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Marc Quinn - Trafalgar Square Installation

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*"The social, political and cultural sciences are increasingly approximating literature." (1419)
*The world was opposite from humanity until recent changes in theoretical perception.
*Newer theory puts humanity in relation to other things, and in networks with other things.
*"The emphasis on change and instability...gained support from recent scientific work in non-linear biology and complexity theory."(1420)
* What should boundaries be between humans and animals (or other life forms)?
*How do perceptions of "bodily and cognitive normality" affect humanity? This is part of the debate in Disability Studies.
*After death humans become a part of the environment. A concern for the environment became ecocriticism, and expanded to looking at social class and geographic regions. (1422)
*Human culture and nature are intertwined and can't be divided.

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University professor of the School of Geography and environment of the University of Oxford.

A specialist in human geography, he is a leading international social scientist. At present, he is Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford and Tsinghua University, and Chair of the UK government’s Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. Formerly, he was Executive Director of Schwarzman Scholars, based in New York and Beijing, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Warwick and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy. His research covers a wide range of subjects, especially new forms of capitalism, the cultural impact of the information technologies, history and awareness of time, non-representational theory, and the role of cities and urban life, including the impacts of the Anthropocene.  - cccb.org

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7yKDydNMC8

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What is NON-REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY? What does NON-REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY mean?

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*"Stripped to its bare essentials, this is a book about the geography of what happens." (1424)
*According to Thrift, there are too many theories and they all focus on beings damaged by those in power.
*Thrift is motivated describe his theory because he feels democracy is failing in some ways.
*Non-representational theory is concerned with movement.
*"Non-representational theory is resolutely anti-biographical and pre-individual."(1429)
Therefore, it is concerned with material things and how they relate to one another.
*Non-representational theory also considers practices. "Actions presuppose practices." (1430)
*Non-representational theory considers things and sites.
*Thrift, on page 1432 of Literary Theory, An Anthology, writes about including the performing arts in non-representational theory. He does not believe that the social sciences can adequately explain the world. Thrift mostly focuses on dance.
*Thrift advocates the idea of being "out -of-joint" with what is expected of us ethically. It is positive to be critical of norms and find our own means of finding our potential.
*Non-representational theory values space over the idea of how close a person is to things. This includes technology and transhuman things, and encourages thinking about the "actor" instead of just a person.
*On page 1438 Thrift moves away from discussing what non-representational theory concerns to what his book is about, which is "new kinds of practice which are compelled by their own demonstrations and therefore leave room for values like messiness, and operators like the mistake, the stumble and the stutter(Law 2004).
*To grossly oversimplify, Thrift then discusses how the arts can help people go beyond their environments, help people work with what goes beyond science and help people look beyond everyday life. He states multiple times that his work is experimental. He also tries to be interdisciplinary.
*"The Chapters" is the next section, and Thrift breaks down what he includes in the chapters of his book. He mentions politics, commodity production, economies, communities and formative spaces. Everything, today, is affected by the spaces in which we live. These spaces are "augmented and expanded" beyond literal space and can be used imaginatively, politically and for profit.
*Finally, Thrift discusses the politics of affect, which could be described as what affects the world.

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*Main idea = Explores how subjective identities (race, class, gender, etc) have been painted as “disabilities,” which are always made to be “inferior,” and how this is not only used as a form of oppression but also “disqualification” for being human.

The essay begins (as most professional criticism do) with foregrounding – mainly focused on defining disqualification, aesthetics, and oppression (see below)

She then moves into three examples of analysis: Nazi Art, a sculpture show by Mark Quinn, and Newsweek reprint of medical journal photos (that promote “Freak Show”)

Of the three, I found the analysis of Nazi art the most interesting (and in-depth); two art shows were contrasted: one that Hitler approved of that showcased the superiority of the Arian race, and the other was made specifically to show “degenerate” bodies/art

Many of the pieces in the approved show were overly idealized, and in no way represented reality.  What was striking was the clear use of Classical artistic aesthetics and principles of beauty

The pieces in the “degenerate” show were made by Nazi sympathizers and Jews alike, but were placed in there because they were Modernist in nature (which Hitler disapproved of), and depicted people of color or people with mental illness

