On Fiction and Being a Good Animal

On Fiction and Being a Good Animal argues that fiction can help us envision being better animals by offering anthropocosmic visions of the world where humans are not at the centre. It explores wishful images relating to irreconcilable minds and experiences, human-nonhuman family relationships, love and risk across race and species, and shared vulnerability, communion, and pleasure.

Format: Hardback
Length: 144 pages
Publication date: 31 October 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

On Fiction and Being a Good Animal challenges the prevailing humanist belief that fiction can create better people. Instead, it proposes that we should read and appreciate fiction based on its ability to help us envision becoming better animals. Drawing inspiration from Theodor W. Adorno, David Rando defines a good animal as one that does not live a life of domination. He contends that when readers approach fictions' wishful images with non-anthropocentric expectations, they are rewarded with anthropocosmic visions of the world, where humans are no longer at the center but are in and with the world. The book explores various wishful images related to the nonhuman and more-than-human worlds through compelling readings of works by Agustina Bazterrica, T. C. Boyle, Leonora Carrington, Marian Engel, Karen Joy Fowler, Franz Kafka, Doris Lessing, Clarice Lispector, Kenzaburo Oe, Olga Tokarczuk, and Jesmyn Ward. These images include irreconcilable minds and experiences, human-nonhuman family relationships, love and risk across race and species, and shared vulnerability, communion, and pleasure.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399538053