Animal studies
The Question of the Animal and Religion
Theoretical Stakes, Practical Implications Aaron S. Gross
“A significant contribution to both the larger field of animal studies and the smaller subdiscipline of animal studies in religion. This is in part because Gross’s case study of the brutal and systematic animal cruelty at a kosher-meat-producing company is so important and especially because Gross’s is the first work in animal studies in religion to present such a thorough methodological approach.” —Barbara K. Darling, Wheaton College
Through an absorbing investigation into one of the largest kosher slaughterhouses in the world, Aaron S. Gross makes a powerful case for elevating the category of the animal in the study of religion. Gross begins with the scandals at Agriprocessors and their significance for the American and international Jewish community. He argues that without a proper theorization of “animals and religion,” we cannot fully understand religiously and ethically motivated diets and how and why the events at Agriprocessors took place. Subsequent chapters recognize the significance of animals to the study of religion in the work of Ernst Cassirer, Émile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Jacques Derrida and the value of indigenous peoples’ understanding of animals to the study of religion in our daily lives. Gross concludes by extending the Agribusiness scandal to the activities at slaughterhouses of all kinds. Aaron S. Gross
is professor of theology and religious
Interspecies Ethics Cynthia Willett
“Bringing together classical philosophy, contemporary continental philosophy, literature, psychology, zoology, and animal studies, Willett weaves a captivating tale of human-animal relationships that takes us well beyond human domination and towards interspecies community. This may be as important a paradigm shift in animal studies as Singer’s Animal Liberation or Derrida’s deconstruction of the category ‘animal.’ ” —Kelly Oliver, author of Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to be Human
Interspecies Ethics explores animals’ vast capacity for agency, justice, solidarity, humor, and communication across species. The social bonds animals form provide a remarkable model for communitarian justice and cosmopolitan peace, challenging the human exceptionalism that drives modern moral theory. The book’s ethical vision offers an alternative to utilitarian, deontological, and virtue ethics, building its argument through anecdotes and clear explanations of recent scientific discoveries regarding animals and their agency. Situating biosocial ethics firmly within coevolutionary processes, this volume has profound implications for work in social and political thought, contemporary pragmatism, and continental philosophy. Cynthia Willett
is professor of philosophy at Emory
University. Her books include Irony in the Age of Empire: Comic Perspectives on Freedom and Democracy; The Soul of Justice: Racial Hubris and Social Bonds; and Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities. She has also edited the anthology Theorizing Multiculturalism and is a coeditor for the Symposia on Race, Gender, and Philosophy.
studies at the University of San Diego.
$30.00 / £20.50 paper 978-0-231-16751-2 $90.00 / £62.00 cloth 978-0-231-16750-5 $29.99 / £20.50 ebook 978-0-231-53837-4 D e c e m b e r 304 pages
$30.00 / £20.50 paper 978-0-231-16777-2 $90.00 / £62.00 cloth 978-0-231-16776-5 $29.99 / £20.50 ebook 978-0-231-53814-5 S e p t e m b e r 240 pages A nimal S tudies / P hilo s o phy C ritical P erspectives o n A nimals :
R eligi o n / A nimal S tudies
T he o ry, C ulture , S cience and L aw
All Rights: Columbia University Press
All Rights: Columbia University Press
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