Animal Writes: Historiography, Disciplinarity, and the Animal Trace

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorBenson, Etienne S
dc.date2023-05-17T21:46:04.000
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-22T19:56:21Z
dc.date.available2023-05-22T19:56:21Z
dc.date.issued2011-01-01
dc.date.submitted2019-02-22T12:28:35-08:00
dc.description.abstractThose of us who attempt to write about nonhuman animals are all implicated by the pun that appears in the title and throughout the text of Jacques Derrida's L'Animal que donc je suis.1 I follow or track (suis, from the infinitive suivre) the animals about whom or about which I write, and I also am (suis, from être) an animal—specifically, a writing animal. This doubleness of animal writing—its way of situating us simultaneously as subject and object, autobiographer and biographer, pursued and pursuer—is evocatively captured in the opening line of Philip Armstrong's study, What Animals Mean in the Fiction of Modernity, as is the powerful and pervasive assumption that writing is a uniquely human activity: "An animal sits at a desk, writing."2 To which we could add, "writing about animals," which is always a pursuit both of the other and of ourselves: the animal that I follow, the animal that I am.
dc.identifier.citationBenson, E.S. (2011). "Animal Writes: Historiography, Disciplinarity, and the Animal Trace." In Kalof, L. & Montgomery, G.M., (Eds.), Making Animal Meaning, 3-16. Michigan State University Press.
dc.identifier.urihttps://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/37370
dc.legacy.articleid1045
dc.legacy.fulltexturlhttps://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=hss_papers&unstamped=1
dc.rightsOriginally published in Making Animal Meaning, Copyright @ 2011 by Michigan State University Press.
dc.source.beginpage3
dc.source.endpage16
dc.source.issue43
dc.source.journalDepartmental Papers (HSS)
dc.source.journaltitleMaking Animal Meaning
dc.source.statuspublished
dc.subject.otherAnimal Sciences
dc.subject.otherAnimal Studies
dc.subject.otherEcology and Evolutionary Biology
dc.subject.otherHistory of Science, Technology, and Medicine
dc.subject.otherResearch Methods in Life Sciences
dc.titleAnimal Writes: Historiography, Disciplinarity, and the Animal Trace
dc.typeBook Chapter
digcom.identifierhss_papers/43
digcom.identifier.contextkey13879351
digcom.identifier.submissionpathhss_papers/43
digcom.typechapter
dspace.entity.typePublication
relation.isAuthorOfPublication011c199d-06ef-496a-8e62-fc581746da77
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery011c199d-06ef-496a-8e62-fc581746da77
upenn.schoolDepartmentCenterDepartmental Papers (HSS)
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Benson_Chapter_from_Making_Animal_Meaning.pdf
Size:
204.06 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
Collection
Book Chapters