Mark Quinn (The Complete Marbles) made sculptures of people with missing limbs, and it was meant to be reminiscent of broken statues from antiquity (to help those with disabilities see their beauty), while also showing disability; however, it created very polarizing reactions – the negative of which targeted the models (showing humanity’s negative views on disability)

The Newsweek visual essay (in 2008 mind you) showcased 20+ different images from former medical journals; however, the “freak show aesthetic” is used to derive excitement and profit from exploiting people with disabilities (due to their “inferiority”)

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*Terms:

Disqualification = “as a symbolic process removes individuals from the ranks of quality human beings, putting them at risk of unequal treatment, bodily harm, and death.” (1487) // “disqualification is justified through the accusation of mental or physical inferiority based on aesthetic principles.” (1487)

“In every case, disability identity served to justify oppression by amplifying ideas about inferiority already attached to other minority identities. Disability is the trope by which the assumed inferiority of these other minority identities achieved expression.” (1488)

Aesthetics = “studies the way that some bodies make other bodies feel. Bodies, minimally defined, are what appear in the world. They involve manifestations of physical appearance, whether this appearance is defined as the physical manifestation itself or as the particular appearance of a given physical manifestation.” (1488)

“Of course, when bodies produce feelings of pleasure or pain, they also invite judgments about whether they should be accepted or rejected in the human community.” (1489) // Aesthetics is more than just an issue for the art community, it is political bc it is social.  Bodies that cause the most pleasure and pain in others are the most discriminated against.

Oppression = “is the systematic victimization of one group by another. It is a form of intergroup violence. That oppression involves “groups,” and not “individuals,” means that it concerns identities, and this means, furthermore, that oppression always focuses on how the body appears, both on how it appears as a public and physical presence and on its specific and various appearances.” (1489) // Oppression is often justified by attributing natural inferiority; focuses on the physical and mental traits of the group and is framed as disability

“This is why the study of oppression requires an understanding of aesthetics – not only because oppression uses aesthetic judgments for its violence but also because the signposts of how oppression works are visible in the history of art, where aesthetic judgments about the creation and appreciation of bodies are openly discussed.” (1489)

Key quotes:

-What the Nazis saw “wrong” with Modernist Art = “The techniques of Dada and expressionism deform the bodies rendered by them, seeming to portray disabled people. The palette of modernism paints human faces in greens, yellows, and purples, embracing discoloration without rejecting attendant associations of disease.” (1494)

“The Nazis waged war against modern art because they interpreted the modern in art as disability, and they were essentially right in their interpretation, for modern art might indeed be named as the movement that finds its greatest aesthetic resource in bodies previously considered to be broken, diseased, wounded, or disabled.” (1494)

-Nazi’s believed that “modern art [illustrated] people, trends, and conditions [they deemed] degenerate. For the Nazis, modern art provided evidence in support of the medical and eugenic rejection of disability.” (1495)

The author’s take = “I am proposing a different dynamic between disability in art and reality. It is not a matter of being able to view disabled people as representing works of art; it is a matter of being able to view works of art as representing disability. This fine distinction is important because it underscores that the difference ascribed to the artwork relies on the difference of disability, and as long as it remains unacknowledged, disability can be used to disqualify and oppress human beings. The distinction itself between disability in art and in reality is a function of the aesthetics of human disqualification.” (1499; emphasis added)

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*Toolbox: Nature + Animals:

-This essay wasn’t as strong of a connection.  However, when reading over the “Animals” portion of Toolbox I came across an explanation of how animals have always been seen as inferior mainly due to anthropocentric understandings of intelligence. The idea of “inferior” is an obvious cross over between texts.  In the opening of Siebers’ essay, when exploring “disqualification,” she explains a history we all know: that people of color, women, and those with disabilities were often viewed as “animals” in order to justify inhuman treatment.  In “Animals” Rivkin+Ryan cite Bentham in saying that this cruelty removes our (or oppressor’s) humanity as well.  This was explored in Sieber’s essay when documenting the negative reactions to Quinn’s Trafalgar Square installation.

