Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology
1 January 2015, Pages 1-370
Theological School, Drew University, United States
Abstract
A turn to the animal is underway in the humanities, most obviously in such fields as philosophy,
literary studies, cultural studies, and religious studies. One
important catalyst for this development has been the remarkable body of
animal theory issuing from such thinkers as Jacques Derrida
and Donna Haraway. What might the resulting interdisciplinary field,
commonly termed animality studies, mean for theology, biblical studies,
and other cognate disciplines? Is it possible to move from animal theory
to creaturely theology? This volume is the first full-length attempt to
grapple centrally with these questions. It attempts to triangulate
philosophical and theoretical reflections on animality and humanity with
theological reflections on divinity. If the animal–human distinction is
being rethought and retheorized as never before, then the
animal–human–divine distinctions need to be rethought, retheorized, and
retheologized along with it. This is the task that the multidisciplinary
team of theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers, and historians
assembled in this volume collectively undertakes. They do so frequently
with recourse to Derrida’s animal philosophy,
but also with recourse to an eclectic range of other relevant thinkers,
such as Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Emmanuel Levinas, Gloria Anzaldúa,
Hélène Cixous, A. N. Whitehead, and Lynn White Jr. The result is a
volume that will be essential reading for religious studies audiences
interested in ecological issues, animality studies, and posthumanism, as
well as for animality studies audiences interested in how constructions
of the divine have informed constructions of the nonhuman animal
through history. © 2014 Fordham University Press.
ISBN: 978-082326323-3;978-082326319-6
Original language: English
Document Type: Book
Publisher: Fordham University Press