The Animal Trace: The Non-Human Margins of Philosophy in Cultural Studies

Abstract

This essay analyzes the way philosophical thought about the animal has informed the field of Animal Studies. I argue that Descartes examination of the animal as automaton, and later protectionist standpoints as Jeremy Bentham’s shaped the fundamental modern binary pairs —Nature/Culture, Animal/Human, Rational/Sentient—that have fostered the ontological consideration of the animal in philosophical discourses. I then turn to discuss how the field of Animal Studiessurpases these binary oppositions to engage with the larger historical question of the environmental crisis and the need for a new ecological ethos in the era of the anthropocene.