Engaging and thought-provoking, this book examines how humans see and treat other animals and argues that we should extend equal consideration and respect to all beings, human and nonhuman alike. Our world is plighted by ‘isms’ such as racism and sexism, but we may have overlooked a very important one: speciesism. Speciesism is a form of discrimination against those who don’t belong to a certain species. It drives us to see nonhuman animals as objects, rather than individuals with their own interests and with the ability to feel and suffer. This book questions all of the assumptions speciesism is based upon. It raises many challenging questions over humans' very complicated attitudes toward other animals. Thinking about how animals are used as well as the suffering of wild animals, and what the future may be for all beings, this book calls for society to seriously take into account the interests of all animals. For all who care about animals, or simply how to make the world a better place, this book is essential reading.

Animal Suffering and Public Relations conducts an ethical assessment of public relations, mainly persuasive communication and lobbying, as deployed by some of the main businesses involved in the animal-industrial complex—the industries participating in the systematic and institutionalised exploitation of animals. Society has been experiencing a growing ethical concern regarding humans’ (ab)use of other animals. This is a trend first promoted by the development of animal ethics—which claims any sentient being, because of sentience, deserves moral consideration—and more recently by other approaches from the social sciences, including critical animal studies. In this volume, we aim to start an entirely unaddressed discussion within the field of public relations: The need to problematise the ethics of persuasion when nonhuman animal suffering is involved, particularly the impact of persuasion and lobbying on compassion towards other animals in the cases of food, experimentation, entertainment, and environmental management. This book provides an interdisciplinary, theoretical discussion illustrated with international case studies from experts in strategic communication, public relations, lobbying and advocacy, animal ethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, and social psychology. This unique book merges the fields of critical public relations, animal ethics, and critical animal studies and will be of direct appeal to a wide range of researchers, academics, and doctoral students across related fields.

Discusses animal rights and the morality of animal experiments, suggests ethical guidelines for the use of animals as test subjects, and identifies irrational attitudes towards animals

Engaging a diverse range of contemporary anglophone literature from authors of the Asian, Middle Eastern and Caribbean diasporas, this book explores how such works turn to spirit forces, spirit realms and spirit beings - were-animals, mystical birds, and snake goddesses - as positive forces that assert perceptual dimensions beyond those of the human, and present a vision of Earth as agentive and animate. With previous scholarship downplaying these aspects of modern works as uncanny hauntings or symptoms of capitalism's or anthropocentrism's destructiveness, or within a blanket rubric of 'magical realism', Hilary Thompson rejects this partitioning of them as products of an exotic East or global South. By contrast, this book builds a new critical framework for analysis of worldly spirits, drawing on anthropological discussions of animism, the newly recovered 1930s boundary-crossing art movement Dimensionism, and multispecies theories of animals' diverse perceptual worlds. Taking stock of novels published from 2018-2020 by such writers as Amitav Ghosh, André Alexis, Yangsze Choo, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Zeyn Joukhadar, and Tanya Tagaq, Thompson illuminates how these works extend an ecological call to decentre the human and align with multidimensional theories of art and literature to provide ways to read for rather than reduce the extra-human dimensions emerging in contemporary fiction. A refreshing rejection of ecological apocalypticism, this book unsettles typical conceptualizations of both anglophone and Anthropocene literatures by invoking European art theory, philosophy, and non-Western ideas on animism and spirits to put forward perceptions of the extra-human as a form of dealing with the many uncertainties of today's different crises.

Alexandra Horowitz, Peter Singer, Barbara King, Christine Korsgaard, and others explore the core concepts of this interdisciplinary field: “Recommended.” —Choice Animal Studies is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field devoted to examining, understanding, and critically evaluating the complex relationships between humans and other animals. Scholarship in Animal Studies draws on a variety of methodologies to explore these multi-faceted relationships in order to help us understand the ways in which other animals figure in our lives and we in theirs. Bringing together the work of a group of internationally distinguished scholars, Critical Terms for Animal Studies offers distinct voices and diverse perspectives, exploring significant concepts and asking important questions. What do we mean by anthropocentrism, captivity, empathy, sanctuary, and vulnerability, and what work do these and other critical terms do in Animal Studies? How do we take non-human animals seriously, not simply as metaphors for human endeavors, but as subjects themselves? Sure to become an indispensable reference for the field, Critical Terms for Animal Studies not only provides a framework for thinking about animals as subjects of their own experiences, but also serves as a touchstone to help us think differently about our conceptions of what it means to be human, and the impact human activities have on the more than human world. “The subject of animal studies is at a crucial stage, still being mapped out and defining itself, and this volume is very useful, given its conciseness, its all-star cast of contributors, and its breadth in providing a guide to some of the key ideas.” —Colin Jerolmack, New York University

Uncover the answers to the world’s most intriguing, entertaining, and funny questions with this best-ever trivia book from best-selling author Andrew Thompson. Shock and astound at your next dinner party with this “Best Of” trivia collection from the author of Can Holding in a Fart Kill You? This collection was created for all the curious adults who desire to have the answer to some of life’s strangest questions, including: Why can’t you tickle yourself? Why does coffee make you poop? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does bigfoot exist? Does an apple a day keep the doctor away? If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? And more crazy questions for any curious mind out there. Why Does Coffee Make You Poop? is perfect for white elephant gift exchanges, stocking stuffers, or lovers of strange, obscure, and sometimes hilarious trivia.