Posthuman ethics -- Great ephemeral tattooed skin -- Art: inhuman ecstasy -- Animalities: ethics and absolute abolition -- Wonder of Teras -- Mystic queer -- Vitalistic ethics: an end to necrophilosophy -- After life.

This is part 1 of 6 of the dossier What Do We Talk about when We Talk about Queer Death?, edited by M. Petricola. The contributions collected in this article sit at the crossroads between thanatology and queer theory and tackle questions such as: how can we define queer death studies as a research field? How can queer death studies problematize and rethink the life-death binary? Which notions and hermeneutic tools could be borrowed from other disciplines in order to better (...) define queer death studies? The present article includes the following contributions: – MacCormack P., What does queer death studies mean?; – Radomska M., On queering death studies; – Lykke N., Death as vibrancy; – Hillerup Hansen I., What concreteness will do to resolve the uncertain; – Olson P., Queer objectivity as a response to denials of death; – Manganas N., The queer lack of a chthonic instinct. (shrink)

The Animal Catalyst deals with the 'question' of 'what is an animal' and also in some instances, 'what is a human'? It pushes the critical animal studies in important new directions; it re-examines its basic assumptions, suggests new paradigms for how we can live and function ecologically, in a world that is not simply "ours." It argues that it is not enough to recognise the ethical demands placed upon us by our encounters with animals, or to critique our often murderous (...) treatment of them: this simply reinforces human exceptionalism. Featuring contributions from leading academics, lawyers, artists and activists, the book examines key issues such as: - How "compassion" for animals reinforces ideas of what distinguishes human beings from other animals. - How animal documentaries highlight the problematics of human-based representations of nonhumans. - How speciesism and human centricity are built into the legal system. - How individualist subjectivity works in relation to animals who may not think of themselves in the same way. - How any consideration of animal others must involve a radical deconstruction of our very notion of the "human." This volume is a unique project which stands at the cutting edge of both animal rights philosophies and posthuman/artistic/abstract philosophies of identity. It will be of great interest to undergraduates and researchers in philosophy, ethics, particularly continental philosophy, critical theory and cultural studies. (shrink)

Undoing anthropocentrism : becoming-animal and the nonhuman -- Vectors of becoming-imperceptible : the multiplicity of the pack -- Animal politics, animal deaths : transversal connectivities and the creation of an ethico-aesthetic paradigm -- Animal re-territorialisations in art and cinema -- Transverse animalities : ecosophical becomings.

Inspired by the ecosophical writings of Felix Guattari, this book explores the many ways that aesthetics - in the forms of visual art, film, sculpture, painting, literature, and the screenplay - can act as catalysts, allowing us to see the world differently, beyond traditional modes of representation. This is in direct parallel to Guattari's own attempt to break down the 19th century Kantian dialectic between man, art, and world, in favour of a non-hierarchical, transversal approach, to produce a more ethical (...) and ecologically sensitive world view."-- Back cover. (shrink)

This is part 1 of 6 of the dossier What Do We Talk about when We Talk about Queer Death?, edited by M. Petricola. The contributions collected in this article sit at the crossroads between thanatology and queer theory and tackle questions such as: how can we define queer death studies as a research field? How can queer death studies problematize and rethink the life-death binary? Which notions and hermeneutic tools could be borrowed from other disciplines in order to better (...) define queer death studies? The present article includes the following contributions: – MacCormack P., What does queer death studies mean?; – Radomska M., On queering death studies; – Lykke N., Death as vibrancy; – Hillerup Hansen I., What concreteness will do to resolve the uncertain; – Olson P., Queer objectivity as a response to denials of death; – Manganas N., The queer lack of a chthonic instinct. (shrink)

The skin is always and already a serietl of planes which signify race, gender, age and such. Tattooing creates a new surface of potential significance upon the body. Tattooing can call into question concepts of volition in reference to the power to inscribe and define one's subjectivity through one's own skin, and the social defining of the subject. Skin is the involution or event between subject and object, will and cultural inscription, the social and the self. Feminists, particularly corporeal feminists, (...) have attempted to think ways in which the female flesh may be recognized and self-defined without risking essentialism through reification of the meaning of ‘woman's body’. Thinking a tattooed female body thus resonates with some of the risks and benefits feminism has found in theorizing a marginalized body. Using Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard and other major influences on corporeal feminists, this article explores ways in which significance is sought in skin, and possible configurations of skin and world, which challenge the desire to read the flesh as a legible incarnation of subjectivity. (shrink)