This is a poem dealing with the underwater world and the symbiotic relationships that exist between organisms here. The poem ends with a reflection on humanity in relation to this.
In ancient literary texts, the presence or prominence of animals is an essential element in certain narratives. This presence may generate crucial meaning or symbolism, according to each author´s objectives. Estudios de Zoopoética. La Cuestión Animal en la Literatura presents a perspective on this through the prism of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, and zoopoetics, adding new value to re-readings where animals appear. In other words, the work presents interconnections between species as an enriching element of narrative from the perspective of new ecological materialisms.
My critical autoethnography questions the discursive practices surrounding the consumption of domesticated junglefowl, birds scientifically known as Gallus domesticus and commonly known as ‘meat’ or chicken. I investigate the degree to which language might matter when it comes to the fate faced by billions of farmed junglefowl every year, beginning with a description of my family’s small-scale egg husbandry and associated rooster and hen slaughter. I then outline Western stereotypes that belittle junglefowl in ways that are nearly always negative and often misogynistic. This leads me to a consideration of the terminology employed by animal advocacy and ‘meat’ industry communities, where I find that while the animals I call here ‘controlled junglefowl’ are commonly referred to in the ‘meat’ industry as poultry or chickens, and referred to as hens, roosters and chicks by those interested in changing their life patterns, all terms are used across all sectors. This makes me question the degree to which words matter, compared to context and culture. I conclude by turning to the communications of domesticated junglefowl, and as an old chook, find that despite advances in understanding the cognitive worlds of these avian beings, not much has changed in the social license to breed, grow and slaughter them.
The poem takes WH Auden to task for not acknowledging any nonhuman point of view in his poem 'Musee des Beaux Arts'
This short poem reflects on the use of non-human animals in the making of medieval manuscripts. In so doing, it alludes to other ways that humans use their animal kin.
Daniel Horowitz’s Bear With Me offers a richly textured and intellectually engaging cultural history of bears in American culture. Spanning over two centuries, the book traces how bears – both real and imagined – have come to occupy a central place in the American imagination, serving as icons of wilderness, comfort, danger, and identity. Bear With Me makes a valuable contribution to the cultural history of animals. It explores deeply seated cultural models built around the understanding, or at times miss-understanding, of an iconic animal providing much of value for the field of animal studies.
This article explores the ethical and methodological challenges of de-centring the human gaze to produce more nuanced and richer accounts of nonhuman animals’ lives. Such a shift requires grappling with human-centered research methods and residual anthropocentrism within multispecies scholarship. Drawing on fieldwork conducted at farmed animal sanctuaries in Denmark – spaces dedicated to the care and rehabilitation of animals previously subjected to farming – this article critically examines issues of narration, representation, and ‘consent’ in human-animal and multispecies research. These sanctuaries serve as multispecies sites that foster sensibilities to and critical reflections on the individuality and social lives of other animals. By integrating first-hand experiences from the research sites with sanctuary aspirations and interspecies practices of care, the article highlights the methodological and theoretical challenges encountered when striving to include the lived experiences of other-than-human beings in research. Despite the availability of critical tools for analysing power dynamics, social representations, and the influence of language, these frameworks often prove insufficient when applied to the complexities of multispecies interactions in the field. Studying interspecies relationships entails an intricate and ongoing process of attentiveness and unlearning preconceived notions about the animal ‘other’. Consequently, the article recognizes the methodological limitations and risks of inadvertently reinforcing species hierarchies, even in research driven by well-meaning intentions. Acknowledging these challenges, the article adopts a cautious approach that emphasizes positionality and reflexivity as critical components of human-animal research. Rather than offering definitive solutions to the problem of human-centrism, it weaves together critical tools and methodologies that contribute to addressing it. Ultimately, this approach is grounded in a dual commitment: to de-centring the human and to re-negotiating nonhuman animals’ positions as research participants. In doing so, the article calls for more nuanced and critical engagement with the ethical and representational dilemmas inherent in multispecies research, encouraging scholars to develop methodologies that operate responsibly across species boundaries.
This paper critically examines the marginalisation of veganism within leftist or progressive political discourse, particularly through the lens of Marxist theory, in the context of the Anthropocene. While Marxism has provided incisive critiques of capitalism’s exploitation of labour and nature, it has largely overlooked the ecological and ethical implications of animal agriculture, which is a glaring omission given its central role in driving environmental degradation and climate change. Drawing on Marx’s concepts of metabolic rift, alienation and value, the paper argues veganism is essential to any comprehensive critique of capitalism’s destructive relationship with both human and non-human life. It explores the parallels between the exploitation of humans and animals under capitalist systems and critiques the left’s inconsistent treatment of animal liberation as a peripheral concern, despite its deep entanglement with environmental justice, labour struggles, and anti-capitalist movements. By integrating veganism into Marxist ecological thought, the paper calls for a reimagining of leftist or progressive political frameworks to address the interconnected crises of food production, animal exploitation, and climate catastrophe. The Anthropocene demands an expanded vision of solidarity that transcends species boundaries, recognising veganism as a vital building block in the struggle for a more just, sustainable, and equitable world. A version of this paper was first presented at the Marx in the Anthropocene conference at Università Iuav di Venezia (Iuav University of Venice), Italy, in March 2025.
The Australian dairy industry is shrinking, and more sustainable alternative drinks are growing in popularity in this time of climate chaos and growing ethical awareness. This review examines the production and consumption of plant-based milk in Australia, and reasons for the dairy’s decline. Approximately 42% of Australian consumers buy plant-based milks, with soy and oat the most commonly purchased. Dairy production and consumption are in decline, although plant-based milk still has a smaller market share (9.5% in 2023). Public concerns that are driving the switch include animal welfare and the impact of dairy farming on the environment. Primary ethical and welfare concerns about dairy include the separation of calves from their mothers, the killing of ‘surplus’ calves, and the physical pain cows endure from lameness, mastitis, malnutrition and other diseases. Heat stress has been experienced by Australian dairy herds and is likely to get worse as the climate crisis continues. Farming cows produces more greenhouse gases than the farming of any other species, and the Australian dairy industry produces 3% of the country’s climate emissions. It is linked to environmental degradation including deforestation, habitat loss, and water pollution. Dairy farming uses vast amounts more water than soy or oat milk production, a particular concern in a country afflicted by droughts. The outlook for Australian dairy farming is a transition into other farming methods to meet the consumer demand for plant-based milk. Some growers and producers are diversifying into soy and oat crops and producing local plant-based milk and tofu that is retailed to the public. Is this the beginning of the end for dairy in Australia, and the emergence of an agricultural transition to bring a greener and more ethical future to all?
This review of Haley Singer’s Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the Dead (2023) highlights a work that confronts industrial cruelty with poetic intensity and uncompromising critique. Singer’s essays merge memoir, manifesto, and cultural analysis, using fractured narrative and visceral language to expose the brutal mechanics of meat production and anthropocentric exploitation. The collection deconstructs the sanitized language of industrial meat culture, challenging readers to acknowledge the deep-seated violence in modern food systems and the human complicity therein. Through experimental form and speculative reflection, so the reviewer argues, Singer reclaims the power of narrative as both a tool for remembrance and a call to action. The review situates the work within broader debates on environmental crisis, ethical responsibility, and the transformative potential of writing to reassemble a fragmented world into one of shared vulnerability and hope.
In this article I seek to counteract the invisibility and loss of individuality in public culture of the lives of cows. The auto/ethnographic approach combines personal experience and observation of particular cows woven through an account of historical events and scholarly reflections on the dairy industry.
