Feminist Animal Studies

This week’s review takes a feminist and multidisciplinary approach to animal studies, examining topics including “intersectionalities in interhuman and interspecies violence and domination.”

Posted on December 9, 2024 in Reviews of the Month

Feminist Animal Studies: Theories, Practices, Politics

ed. by Erika Cudworth, Ruth E. McKie, and Di Turgoose Routledge, 2023
266p bibl index, 9781032120089 $120.00, 9781003222620 $33.71

Feminist Animal Studies is an excellent new multidisciplinary collection of original research, capably edited by Cudworth, McKie, and Turgoose (all, De Montfort Univ., UK). Following the editors’ introduction, the book’s 13 chapters are organized into three sections: “Engaging Theory: Feminisms, Species Boundaries, and Intersections (part 1); “Practice: Doing Feminist Animal Studies” (part 2); and “Politics and Activism: Feminist Animal Studies as Praxis” (part 3). The contributors are established and emerging feminist scholars and scholar activists from Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. Among the numerous cutting-edge issues they address are the feminist ethic of care; intersectionalities in interhuman and interspecies violence and domination; animal rights, animal welfare, and animal beingness; activist dilemmas of theory and practice; interspecies sexual violence; veganism; body politics; and animal sanctuaries. Feminist Animal Studies affirms the longstanding and continuing preeminence of feminist perspectives on multispecies relations. The collection is crucial reading for anyone interested in feminism and critical animal studies. It will be an engaging teaching tool for college courses in a variety of academic disciplines.

Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.
Reviewer: P. Beirne, emeritus, University of Southern Maine
Interdisciplinary Subjects: Environmental Studies, Women’s & Gender Studies
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences – Sociology
Choice Issue: May 2024

Feminist Animal Studies

This week’s review takes a feminist and multidisciplinary approach to animal studies, examining topics including “intersectionalities in interhuman and interspecies violence and domination.”