*Secondary Classroom:

-For my college in the schools literature course we already focus on subjectivity (and intersectionality).  However, this essay provides some definitions and terms that I think would add additional layers.  Just the thought of applying disability theory to subjective identities (so beyond physical disabilities) and looking at how otherness is presented as “inferior” and thus a “disability,” I think could make for interesting conversations.

-Additionally, I tend to start every unit (in my other courses) with an “Entry Event” where I display an image associated with the text.  We use a Thinking Routine (Harvard’s “Project Zero”) of either See-Think-Wonder or Step Inside.  I am interested in finding new / better images that will allow students to explore how “disability” is represented.

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-The author had some Qs to consider when looking at art = “What would it mean to call a person sick without it being a disqualification? What would it mean to call an artwork sick without it being a disqualification? What is the relationship between these two questions?”

-Does taking disability theory beyond physical disability (i.e. and applying it to race, class, gender) help or hurt efforts to create awareness?  Does it minimize the struggle for those with physical disabilities?

-In one of the quotes above, the author says “as long as it remains unacknowledged, disability can be used to disqualify and oppress human beings.”  So how do we “acknowledge” disability? (safely, ethically, effectively, compassionately?)

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Otherwise known as "common sense"

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Main idea = The author admits that this essay is primarily showing an “evolution” of this field of study. She breaks it up quite nicely, so I apologize for the long list (below) but it was thorough (yet efficient)

Roots = Although Dr Haque would argue this started with Thoreau, this essay says the 60s with Silent Spring and the EPA; all ecocritics agree we are in a state of crisis (that is mainly our fault), and we need to rethink our relation to the world

First Wave = focused on representations of “the world outside the text”; and forms that could best convey an environmental message; Buell had a “checklist” that created a schism in the field: is this about interrogation or advocacy?

Deep v Social Ecology = She pauses to explain the difference (see “terms” below); the first wave was “deep,” and the second wave was “social”

Second Wave = -“Ecocriticism’s second wave ushered in a more reflexive approach that provided the scope to address the complex intertwining of nature, ‘Nature’, and social and sexual politics, and that, as well as critiquing and reframing the forms that had already come under its scrutiny to reflect a more complex understanding” // Also Ecofeminism and Postcolonial Ecocriticism; Some ecofems believe in “motherhood environmentalism” (women’s closer connection to earth); whereas others interrogated and challenged of the existence of the male/female-culture/nature dichotomy //and // PoCo EcoCrit has recognized that colonial enterprise is one of enmtal profit and resource grabbing especially in its new form of Neoliberal practices

Slow Violence = Rob Nixon’s book brought about a more global focus and “environmentalism of the poor;” however, he also wanted to find better representations for “slow violence” so that the world would take note

Third Wave = development which “recognizes ethnic and national particularities and yet transcends ethnic and national boundaries,” exploring “all facets of human experience from an environmental viewpoint”; also deterritorialization (not longer tied to “place”); this wave brought back Environmental Justice movement, but now indigenous and academics worked together

Fourth Wave = Less a supplanting wave, and more parallel; this where it starts to “rabbit hole” a little with definitions; however, it is looking at Ecofeminist concerns of environmental degradation on the body and post-humanist “materiality”

Shared Materiality = “Post‐humanism de‐centres and interrogates the human, challenging the construct of the Great Chain of Being, which places man at its head.” (1518); what is human, what is animal – these distinctions are (also) constructions; Derrida: man is just one of many species; Animal studies (part of Post-Hum) still is anthropocentric (and humanist) bc it is speciesism

Agency of Matter = “the notion that matter is an agentic force, again removing one of the distinctions that has traditionally been drawn between human and non‐human and reinforcing the idea of horizontality rather than hierarchy.” (1519) // Matter has inherent creative power; not static; no break btwn sentient and non-sentient entities

Thing Power = -Thing power = “in fact, the complex entanglement of human and non‐human, biology and politics renders the terms deep and social ecology as redundant as ‘nature’.”; uses a garbage “hill” (think Wall-E) to paint a picture of a thing that is non-human but made by human consumerism (toxins seeping into ground water); Need to recognize that things may begin with us (humans) and our actions, but how “embedded” we are in everything (picture of a dissected bird with plastic items in its stomach)

