Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

punctum books, May 7, 2012 - Literary Criticism - 295 pages

Animal, Mineral, Vegetable examines what happens when we cease to assume that only humans exert agency. Through a careful examination of medieval, early modern and contemporary lifeworlds, these essays collectively argue against ecological anthropocentricity. Sheep, wolves, camels, flowers, chairs, magnets, landscapes, refuse and gems are more than mere objects. They act; they withdraw; they make demands; they connect within lively networks that might foster a new humanism, or that might proceed with indifference towards human affairs. Through what ethics do we respond to these activities and forces? To what futures do these creatures and objects invite us, especially when they appear within the texts and cultures of the “distant” past?

About the author

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is Professor of English and Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI) at the George Washington University. His research explores what monsters promise; how postcolonial studies, queer theory, postmodernism and posthumanism might help us to better understand the literatures and cultures of the Middle Ages (and might be transformed by that encounter); the limits and the creativity of our taxonomic impulses; the complexities of time when thought outside of progress narratives; and ecotheory. He is the author of three books: "Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages"; "Medieval Identity Machines"; and "Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles," and is the editor of four more books, including "The Postcolonial Middle Ages."

Bibliographic information

• Title: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects; Book collections on Project MUSE; Online access: OAPEN Open Research Library; Open Access Publishing in European Networks. Directory of Open AccessBooks
• Editor: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: punctum books, 2012
• ISBN: 0615625355, 9780615625355
• Length: 295 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory; Nature / Ecology; Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social