1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9911057015803321

Autore

Hung Ruth Y. Y

Titolo

Animal Lives through Five Centuries of Art and Science : Who Knows If I am Not Subject to Knowledge? / / by Ruth Y.Y. Hung

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer Nature Switzerland : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2026

ISBN

3-032-05977-1

Edizione

[1st ed. 2026.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (370 pages)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature, , 2634-6346

Disciplina

590

Soggetti

Literature, Modern - 20th century

Literature, Modern - 21st century

Literature - Philosophy

Ecocriticism

Animal welfare - Moral and ethical aspects

Cognition in animals

Contemporary Literature

Literary Theory

Animal Ethics

Animal Cognition

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: On Human Aggression -- 1. Mimesis: Sacrifices in the Bible, Oracle Bones, and the Greek Tragedies -- 2. Rational Realism: Specimens in the Italian Renaissance -- 3. Naturalism: Subjects in the Laboratory and the Experimental Novel -- 4. Fascist Aesthetics: The Pack from the Slaughterhouse -- 5. Fantastic Realism: Happy Meat in Happy Meals -- 6. Extinct Species in the Realism of Our Time -- Coda: Commemorating Animals in Literature.

Sommario/riassunto

Animal Lives through Five Centuries of Art and Science confronts a deep paradox: humanity's greatest achievements in art, science, and philosophy have often relied on the systematic subjugation of animals. This pioneering interdisciplinary work traces how Western knowledge systems have turned animal suffering into spectacle and commodity, from Renaissance anatomy theaters where Leonardo da Vinci painted



ermines as symbols of purity while their real-world counterparts were skinned for aristocratic fashion, to today's genetically engineered GloFish. Through six compelling case studies—including the extinction of the quagga, Victorian vivisection debates, and industrial farming—Ruth Y.Y. Hung shows how the same imagination fueling cultural progress has also been used to justify domination. Drawing on thinkers from Erich Auerbach to Donna Haraway, the book offers a radical rethinking of knowledge itself. It reveals that animals have only been understood through frameworks that either aestheticize or erase their lives. Yet, amid these histories of violence, moments of resistance appear: the defiant stare of a vivisected dog, Indigenous cosmologies honoring ecological kinship, and Buddhist deer challenging human-centered views. Hung advocates for "interspecies reimagination," urging a shift from extraction to reciprocity, and calls on readers to develop a new ethics where knowledge serves rather than controls life. Ruth Y.Y. Hung is Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department at Hong Kong Baptist University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Advance HE, a member of the International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE), and holds editorial roles at the American Journal of Art and Design and boundary 2. Her research includes world literature, modern criticism, and animal studies. Notably, she authored the first English-language critical biography of the Chinese intellectual Hu Feng, titled, Hu Feng: A Marxist Intellectual in a Communist State, 1930-1955 (2020).