Animal studies : an introduction /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Waldau, Paul.
Imprint:New York : Oxford University Press, [2013]
Description:xiv, 362 pages ; 26 cm
Language:English
Subject:Animals (Philosophy)
Animal welfare -- Philosophy.
Animal behavior -- Study and teaching.
Animal rights.
Animal behavior -- Study and teaching.
Animal rights.
Animal welfare -- Philosophy.
Animals (Philosophy)
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9105458
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780199827015 (cloth : alk. paper)
019982701X (cloth : alk. paper)
9780199827039 (pbk. : alk. paper)
0199827036 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:"Animal studies is a growing interdisciplinary field that incorporates scholarship from public policy, sociology, religion, philosophy, and many other areas. In essence, it seeks to understand how humans study and conceive of other-than-human animals, and how these conceptions have changed over time, across cultures, and across different ways of thinking. This interdisciplinary introduction to the field boldly and creatively foregrounds the realities of nonhuman animals, as well as the imaginative and ethical faculties that humans must engage to consider our intersection with living beings outside of our species. It also compellingly demonstrates that the breadth and depth of thinking and humility needed to grasp the human-nonhuman intersection has the potential to expand the dualism that currently divides the sciences and humanities." --amazon.com
Review by Choice Review

Animal Studies is the author's attempt to delineate a field of study that he feels is at its beginning stages, but is necessary for human understanding of animals and indeed humankind's place in a full, rich world that includes them. For Waldau (Canisius College), animals' own reality is important, not humans' view of them or human-centered use of them. He draws on the intellectual approach and the historical contribution of many different areas, from science to the creative arts, philosophy, and areas such as anthropology and geography. This collection and expression of competence ends up as a rather boring list. It is mostly in philosophy, when Waldau reviews the viewpoints of specific theorists, that his exposition lives and breathes. He minimizes the contribution of science, which he sees as objectifying animals, and discusses the parallels between marginalized human groups and animals. Further, he makes it clear that he sees scientific research as driven by political and commercial agendas; this is surprising considering the many scientists who have nothing to do with the political-industrial complex. The result is a useful summary, but it is heavy going at times. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and researchers/faculty. J. A. Mather University of Lethbridge

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review