Now in print! Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Cohen) — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:22:00 +0000

Animal, Mineral, Vegetable examines what happens when we cease to assume that only humans exert agency. Through a careful examination of medieval, early modern and contemporary lifeworlds, these essays collectively argue against ecological anthropocentricity. Sheep, wolves, camels, flowers, chairs, magnets, landscapes, refuse and gems are more than mere objects. They act; they withdraw; they make demands; they connect within lively networks that might foster a new humanism, or that might proceed with indifference towards human affairs. Through what ethics do we respond to these activities and forces? To what futures do these creatures and objects invite us, especially when they appear within the texts and cultures of the “distant” past?

Contents: Jeffrey J. Cohen (George Washington University): “Introduction: All Things” – Karl Steel (Brooklyn College): “With the World, or Bound to Face the Sky: The Postures of the Wolf-Child of Hesse” – Sharon Kinoshita (University of California, Santa Cruz): “Animals and the Medieval Culture of Empire” – Peggy McCracken (University of Michigan): “The Floral and the Human” – Kellie Robertson (University of Wisconsin-Madison): “Exemplary Rocks” – Valerie Allen (John Jay College of Criminal Justice): “Mineral Virtue” – Eileen Joy (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville): “You Are Here: A Manifesto” – Julian Yates (University of Delaware): “Sheep Tracks: Multi-Species Impressions” – Julia Reinhard Lupton (University of California, Irvine): “The Renaissance Res Publica of Things” – Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins University): “Powers of the Hoard: Further Notes on Material Agency”

Response essays: Lowell Duckert, “Speaking Stones, John Muir, and a Slower (Non)humanities” – Nedda Mehdizadeh, “‘Ruinous Monument’: Transporting Objects in Herbert’s Persepolis” – Jonathan Gil Harris,“Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Twenty Questions”

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is Professor of English and Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI) at the George Washington University. His research explores what monsters promise; how postcolonial studies, queer theory, postmodernism and posthumanism might help us to better understand the literatures and cultures of the Middle Ages (and might be transformed by that encounter); the limits and the creativity of our taxonomic impulses; the complexities of time when thought outside of progress narratives; and ecotheory. He is the author of three books: Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages; Medieval Identity Machines; and Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles and the editor of four more. He blogs at In the Middle.

Published: 2012-05-07

The book is available as a free, open access download. Even if you read the volume electronically, please consider purchasing a copy of the paperback ($17) to support future Oliphaunt / punctum projects.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Cohen) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:18:00 +0000

The GW Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute is happy to announce the first volume in its Oliphaunt Books series. We hope to have this volume available very early in 2012.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects (forthcoming, ed. Jeffrey J. Cohen) examines what happens when we cease to assume that only humans exert agency. Through a careful examination of medieval, early modern and contemporary lifeworlds, these essays collectively argue against ecological anthropocentricity. Sheep, wolves, camels, flowers, cotton, chairs, magnets, landscapes, refuse and gems are more than mere objects. They act; they withdraw; they make demands; they connect into lively networks that might foster a new humanism, or that might proceed with indifference towards human affairs. Through what ethics do we respond to these activities and forces? To what futures do these creatures and objects invite us, especially when they appear within the texts and cultures of the "distant" past?

Table of Contents

Jeffrey J. Cohen (George Washington University): Introduction, "All Things"
Karl Steel (Brooklyn College): “With the World, or Bound to Face the Sky: The Postures of the Wolf Child of Hesse”
Sharon Kinoshita (University of California, Santa Cruz): “Animals and the Medieval Culture of Empire”
Kellie Robertson (University of Wisconsin-Madison): “Exemplary Rocks”
Valerie Allen (John Jay College of Criminal Justice): “Mineral Virtue”
Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins University): “Powers of the Hoard: Notes on Material Agency"
Peggy McCracken (University of Michigan): “The Human and the Floral”
Eileen Joy (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville): “You Are Here: A Manifesto”
Julian Yates (University of Delaware): “Sheep Tracks”
Julia Reinhard Lupton (University of California, Irvine): “The Renaissance Res Publica of Furniture”

Response essays:

Lowell Duckert, "Speaking Stones, John Muir, and a Slower (Non)humanities"
Jonathan Gil Harris, "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Twenty Questions"
Nedda Mehdizadeh, "Ruinous Monument': Transporting Objects in Herbert's Persepolis"