Spanish Thinking about Animals

by Margarita Carretero-González (Editor)

Overview

Traditional cultural practices involving animals are being seriously questioned, heavily regulated, and, in some cases, even abolished in Spain. This essential and timely text brings together prominent scholars working in the ever-expanding field of animal studies in Spain, drawing from a variety of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences to provide an interdisciplinary look at the animal question. In choosing an angle to approach the study of ethical, aesthetic considerations, and cultural  representations of animals, this collection moves away from the ideology of human exceptionalism that is still predominant but progressively losing force in the field of animal ethics in Spain. It instead includes contributions by scholars who have chosen to look at animals, to a lesser or greater degree, through an antispeciesist lens, displaying the committed attention to and respect for animal life that characterizes critical animal studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611863628
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2020
Series:	The Animal Turn
Edition description:	1
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

MARGARITA CARRETERO-GONZÁLEZ is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the Department of English and German at the University of Granada in Spain and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Foreword Jorge Riechmann ix

Preface: Winds of Change in Spanish Thinking about Animals xxi

Acknowledgments xxix

Part 1 Animals in Literature

Affection, Literature, and Animal Ideation José Manuel Marrero Henríquez 3

Antispeciesism and Environmental ism in the Spanish Fable: The Case of José Antonio Jáuregui's Juicio a los humanos Diana Villanueva-Romero 21

She Is Not Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf: Concha López Llamas's Loving Eye for Wolves Carmen Flys-Junquera 33

Part 2 Animal Ethics and Aesthetics

Animals as Ornaments: On the Aesthetic Instrumentalization of Animals Marta Tafalla 51

A Passionate Call for Murder: Dying and Suffering Animals in Spanish Film and Filmmaking Claudia Alonso-Recarte Ignacio Ramos-Gay 67

Usurped Strength, Stolen Nature: The Literature on the Fighting Bull José Marchena Domínguez 85

Wear My Eyes: Driving Empathy through Artistic Creation Verónica Perales Blanco 101

Part 3 Huma/nimal Bodies and Violence

That Obscure Object of Desire: Body and Violence Alicia. H. Puleo 115

Failed Arguments in Defense of Bullfighting Jesús Mosterín 129

Ortega y Gasset's Thoughts on Animals Lydia de Tienda 139

Part 4 The Fight against Speciesism

Animals in Spanish Law: Changing the Legal Paradigm to Consider Animals as Sentient Beings Nuria Menéndez de Llano 153

Defending Equality for Animals: The Antispeciesist Movement in Spain and the Spanish-Speaking World Estela Díaz Oscar Horta 167

The Literature in Spanish on the Question of Speciesism: An Annotated Bibliography Daniel Dorado 185

Contributors 197

Index 199

Editorial Reviews

Spaniards are cruel to animals,” George Orwell wrote, turning the national fondness for bullfighting into an all-too-easy stereotype. Brilliantly edited by Margarita Carretero-González, Spanish Thinking about Animals prompts us to think beyond this cliché. In thirteen original and intense essays, literary scholars, historians, philosophers, artists, and social scientists reveal the world of cultural complexity, creative responses, political alternatives, and variously articulated forms of activism that nourish the Spanish “animal turn.

Serenella Iovino

The essays collected in Spanish Thinking about Animals challenge us to move beyond the stereotypical idea of a bullfighting nation and to appreciate the nuances and intricacies of the recent animal turn in Spain. An illuminating and groundbreaking book.”
—ALEXA WEIK VON MOSSNER, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Klagenfurt, and author of Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative

From the Publisher

The essays collected in Spanish Thinking about Animals challenge us to move beyond the stereotypical idea of a bullfighting nation and to appreciate the nuances and intricacies of the recent animal turn in Spain. An illuminating and groundbreaking book.

Alexa Weik von Mossner

The essays in Spanish Thinking about Animals offer explorations by Spanish scholars working to examine and interrogate the ways that nonhuman animals have been represented in Spanish literature and culture. Collectively, these readings challenge the narratives of dominion and cruelty that underscore the Anthropocene, asking that we recognize that our interference in the nonhuman world does not constitute our control over it. This is a collection that is important and groundbreaking, filled with urgency but also with hope, offering us interventions and new perspectives in a time of ecological crisis.

Laura Wright

The thirteen original transdisciplinary essays by literary scholars, historians, philosophers, social scientists, and artists in this groundbreaking book are a significant marker in the Spanish “animal turn.” They clearly show that the simplistic stereotype that Spaniards are inherently and traditionally cruel to nonhuman animals is decidedly false. Spanish Thinkingabout Animals is a much needed game changer, and I hope it receives a broad global readership.

Marc Bekoff