Future = EcoCrit has come a long way, but it still questions its own usefulness and purpose (paralysis)

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Terms:

Ecocriticism = “is an umbrella term for a range of critical approaches that explore the representation in literature (and other cultural forms) of the relationship between the human and the non‐human, largely from the perspective of anxieties around humanity’s destructive impact on the biosphere.” (1507)

“Deep ecologists see the need for a radical reconceptualisation of humanity’s place on the planet.” // they adopt biocentric or ecocentric view to create a “biospherical egalitarianism” of sorts = “in which the interest of the biosphere overrides the interests of individual species, including the human.” (1511)

Deep’s say we need to recognize we are not above/overlords, but a PART of envmt = “And, put simply, it asserts that if we first address our hierarchical attitudes towards the natural world and identify ourselves within a broader circle of living things, then our societal problems may also find resolution.” (1512)

“Social ecologists believe that “the very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human.” Thus, in a paradigmatic reverse of deep ecology, they suggest that we must first address the problems of social inequality and oppression before we can remedy our dislocation from the environment.” (1512)

Slow Violence = “a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all” (2) – and he asks how this can be represented in a global culture that is accustomed to an ever more immediate flow of information and sensation, and that conceptualises violence as “event focused, time bound and body bound” (3).” (1515)

Key DQs:

(worked in above)

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*Toolbox: Nature + Animals =

-Well obviously there was a lot of crossover between Toolbox and this essay.  However, Toolbox (as usual) was more broad / theoretical, whereas this essay was very specific.  What Toolbox really helped with was condensing the critical (and philosophical) divide and argument down to: what (if anything) separates the human from nonhuman (animal)?  And: is there really a “human”?  However, both texts show that defining “nature” has always been a struggle.  However, I think (and I make this comment too much) we are worried too much about definitions and it leads to paralysis.  The main “frustration” (from the right or non-academia) with theory is that it’s too concerned with terms and definitions and there is no “action.”  This was a schism in the early stages of ecocriticism, and one the field still struggles with.

*Secondary Classrooms:

-Ecocriticism has always been a challenge to work into secondary curriculums (in my experience).  Mainly because nothing we read is “about the environment.”  However, as this progression essay reveals, it doesn’t just have to be about (accurate) depictions of the environment.  In fact Dr Haque’s Environmental Lit class really helped “expand” the genre (to things like crime / detective novels even).  I think what this essay made clear is there is already too much “infighting” / self-paralysis in academia, so we just need to be reading and having conversations with students, getting them to think about “the world outside the text,” and worry less about “definitions” and deconstructionist notions of “nature.”

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-How do we help students confront the Anthropocene (a fancy way of saying human-created environmental degradation era, essentially) in a post-Trump era of division and climate denial?

*Fun story: I did a unit on “sustainability” to teach students about “reading data” (graphs) which is a state standard btw.  I was told by a parent to: “leave that hippy liberal shit out of the classroom and just teach books!”

-Should ecocriticism be about interrogation or activism?

-How can we help the media / Tik-Tok / instant-gratification generation see and appreciate “slow violence”?

-What issues have you run into with trying to incorporate Ecocriticism, and what have you done about it?  If not, maybe your peers can suggest something! 😊

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Honestly this essay felt like falling down a rabbit hole...  I am going to do my best, but Carroll is already weird, and this just made it weirder.

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This chapter is all about the idea of nature we have in our heads and how it may be a little more complex than we had originally thought. We used to think of nature as something that was unmoving and set in a particular way, but as we are learning more about the world around us, we are seeing that this is simply not always the case. The idea that nature is balanced would probably still be correct if humans had not interacted with and upon nature. But even within nature there are things that can affect how it acts. For example, both time and space. We have learned that time, which we believed to be a constant, is affected by the space around it. Therefore, this chapter concludes by saying that at times nature can be just as unpredictable as humans, and its likeliness of being unpredictable goes up even more due to humans.

