Abstract

This interdisciplinary introduction to the emerging field of Animal Studies addresses multiple academic disciplines in order to foreground both the nonhuman animals themselves and the imagination-based and ethics-driven features of human life needed for us to consider our inevitable intersection with the living beings outside our own species. To present the full story of how the human species has in past treated our fellow animals, how we are now treating them, and what future possibilities are evident in this vital domain of human life, this volume examines the fields of education, history, law, politics, public policy, philosophy, religion, various creative arts, comparative studies, critical and cultural studies, and both social and natural sciences. Such breadth is necessary if humans are to provide a full unbiased account of the human-nonhuman story.