ABOUT THIS BOOK

Traditional cultural practices involving animals are being seriously questioned, heavily regulated, and, in some cases, even abolished in Spain. This essential and timely text brings together prominent scholars working in the ever-expanding field of animal studies in Spain, drawing from a variety of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences to provide an interdisciplinary look at the animal question. In choosing an angle to approach the study of ethical, aesthetic considerations, and cultural representations of animals, this collection moves away from the ideology of human exceptionalism that is still predominant but progressively losing force in the field of animal ethics in Spain. It instead includes contributions by scholars who have chosen to look at animals, to a lesser or greater degree, through an antispeciesist lens, displaying the committed attention to and respect for animal life that characterizes critical animal studies.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MARGARITA CARRETERO-GONZÁLEZ is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the Department of English and German at the University of Granada in Spain and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in the United Kingdom.

REVIEWS

The thirteen original transdisciplinary essays by literary scholars, historians, philosophers, social scientists, and artists in this groundbreaking book are a significant marker in the Spanish “animal turn.” They clearly show that the simplistic stereotype that Spaniards are inherently and traditionally cruel to nonhuman animals is decidedly false. Spanish Thinkingabout Animals is a much needed game changer, and I hope it receives a broad global readership.

— Marc Bekoff, coauthor of The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age

“Spaniards are cruel to animals,” George Orwell wrote, turning the national fondness for bullfighting into an all-too-easy stereotype. Brilliantly edited by Margarita Carretero-González, Spanish Thinking about Animals prompts us to think beyond this cliché. In thirteen original and intense essays, literary scholars, historians, philosophers, artists, and social scientists reveal the world of cultural complexity, creative responses, political alternatives, and variously articulated forms of activism that nourish the Spanish “animal turn.”

— Serenella Iovino, Professor of Italian Studies and Environmental Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of Ecocriticism and Italy: Ecology, Resistance, and Liberation

The essays collected in Spanish Thinking about Animals challenge us to move beyond the stereotypical idea of a bullfighting nation and to appreciate the nuances and intricacies of the recent animal turn in Spain. An illuminating and groundbreaking book.

— Alexa Weik von Mossner, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Klagenfurt, and author of Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative

The essays in Spanish Thinking about Animals offer explorations by Spanish scholars working to examine and interrogate the ways that nonhuman animals have been represented in Spanish literature and culture. Collectively, these readings challenge the narratives of dominion and cruelty that underscore the Anthropocene, asking that we recognize that our interference in the nonhuman world does not constitute our control over it. This is a collection that is important and groundbreaking, filled with urgency but also with hope, offering us interventions and new perspectives in a time of ecological crisis.

— Laura Wright, Professor of English at Western Carolina University, and author of The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Foreword-Jorge Riechmann

Preface: Winds of Change in Spanish Thinking about Animals

Acknowledgments

Part 1. Animals in Literature

Affection, Literature, and Animal Ideation - José Manuel Marrero Henríquez

Antispeciesism and Environmentalism in the Spanish Fable: The Case of José Antonio Jáuregui’s Juicio a los humanos - Diana Villanueva-Romero

She Is Not Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf: Concha López Llamas’s Loving Eye for Wolves - Carmen Flys-Junquera

Part 2. Animal Ethics and Aesthetics

Animals as Ornaments: On the Aesthetic Instrumentalization of Animals - Marta Tafalla

A Passionate Call for Murder: Dying and Suff ering Animals in Spanish Film and Filmmaking - Claudia Alonso-Recarte and Ignacio Ramos-Gay

Usurped Strength, Stolen Nature: The Literature on the Fighting Bull - José Marchena Domínguez

Wear My Eyes: Driving Empathy through Artistic Creation - Verónica Perales Blanco

Part 3. Huma/nimal Bodies and Violence

That Obscure Object of Desire: Body and Violence - Alicia H. Puleo

Failed Arguments in Defense of Bullfighting - Jesús Mosterín

Ortega y Gasset’s Thoughts on Animals - Lydia de Tienda

Part 4. The Fight against Speciesism

Animals in Spanish Law: Changing the Legal Paradigm to Consider Animals as Sentient Beings - Nuria Menéndez de Llano

Defending Equality for Animals: The Antispeciesist Movement in Spain and the Spanish-Speaking World - Estela Díaz and Oscar Horta

The Literature in Spanish on the Question of Speciesism: An Annotated Bibliography - Daniel Dorado

Contributors

Index

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