The Aesthetics of Care On the Literary Treatment of Animals [Hardcover]

In this important new book from a distinguished scholar, Josephine Donovan develops a new aesthetics of care, which she establishes as the basis for a critical approach to the representation of animals in literature.

The Aesthetics of Carebegins with a guide to the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, leading to a reconceptualization of key literary critical terms such asmimesisandcatharsis, before moving on to an applied section, with interpretations of the specific treatment of animals handled by a wide range of authors, including Willa Cather, Leo Tolstoy, George Sand, and J.M. Coetzee. The book closes with three concluding theoretical chapters.

Clear, original, and provocative,The Aesthetics of Careintroduces and makes new contributions to a number of burgeoning areas of study and debate: aesthetics and ethics, critical theory, animal ethics, and ecofeminist criticism.

Preface
Introduction
1. The Aesthetics of Modernity
2. Willa Cather's Aesthetic Transitions
3. The Aesthetics of Care
4. Animal Ethics and Literary Criticism
5. Tolstoy's Animals
6. Local-Color Animals
7. Coetzee's Animals
8. Metaphysical Meat: Becoming Men and Animal Sacrifice
9. The Transgressive Sublime,Katharsis, and Animal Sacrifice
10. Caring to Hear, Caring to See: Art as Emergence
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

The Aesthetics of Care: On the Literary Treatment of Animalsoffers a practicable blueprint for turning the literature classroom into a site of cultural inquiry in advance of the speciesist standard. Society and AnimalsJosephine Donovanis Professor Emerita of English at the University of Maine, USA. She is the author or editor of 13 books, includingWomen and the Rise of the Novel, 1405-1726(2d. rev. ed., 2013), which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title,After the Fall(1989), andThe Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics(lsy