Animal Perception and Literary Language

Beschreibung

Animal Perception and Literary Language shows that the perceptual content of reading and writing derives from our embodied minds. Donald Wesling considers how humans, evolved from animals, have learned to code perception of movement into sentences and scenes. The book first specifies terms and questions in animal philosophy and surveys recent work on perception, then describes attributes of multispecies thinking and defines a tradition of writers in this lineage. Finally, the text concludes with literature coming into full focus in twelve case studies of varied readings. Overall, Wesling's book offers not a new method of literary criticism, but a reveal of what we all do with perceptual content when we read.

Animal Perception and Literary Language shows that the perceptual content of reading and writing derives from our embodied minds. Donald Wesling considers how humans, evolved from animals, have learned to code perception of movement into sentences and scenes. The book first specifies terms and questions in animal philosophy and surveys recent work on perception, then describes attributes of multispecies thinking and defines a tradition of writers in this lineage. Finally, the text concludes with literature coming into full focus in twelve case studies of varied readings. Overall, Wesling's book offers not a new method of literary criticism, but a reveal of what we all do with perceptual content when we read.

Autor*in

Donald Wesling

Themen in »Animal Perception and Literary Language«

human and animal animalist thinking animal studies literary animal studies animal philosophy cognitive psychology cognitive literary studies Jacques Derrida embodied mind animals in literature

Stimmen zu »Animal Perception and Literary Language«

“Animalist perception: it's a radically new topic, carved out of existing theoretical literature.  Donald Wesling has chosen to write on difficult philosophers, and he gives to them clever and understandable readings.  He brings together a tradition out of scattered writings.  He synthesizes an array of perspectives.  Last not least, his titles and subtitles are always witty.” (Enikö Bollobás, Professor of American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
“Animalist perception: it's a radically new topic, carved out of existing theoretical literature.  Donald Wesling has chosen to write on difficult philosophers, and he gives to them clever and understandable readings.  He brings together a tradition out of scattered writings.  He synthesizes an array of perspectives.  Last not least, his titles and subtitles are always witty.” (Enikö Bollobás, Professor of American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)“The most challenging companion animals are microbes (by billions inside us) and (symbolically) the truly wild animals: tapeworms, wolverines, head lice, krill, rattlesnakes.  The idea that the megafauna are our animal companions, when the biomass is practically entirely bacteria, seems spent.  What I want to read is a radical animal argument bound to perception and feeling—Donald Wesling's project.  Is 'animal' better than Wesling's 'animalist' as either/both adjective/noun?  It felt good to use two sentences back.  What would Derrida say?  For then the human being wouldn't have to be a human being, if it ever could, although it is an animal.”  (John Granger, Lecturer in Literature, University of California, San Diego, USA)

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