Creaturely Poetics: Animality and Vulnerability in Literature and Film

By: Anat Pick

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Synopsis: Simone Weil once wrote that "the vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence," establishing a relationship between vulnerability, beauty, and existence transcending the separation of species. Her conception of a radical ethics and aesthetics could be characterized as a new poetics of species, forcing a rethinking of the body's significance, both human and animal. Exploring the "logic of flesh" and the use of the body to mark species identity, Anat Pick reimagines a poetics that begins with the vulnerability of bodies, not the omnipotence of thought. Pick proposes a "creaturely" approach based on the shared embodiedness of humans and animals and a postsecular perspective on human-animal relations. She turns to literature, film, and other cultural texts, challenging the familiar inventory of the human: consciousness, language, morality, and dignity. Reintroducing Weil's elaboration of such themes as witnessing, commemoration, and collective memory, Pick identifies the animal within all humans, emphasizing the corporeal and its issues of power and freedom. In her poetics of the creaturely, powerlessness is the point at which aesthetic and ethical thinking must begin.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 264 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780231519854
Related ISBNs:: 9780231147866
Publisher:: Columbia University Press
Date of Addition:: 03/24/21
Copyrighted By:: Columbia University Press
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Entertainment, Nonfiction, Animals, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Language Arts, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.