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“There is no such thing as ‘nature’s balance’, no real or primordial nature that would be in equilibrium if only humans had not intruded. The effects of humans are subtly and irreversibly woven into the very evolution of landscape. And any ecological system is immensely complex so that there are never straightforward policies that simply restore nature’s balance, such as fish

populations in the seas or rivers. Indeed, many ecological systems themselves depend not upon stable relationships but upon massive intrusions of flows of species from other parts of the globe and of fire, lightning, hurricanes, high winds, ice storms, flash floods, frosts, earthquakes and so on. . . There is no silent, docile ‘nature’, especially when confronted by new forms of ‘culture’,” (1453).

This quote is important because it goes into detail about nature and the idea that even within our own minds our view of it contradicts. We think of nature as peaceful and balanced, but then we also think of it as chaotic and dangerous when it comes to various weather patterns. Can both be true at once? This quote suggests that yes it in fact can. Nature is affected by everything around it just as much as the things around it are affected by it. Humans have a large impact on nature, whether it be causing Climate Change or using our technologies and intelligence to help save a dying species. Nature is a system that is much more complex than we give it credit for.

“These and other developments seem to herald a relatively new set of hybrid systems neither natural nor social; neither ordered nor anarchic – that display high levels of complexity. A complexity structure of feeling is underpinned by an apparent lack of proportionality between ‘causes’ and ‘effects. That we think of these hybrid systems as complex has stemmed from an array of developments within 20th‐century science,” (1453).

This quote is important because it highlights the fact that there are some systems that would not exist if nature and culture were not the way they are. There needs to be a balance between what we do as humans and what we need to do. At times it is important to step back and let nature run its course, but it is also important to see where one can help.

“Capra (1996) argues that nature turns out to be more like human nature – unpredictable, sensitive to the surrounding world, influenced by small fluctuations. This suggests enormous interdependencies, parallels, overlaps and convergences between analyses of physical and social worlds. Indeed, the very division between the ‘physical’ and the ‘social’ is itself a socio‐historical product and one that is in part dissolving under the sway of the complexity turn,” (1456).

This quote talks about how nature like humans can be unpredictable and affected by the world around it. If humans did not exist, it would not seem like that big a jump to conclude that nature would move along on its own. Time did not exist before the big bang, but the animals of earth did not care about time, until humans came around. And once humans started messing with nature for their own benefit, they made it so culture and social and nature would be forever intertwined. Yes, eventually nature would probably go back to normal if humans were not around, but it would have to go through a time of stabilizing things that humans kept in line and in check. Because like the butterfly effect, one small detail can change many things in the future.

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The connection that this chapter makes to the Toolbox is quite obvious in this case. This chapter is a deeper look into the chapter in the Toolbox for “Nature.” The toolbox does touch on some of these notes briefly, but this chapter extends the thoughts a little more. For example, the Toolbox talks about how nature and culture can cause damage to one another, which is true and this chapter agrees, the chapter also talks about how at times culture and nature can blend and form very complex relationships that need one another to survive and flourish.

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I am going to admit, I found this chapter very confusing. It was very technical and relied on a lot of definitions I was not aware of. I believe I got the hang of the first half, but the second half is where I get a little lost. So, any extra thought anyone else had, would be much appreciated. The author even says -

“ANT is a powerful tool to destroy spheres and domains, to regain the sense of heterogeneity, and to bring interobjectivity back into the centre of attention (Latour 1994). Yet it is an extremely bad tool for differentiating associations. It gives a black and white picture, not a coloured and contrasted one. Thus it is necessary, after having traced the actor‐networks, to specify the types of trajectories that are obtained by highly different mediations. This is a different task, and the one that will make ANT scholars busy for a number of years to come,” (1469).

So basically this chapter focuses on the Actor Network Theory. It talks about some misunderstandings of what this theory is and then goes into detail on what it is. The basic premise is that everything is connected in a way, and therefore affects one another. The connections between things may not be as obvious as we think, but they are all there. The author states, “For ANT on the contrary, there is a continuity, a multiplicity of plugs between the circulating objects in the text, the claims outside the text in the “social”, and what the actants themselves really do in “nature,” (1468). So ANT is another way to look at how social and nature interact with one another. There is both the surface level effect they have on one another, but also the under the surface effect.

