cfp.english.upenn.edu

You are invited to contribute to an edited volume entitled “The Literary Menagerie.” The last decade has seen an intensive scholarly engagement with the question of the human-non-human animal relation, including its artistic and literary representation. This foundational scholarship has made it possible to pursue more focused areas of inquiry. One such area is suggested by Randy Malamud in his “Becoming Animal”: “art has the potential to present a valuable . . . account of what it is like to be a different animal from ourselves” (7). Art makes it possible for us to imagine ourselves into another being and also to discover other ways of being human.

For “The Literary Menagerie” we seek essays on literary works that represent non-human animal consciousness and existence. We invite contributions on any literary genre-- novels, plays, myths, folklore, bestiaries, poetry, and more,--from any national literature, and from any historical period. Some possible topics relating to non-human animals could include, but are not limited to, the following:

Anthropomorphism
Anthropocentrism
Community
Emotional lives
Forms of Consciousness
Cultures
Cognition
Sexuality and Desire
Morality
Ethics
Epistemology
Ontology
Co-Existence or Co-Being
Communication
Extinction
Darwinism (adaptability, natural selection, etc.)
Predation
Boundaries
Pets and Domesticity
Domestication and Agrifarming
Nomads and Strays
Hunting
Differing philosophical approaches: Derrida, Singer, Regan, Heidegger, Agamben, Levinas, etc.
Politics
Utopias/Dystopias

You are welcome to email us with any questions, comments, or suggestions (again, the above list is not exhaustive!). Please send 250-word abstracts and a brief biography to Jeanne Dubino (Appalachian State University--dubinoja@appstate.edu) and Ziba Rashidian (Southeastern Louisiana University--ziba@selu.edu) by August 31, 2009.