Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness

Do depictions of crazy cat ladies obscure more sinister structural violence against animals hoarded in factory farms? Highlighting the frequent pathologization of animal lovers and animal rights activists, this book examines how the “madness” of our relationships with animals intersects with the “madness” of taking animals seriously. The essays collected in this volume argue that “animaladies” are expressive of political and psychological discontent, and the characterization of animal advocacy as mad or “crazy” distracts attention from broader social unease regarding human exploitation of animal life. While allusions to madness are both subtle and overt, they are also very often gendered, thought to be overly sentimental with an added sense that emotions are being directed at the wrong species. Animaladies are obstacles for the political uptake of interest in animal issues—as the intersections between this volume and established feminist scholarship show, the fear of being labeled unreasonable or mad still has political currency.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Distillations Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University, USA) and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey (University of Wollongong, Australia) Part I: Dismember 1. Just Say No to Lobotomy Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University, USA) 2. Making and Unmaking Mammalian Bodies: Sculptural Practice as Traumatic Testimony lynn mowson (University of Melbourne, Australia) 3. There’s Something About the Blood…: Tactics of Evasion within Narratives of Violence Nekeisha Alayna Alexis (Independent Scholar, USA) 4. Erupt the Silence Hayley Singer (University of Melbourne, Australia) 5. The Loneliness and Madness of Witnessing: Reflections from a Vegan Feminist Killjoy Katie Gillespie (Wesleyan University, USA) Part II: Disability 6. Ableism, Speciesism, Animals, and Autism: The Devaluation of Interspecies Friendships Hannah Monroe (Brock University, Canada) 7. Metaphors and Maladies: Against Psychologizing Speciesism Guy Scotton (Independent Scholar, Australia) 8. The Horrific History of Comparisons between Cognitive Disability and Animality (and How to Move Past It) Alice Crary (New School for Social Research, USA) 9. The Personal Is Political: Orthorexia Nervosa, the Pathogenization of Veganism, and Grief as a Political Act Vasile Stanescu (Mercer University, USA) and James Stanescu (American University, USA) 10. Women, Anxiety and Companion Animals: Toward a Feminist Animal Studies of Interspecies Care and Solidarity Heather Fraser (Flinders University, Australia) and Nik Taylor (Flinders University, Australia) Part III: Dysfunction 11. The 'Crazy Cat Lady' Fiona Probyn-Rapsey (University of Wollongong, Australia) 12. The Role of Dammed and Damned Desire in Animal Exploitation and Liberation pattrice jones (VINE Sanctuary, USA) and Cheryl Wylie (VINE Sanctuary, USA) 13. Duck Lake Project: Art Meets Activism in an Anti-hide, Anti-bloke, Antidote to Duck Shooting Yvette Watt (University of Tasmania, Australia) 14. On Outcast Women, Dog Love, and Abjection between Species Liz Bowen (Columbia University, USA) Afterword: Discussion Carol J. Adams Index