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“Instead of thinking in terms of surfaces – two dimensions – or spheres – three dimensions – one is asked to think in terms of nodes that have as many dimensions as they have connections. As a first approximation, ANT claims that modern societies cannot be described without recognizing them as having a fibrous, thread‐like, wiry, stringy, ropy, capillary character that is never captured by the notions of levels, layers, territories, spheres, categories, structures, systems. It aims at explaining the effects accounted for by those traditional words without having to buy the ontology, topology and politics that go with them,” (1459).

This quote is important because it shows how broad the idea of nature and society is. If we look at it via just surfaces or spheres, then we will miss a large portion of the idea. The connections between the two have multiple dimensions and nodes. (Similar to an ogre and an onion, it has layers). ANT tries to explain some of these connections. Because like humans' nature is more complex than we had originally thought and is affected by outside sources.

“Far/close: the first advantage of thinking in terms of networks is that we get rid of “the tyranny of distance” or proximity. Elements which are close when disconnected may be infinitely remote when their connections are analyzed; conversely, elements which would appear as infinitely distant may be close when their connections are brought back into the picture,” (1460).

The example the article gave to this quote, is how someone at a phone booth may have a closer connection to their mother miles away, then the person in the phone booth right next to them. It is stating that physical closeness is not the only important closeness when it comes to connections. One needs to consider all forms of close and farness when determining the effect, they will have on one another.

“Small scale/large scale: the notion of network allows us to dissolve the micro‐macro‐distinction that has plagued social theory from its inception. The whole metaphor of scales going from the individual to the nation state, through family, extended kin, groups, institutions etc. is replaced by a metaphor of connections. A network is never bigger than another one, it is simply longer or more intensely connected,” (1461).

This idea gives the person looking into the connections between nature and society the chance to look at both the bigger picture and the smaller details. Something that may seem like a smaller deal now, may grow into a larger issue later. The best way to describe this is the butterfly effect. This theory suggests that even the smallest detail such as a butterfly flapping its wings could affect the wind across the world. Often when the idea of time travel in the future is brought up, this theory comes up.

“Inside/outside: the notion of network allows us to get rid of a third spatial dimension after those of far/close and big/small. A surface has an inside and an outside separated by a boundary. A network is all boundary without inside and outside. The only question one may ask is whether or not a connection is established between two elements. The surface “in between” networks is either connected – but then the network is expanding – or non‐existing,” (1461).

This idea helps give the reader another way to analyze the connections between nature and society. Everything has both an inside and an outside that is separated by a boundry and these can also be affected by their connections. One needs to consider this in between networks and how they function when looking at the effect of the ACT as a whole.

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This chapter hopes to further expand upon the idea of Nature in the Toolbox. This chapter tries to show all the possible connections and effects that nature and society can have on one another and highlight the fact that there are way more than one would normally consider. These connections are both physical and metaphysical, but all no less important than the last.

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This chapter focuses all on animals in writing. In the past when writing about animals they were often used as a means for humans to interact with, but in more modern writings it is becoming more common for the animals to grow in importance. It is now not uncommon to find a story about an animal that focuses on that animal as the main character. Humans are giving life to animals by trying to represent them in writing since they cannot represent themselves in a language we understand. This chapter goes on to describe who people are able to give nonhuman agency to these voices and structure them in a way that gives them life. It brings up various thoughts about representation without the representatives allowed to express their opinions, but in this case the representatives do not have the means to communicate to humans in a way they understand yet. The chapter then goes into a few examples of this literature theory in action.

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“The concern in animal studies with such questions as nonhuman agency, the relations between subject and object, inter‐species structures of feeling, emotion and affect, the function of animal metaphor and the occlusions of literary historiography necessitates a radical rethinking of core concepts that are often taken for granted in literary studies,” (1472).

This quote brings up the concern of representing a group that cannot represent itself. The chapter talks about how this animal theory often will force up the feminism theory and minority writings. In those cases the oppressed were often used as tools, like animals were, and when it came time to change that it was important to let the oppressed speak for themselves when it came to writing. But since the oppressed now are animals, this is a little harder. So although writing this way is important to give voices to the voices who cannot speak, it is also just as important to remember that the voices read may not be represented exactly the way they would have wanted.

