| Pets Contributor(s): Fudge, Erica (Author) |
|||||||
 |
ISBN: 1844651568 ISBN-13: 9781844651566 Publisher: Routledge
WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD! Click here for our low price guarantee Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: August 2008 Annotation: Why do we live with pets? What are these beings who are kin but not kind? Erica Fudge looks at the answers offered by modern thinkers. Moving from an analysis of the philosophical importance of the Lassie myth to philosophers' surprisingly similar musings about their cats, she challenges many of our easy assumptions about who, what and why pets are. Meditating on our obsession with domestic animals reveals many of the paradoxes, contradictions, and ambiguities of life and shows that pets are a vital resource for contemporary philosophy. True border-creatures - the anthropologist Edmund Leach called them man-animals - pets both exemplify and challenge the construction of self and other that is so important in modern thought. Without pets we might not be the humans we think we are. Click for more in this series: Art of Living (McGill-Queen) |
||||||
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Philosophy - Pets |
| Dewey: 179.3 |
| Series: Art of Living (McGill-Queen) |
| Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.4" W x 8.3" L (0.40 lbs) 160 pages |
| Features: Bibliography, Index, Table of Contents |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 'When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?' - Michel de Montaigne. Why do we live with pets? Is there something more to our relationship with them than simply companionship? What is it we look for in our pets and what does this say about us as human beings? In this fascinating book, Erica Fudge explores the nature of this most complex of relationships and the difficulties of knowing what it is that one is living with when one chooses to share a home with an animal. Fudge argues that our capacity for compassion and ability to live alongside others is evident in our relationships with our pets, those paradoxical creatures who give us a sense of comfort and security while simultaneously troubling the categories human and animal. For what is a pet if it isn't a fully-fledged member of the human family? This book proposes that by crossing over these boundaries pets help construct who it is we think we are. Drawing on the works of modern writers, such as J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Jacques Derrida, Fudge shows how pets have been used to think with and to undermine our easy conceptions of human, animal and home. Indeed, Pets shows our obsession with domestic animals that reveals many of the paradoxes, contra - dictions and ambiguities of life. Living with pets provides thought-provoking perspectives on our notions of possession and mastery, mutuality and cohabitation, love and dominance. We might think of pets as simply happy, loved additions to human homes but as this captivating book reveals perhaps it is the pets that make the home and without pets perhaps we might not be the humans we think we are. For anyone who has ever wondered, like Montaigne, what their cat is thinking, it will be illuminating reading. |
| Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review |
| To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First! |
Copyright © 2024 TheReadingWarehouse.com