animal studies

Animality and Entanglement: The Gothicized “anthropological machine” in Bram Stoker’s short fiction

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Vincent Pacheco

De La Salle University, Manila. vincent.pacheco@dlsu.edu.ph, ORCID id: 0000-0002-1812-5528

  Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.08

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Abstract

This paper closely reads what constitutes the “non-human” vis-à-vis animality in Bram Stoker’s often overlooked short stories, namely The Squaw and The Burial of the Rats. The Squaw is a tale about an American who murders a kitten in cold blood, and in turn, the mother grotesquely avenges her kitten. The anxiety of interspecies relationship is evident in this text, and I argue that this anxiety allows what Giorgio Agamben calls the “anthropological machine” (a system which excludes animals from the zone of livable human life) to operate. The same can be said in The Burial of the Rats where the inability to articulate a boundary between animality and humanity becomes the same thing that pervasively haunts the characters in the story. Here, the vermin and the humans become “relationally entangled” as Donna Haraway puts it and I argue that the notion of entanglement here is precisely what makes the “anthropological machine” gothic in the stories. I also suggest that what makes the representations of animals horrific is the possibility that the caesura between man and animal is non-existent.

Keywords: Animal Studies, Giorgio Agamben, Bram Stoker, Entanglement, Donna Haraway

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Foregrounding the Animal Stance: A Critical Study of Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag

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Parul Rani & Nagendra Kumar

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. Email: parulnet.e@gmail.com. ORCID Id: 0000-0002-9934-3585

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.16

Received July 30, 2017; Revised September 01, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

The present article argues that the representation of the animals in the colonial texts try to reassert and reconfigure the colonial rule on the colonised subjects. Likely, the handling of the non-human animals by the colonials in sporting or non-sporting ways erects an invisible and persistent hegemonic control over the native land. As far as the processing of the big cat animals, particularly a man-eater is concerned; it emerges with convoluting the sound factors of race, gender and supremacy. The shooting of the man-eater animal by a white is purely a forefront which designs an imperial masculinity. Through a critical analysis of Jim Corbett’s text Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, the study aims exclusively at: first, to explore the role of an animal (Leopard): a vital object in contouring masculinity. Secondly, to foreground the animal stance, questioning the human authorised version of a man-eater and the enduring human rule over the non-human animals. The discussion implants the leopard, a subject of explication, as an essential character; liable to his ‘natural’ proviso.

Keywords: Imperial masculinity, animals, the man-eating leopard, animal studies, Jim Corbett.

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Octavia E. Butler’s Clay’s Ark: A Posthumanist Reading

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Manoj Kumar Behera

PhD candidate at the Department of English, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar and Lecturer in English, Kosala Mahavidyalaya, Kosala, Angul, Odisha, India. Email: behera.manoj8@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.12

Received September 14, 2016; Revised April 5, 2017; Accepted April 11, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of posthuman subjects only in kinship and connectedness. By analyzing few characters from Butler’s novel Clay’s Ark I shall explore the continuous human effort that marginalizes non-humans in our world. I will also attempt to find out how few characters deny crossing species boundaries to remain in a state of pure humans. I use discourses like Animal studies and Posthumsnism to demonstrate that life exists in connection, kinship and symbiosis. We can find human qualities in animals and the animal qualities in humans. In the conclusion I suggest that we are always in a process of becoming and every subject needs to accept co-evolution, connectedness instead of autonomous identity in order to enter into a posthuman world.

Keywords: Animal studies, posthumanism, symbiosis, kinship, co-evolution, hybrid, enhancement.

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The Mute, the Stoic and the Rebel: Animals in the Works of Mikhail Bulgakov and Nabarun Bhattacharya

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Dibyakusum Ray

 Assistant Professor in the National Institute of Technology, Silchar. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9537-3277. Email: dibyakusum776@gmail.com.

  Volume 8, Number 3, 2016 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v8n3.06

Received May 30, 2016; Revised July 20, 2016; Accepted July 30, 2016; Published August 18, 2016

Abstract

This article attempts to trace the gradual ‘otherification’ of non-human entity, particularly animals, in Continental theory. This article would also explore how after presupposing the concept of subject as a human, with animals acting as “alive but no more” with no part in making judgments, Continental theory takes a turn. Levinas conceptualizes animals as “delightful” dociles facilitating human self-definition. Conversely, Derrida problematizes the multilayered man-animal/master-pet dialectics, as he points out the systematic exploitation of animals in society and artistic representation, as the animals are expected to be the mute receptacle of human vagaries—the perpetual ‘other’ who do not even speak or gaze back.  Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and The Heart of a Dog, together with two of Nabarun Bhattacharya’s works would serve as specific case studies to analyze the evolution of animal imagery from meek placebos through stoic indifference into a force of dissent—ever irreconcilable to the ‘self’.

Keywords: animal studies, aesthetics, ethics, Levinas, Derrida, Bulgakov, Nabarun Bhattacharya

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