“How can attention to animals and their life worlds help us to think differently about aspects of literary form – fable, metaphor, story, say – that are shaped by ideas of human or animal being or by the logic of species? How do texts represent the animality that resides both within nonhuman and human animals? Or affective (emotional) or relational bonds between humans and animals? Other primary concepts might include the question of anthropomorphism, the history of human perceptions of animals, the reception of evolutionary theory, or pressing contemporary issues of our age such as biomedicine, climate change, zoos, species extinction, conservation, the animal industrial complex and biopolitical power,” (1472-1473).

This quote brings up some very important thoughts on this theory. It forces the reader to consider who one can write a story from the perspective of a creature they do not know. And then how can they express it in a way the reader is able to understand and grasp. It can be done in a way that allows the reader to fall into the familiar feel of storytelling they recognize. It also considered how broad a term “animal” is and how within animals there are various different kinds and species that when looked at under a lens, one can see would probably think differently. The story of a well loved dog who lives on a ranch would be very different from a stray cat who lives in the city.

“One literary end of animal studies is the imaginative and empathetic identification with other animals’ lives, and with the philosophical and ethical questions raised by that engagement. The methodological work of animal literary studies includes deconstructing representations of animals that appropriate the animal as merely literary and mythological figures (Derrida, 2002; Haraway, 2008) as well as critiquing the tendency to observe real animals without attempting to meet their gaze,” (1474).

This quote is important because it discusses the idea that when writing about animals one must attempt to understand the animal first. Before people used to think of animals as unfeeling and unthinking. But more recent studies have shown that often animals do show morning and are saddened by the loss of another. If one just writes about an animal they know little about they would probably miss little details that make the animal what it really is.

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There is a short section in the Toolbox about animals in the larger section about nature. This chapter is a continuation of that section in the Toolbox. Although the Toolbox does bring up many of these ideas, it does not go into detail whereas this chapter does. It picks up where the Toolbox left often and broadens some of the thoughts and ideas.

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*Main idea = (I feel the author says it best) “I argue that these texts attempt to reconcile the Victorian destabilization of discrete “human” and “animal” categories facilitated by evolutionary theory with an increasingly commodified culture where everything and everyone seem potentially consumable. Carroll presents a world that is both fully social and thoroughly objectified, where humans, animals, and objects trade, share, and fight for positions in a network of edible things.” (1530; emphasis added)

Initially begins trying to define thing theory, capitalist “circulation” (of things), Carroll’s (Victorian) England, etc. // Laying groundwork for argument

Victorian “commodity capitalism” came at the time of theory of evolution; however as cap succeeded, there was a Mid-Vic concern that the world was disintegrating into a “warehouse of commodities” (moral degradation) // providing context

First major exploration: “Eat Me/Drink Me” moment; this demonstrates that things have agency – they “command” Alice to consume them (and “change” her) // “These food‐things function both partly as objects and partly as subjects. They can be picked up and consumed as objects, but they also make the requests that lead to their ingestion, making them the partial agents of their own consumption.”

Second major exploration: Coronation and Commodification; Alice is supposed to be made queen, but her food “talks back”; through this Carroll “upends” normative hierarchies between human and non-human; commodification of animals happened in Victorian England through zoos (Carroll was a critic of vivisection and zoos)

Third major exploration: CATS!; Alice “borrows” (Latour) the actions (mainly predation) of her cat Dinah; she chases the rabbit; her relation to Dinah helps, but doesn’t ensure her place atop the food chain; the Cheshire cat may be the ideal version of Dinah; Her references to Dina’s hunger and hunting is not evocation of Dinah or personification of Alice’s hunger, but extensions and forms of contact (ANT) with Dinah; Dinah doesn’t just help her thru wonderland, but she imagines that Dinah is sending her tasks and messages

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*Concepts:

