Strangers to Nature: Animal Lives and Human Ethics (Logos: Perspectives on Modern Society and Culture)

Strangers to Nature: Animal Lives and Human Ethics (Logos: Perspectives on Modern Society and Culture)

Strangers to Nature challenges a reading public that has grown complacent with the standard framework of the animal ethics debate. Human influence on, and the control of, the natural world has greater consequences than ever, making the human impact on the lives of animals more evident. We cannot properly interrogate our conduct in the world without a deeper understanding of how our actions affect animals. It is crucial that the human-animal relationship become more central to ethical inquiry. This volume brings together many of the leading scholars who work to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. The contributors examine the radical developments that change how we think about the status of non-human animals in our society and our moral obligations. Strangers to Nature will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about current human/non-human animal relationships. “A stimulating collection of essays that reexamine, refine, and in some cases refute major philosophical arguments concerning animal treatment, thereby advancing animal ethical theory on a number of fronts.” ―Josephine Donovan, University of Maine, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love , and Co-editor of The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics and Animals and Women “A fine collection of essays representing a wide range of views on animal ethics.” ―Gary L. Francione, Rutgers University Paola Cavalieri is the editor of the Milan-based quarterly review Etica e Animali. Ted Benton is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK. Michael J. Thompson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University, USA. He is the author of The Politics of Inequality (Columbia University Press, 2007) and editor of Fleeing the City: Studies in the Culture and Politics of Antiurbanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Lori Gruen is William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University, USA. She is also Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and founder and coordinator of Wesleyan Animal Studies. She is the author or editor of over a dozen books, including Ethics and Animals: An Introduction (2011), Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals (2015), Critical Terms for Animal Studies (2018), and Animaladies: Gender, Animals and Madness (Bloomsbury, 2018). In addition to her ecofeminist and animal ethics scholarship and activism, she has been teaching incarcerated students for over a decade. www.lorigruen.com