Human-animal studies and the age of the anthropocene are prevalent across many disciplines at this time and this book is among the first to explore the usefulness of Deleuze for extensions and debates in these fields which only Deleuzian understandings of human subjectivity can provide. While Deleuzian studies has always been critical of the structure and status of human subjectivity, utilizing Deleuze in discussions of the contentious and unstable concept of the animal underlines the utility of his work for altering both theories and practices from art to philosophy to everyday activism. This ... More

Human-animal studies and the age of the anthropocene are prevalent across many disciplines at this time and this book is among the first to explore the usefulness of Deleuze for extensions and debates in these fields which only Deleuzian understandings of human subjectivity can provide. While Deleuzian studies has always been critical of the structure and status of human subjectivity, utilizing Deleuze in discussions of the contentious and unstable concept of the animal underlines the utility of his work for altering both theories and practices from art to philosophy to everyday activism. This book collects essays by established scholars in the field of Deleuze studies, and new scholars, to show not only the diversity of Deleuze’s applicability to human-animal studies but to call into question what we mean by the seemingly simple idea of ‘the animal’. Through 16 chapters Deleuze’s entire oeuvre is used in analysing television, film, music, art, drunkenness, mourning, virtual technology, protest, activism, animal rights and abolition. Each chapter questions the premise of the animal as a discrete, easily understood concept and thereby simultaneously places the human as animal and critiques the centrality of the human. The book aims to create new questions in reference to what the age of the anthropocene means by ‘animal’ as much as to analyse and explore examples of the unclear boundaries between human and animal.