Thing Theory = “the Heideggerian model of thing theory, articulated most famously by Bill Brown. This strand of thought concerns itself with, in the words of Jonathan Lamb, “the difference between objects that serve human purposes and things that don’t.” Such theory is, for Brown, invested in “sacrific[ing] the clarity of thinking about things as objects of consumption, on the one hand, in order to see how, on the other, our relation to things cannot be explained by the cultural logic of capitalism” (1530; emphasis added)

*Key DQs:

“It is only by escaping from the realm of human circulation that these things become themselves – as if human circulation were the only kind. I would suggest that the focus of such theory on the singularity and alterity of things causes it to miss out on the networks that things form, (and try to ignore)” (1530)

“In the Alice books, to be a thing is not to transcend circulation, interconnection, or the condition of being potentially utilizable or consumable by others; rather, it is to be part of such networks when these networks reach beyond the domain of the human.” (1531)

“Alice’s references to Dinah modify her social relations with the creatures of Wonderland, putting them in the position of potential food objects. And just as Alice eventually learns to eat and manipulate her size more strategically, she also begins to use her references to Dinah more deliberately to vie for power among the creatures of Wonderland.” (1539)

-Instead of discrete / obvious / clear distinctions, “Carroll brings us tangled interspecies networks assembling and reassembling as humans, objects, and animals exchange, share, and create new positions.” (1540)

-“In this way, the text hints that we all might be “things” in a dream, inventions “becoming with” and belonging to one another in an interspecies network.” (1542)

-“To the question of who dreamed the Wonderland worlds, I would venture that the answer is Alice and cats together, forming a network, a food chain in which everyone is edible and every thing is social.” (1543)

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*Toolbox: Nature and Animals:

-This essay had more to do with the “Animals” section of our Toolbox chapter.  Lee’s essay endeavors to explore how Carroll was a pioneer, and essentially using Thing and Actor Network Theory to explore our relationship to things and animals.  Much of the animal section of Toolbox focused on the ethics of animal cruelty, and learning to live “with” (Donna Haraway) animals instead of (ruling) over them.

-Although Lee didn’t touch on it, Toolbox mentions Freud as an initial inspiration for things like animal studies, since he believed (among other things) that we are driven by instinct.  Lee references other critics (Feminist and others) who view eating in Alice as Victorian suppression of female agency.  However, his exploration into thing theory and the cats of Alice (especially Latour’s “borrowing”) could provide an intersectional look at (“animal”) “instinct.”

*Secondary Classrooms:

-Since Alice is so well known / read (between Disney’s version and the original) I think excerpts of this essay would be interesting.  I can honestly say this was a struggle, but the section on cats was much more digestible and understandable.

-We also teach a lot from the Victorian period at my school, and I think this context of commodification and “Victorian Commodity Capitalism” could be interesting for my students.  Commodification is definitely already a buzz word (around PoC, gender, etc), and so looking at its “origins” (or at least older version) could be interesting for students to unpack.

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-Honestly: how would you approach attempting “thing theory” in a secondary classroom?  How would you frame it, or better create “buy in,” without losing students to abstraction or confusion?

-How would you “sell” thing theory to those resistant to theory in the first place?  I’ll admit there are many that see theory as overly erudite and is nothing but “talk” (i.e. no action).  How could we help frame thing theory as questioning ideology, hierarchy, other dominant-non dominant binaries?

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* One purpose of philosophy has been separating human and non-human
*Nature can be seen as the opposite of culture
*The word "nature" has many meanings and connotations.
*The idea of "nature" justifies the status quo (232).
*How nature is theorized connects to how nature is "acted on" by people (235).
*Freud, Rousseau, Hobbes and many other philosophers attempted to establish humanity's relationship with nature.
*Nature is often subject to the ideas of order, as in the "law of nature"(236).
*Does order protect nature or lead to its destruction?
*Colonization and slavery can be connected to ideas about the correct order of nature and civilization.
*Malthus believed that there would always be a lower class (241). Inequality was a part of the natural order.
*Social Darwinism =survival of the fittest
*Darwin believed that humans are animals.
*Bentham stood against others for the rights of women and animals.
*"Animal studies" arguments point out the difficulty of separating people from animals and animals from one another(248).
*Heidegger argued that animals do not die, which is objectionable to Clark because it supplies an excuse for violence (252).