I would highly recommend both books, in conversation with them the reader will gain a better understanding of other animals and, frankly, a better understanding of humans as well. That last bit of insight will sometimes be disappointing, we far too often act in opposition to what we claim to believe.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Animals are not simply sentient but have feelings and desires. Exactly the way humans do? No, but then I'm not sure any two humans think and feel exactly the same ways. Animals communicate with us, unfortunately we either can't fully understand them or, more often than not, claim plausible deniability about their feelings and ignore them. Donovan combines recent research that shows how much they think with ideas on how we can take their perspective into account in our interactions.
I recently read another book, Martha Nussbaum's Justice for Animals, that offers another alternative to the Cartesian perspective. Both books are well worth reading, they have some strong similarities while coming from slightly different perspectives. I would highly recommend both books, in conversation with them the reader will gain a better understanding of other animals and, frankly, a better understanding of humans as well. That last bit of insight will sometimes be disappointing, we far too often act in opposition to what we claim to believe.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Displaying 1 of 1 review