Where is the Animal after Post-Humanism?

Where is the Animal

after Post-Humanism?

Sue Coe and the Art of Quivering Life

By A l i c e K u z n i a r

Kuzniar, Alice. 2011. "Where is the Animal after Post-Humanism?." CR: The New Centennial Review 11, no. 2: 17-40. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 27, 2012).

Bibliography

Kuzniar, Alice. "Where is the Animal after Post-Humanism?." CR: The New Centennial Review 11, no. 2 (Fall2011 2011): 17-40. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 27, 2012).

Article begins by addressing Adorno and his take on the gaze of Homo sapiens.  Kuzniar finds the quote from Adorno to contradict each other.

Quote from Adorno:

 Nichts so ausdrucksvoll wie die Augen von Tieren—Menschenaff en—,

die objektiv darüber zu trauern scheinen, dass sie keine Menschen sind.

There is nothing so expressive as the eyes of animals—especially apes—which

seem objectively to mourn that they are not human. (Adorno 1970, 172/113)1

Die Philosophie ist eigentlich dazu da, das einzulösen, was im Blick eines

Tieres liegt.

Philosophy actually exists in order to redeem what is to be found in the gaze

of an animal. (Adorno in conversation with Horkheimer, cited in Claussen

2003, 305/255)

 Adorno uses the term Menschenaff en to apply to the expressivity of the humanlike animal gaze. The term is used to show the slippage of the boundary between man and animal.

The second part deals with another idea: “gaze is so incomprehensible, perhaps so

unhuman-like, that it calls upon philosophy as its paramount task to think

through and put into words all that is contained in it—to keep the promise,

as it were, of what lies in the gaze of the animal. Philosophy thus becomes a

field of inquiry less into the human  being than into sentient animal  being” {page 18}

Kuzniar goes on to further explore this relationship in the following paragraphs.

“In sum, the mutual gaze is the contact point where human and animal meet,

where the concrete interaction disrupts the “animal in theory,” where the

visual disrupts the dominance of the logos,  where Lévinas stops short of

attributing a face to animals, and where an attack is mounted against the

so-called humanistic preoccupation with what the gaze could mean.” {page 19}

She goes into further exploration of Sue Coe’s work as a graphic artist and animal activist who has been mistrusted. She quotes Steve Baker on Coe’s work:

“Steve Baker, forinstance, observes that her drawings “constantly risk being drawn close toa stylistic sentimentality in order to express the artist’s moral and political

outrage” {page 19}

It seems then Kuzniar disagrees with what Steve Baker has to say about Sue Coe’s work.

Kuzniar wants to look at Coe’s work differently than looked at by Steve Baker and other critics. She describes Coe’s work by questioning, “to ask how she redefines the parameters in which one can address compassion and respond to the face of the animal without falling into sentimentality. In what ways can it be said that her art indeed shatters the viewer’s sovereign gaze?” {Page 21}

In order to examine Coe’s work, Kuzniar has to reassess her work in order to be able to retrace the meaning.

{Pagee 22} provides some background information on Coe as an artist. There is some really good descriptions and facts to look back on.

I really appreciated how this article took a different look into the topic.

The notes page provides a lot of good resources that I need to further explore.