Animal Studies Research Guide

What is animal studies?

A growing body of scholarship that centers nonhuman animals in a range of contexts: historical, ethical, sociological, literary. Animal studies borrows methods and theories from disciplines in both the sciences and humanities, and is rapidly developing its own unique approach to questions of animal liberation, animality, and interspecies relationships. Because animal studies is still taking shape, scholars have different visions of how to define the field.

Get acquainted with the three main approaches to the field

• Posthumanism

  • Posthumanism emphasizes theoretical undermining of humanist understandings of species difference and subjectivity.

  • Human, All Too Human: "Animal Studies" and the Humanities (PMLA) [pdf download] by Cary Wolfe
    Publication Date: 2009

• Critical Animal Studies

  • "Critical animal studies is a critical approach to human-animal relationships and explicitly committed to a global justice for animals, humans, and the earth." (Carol Gigliotti, 2017)

  • The Rise of Critical Animal Studies (Originally published in State of Nature) by Steve Best
    Publication Date: Summer 2009

• Animal Studies

  • Much animal scholarship reflects a blend of posthumanism and critical animal studies, making animal studies the most fitting umbrella term for the field.

  • Animal Studies Cross Campus to Lecture Hall (New York Times) by James Gorman
    Publication Date: Jan. 2, 2012

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