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Papers by Ryan Hediger

Research paper thumbnail of Governing the Wild: Ecotours of Power

Interdisciplinary studies in literature and environment, Jul 26, 2012

Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPH... more Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 3. GOVERNING THE WILD Page 4. This page intentionally left blank Page 5. Governing ...

Research paper thumbnail of Animals and Agency

Contributors include: Rebecca Bishop, Matthew Candelaria, J.J. Clark, Debra Durham, Ryan Hediger,... more Contributors include: Rebecca Bishop, Matthew Candelaria, J.J. Clark, Debra Durham, Ryan Hediger, David Lulka, Jed Mayer, Sarah E. McFarland, Debra Merskin, Dipika Nath, Rebecca Onion, Stephanie Rowe, Shelly R. Scott, Laurence Simmons, Traci Warkentin, and Cat Yampell.

Research paper thumbnail of Our Animals, Ourselves: Representing Animal Minds in Timothy and The White Bone

Research paper thumbnail of INTRODUCTION Denaturalizing the Slow Violence of Work

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of 3 ▶ UNFREE LABOR Slavery and the Anthropocene in the Americas

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of The Ecological Thought

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of The Birth of a Jungle: Animality in Progressive-Era U.S. Literature and Culture

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2013

In The Birth of a Jungle, Michael Lundblad calls for a new taxonomy of "animal studies," the grow... more In The Birth of a Jungle, Michael Lundblad calls for a new taxonomy of "animal studies," the growing body of literary and cultural studies scholarship that has emerged under the heterogeneous influence of poststructuralist theory (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari), posthumanist philosophy (Cary Wolfe et al.), and multispecies ethnography (Donna Haraway et al.). Since the term is already taken to imply an "advocacy for nonhuman animals" (12), Lundblad proposes, in effect, a doubling-down: animal studies should be defined as the project to "identif[y] whether texts and practices succeed or fail in modeling ethical treatment of animals" (12). He coins the term animality studies for works in "historicized cultural studies" that, like his own, take seriously the constitutive role of animals in human political discourse but are primarily, fundamentally grounded in concerns for social justice among humans (12). In positing the need for an animality studies with a distinct political and methodological agenda, Lundblad raises an important question. Is the "animal turn"-along with, one might add, the move towards affect, cognition, the material, the posthuman-a turn away from the politically engaged race/ gender/class intersectionalist analysis that has animated American literary and cultural studies since the late twentieth century? If a course adjustment is needed, does it require a reprioritization of the human? Susan McHugh's Animal Stories, it seems to me, offers a productive alternative road map. Following a conceptual itinerary via feminist and queer theory, McHugh puts forth a species politics that goes beyond ethical advocacy for animals and insists on multispecies coagency-of humans acting with animals-in social transformation. One cautionary, one utopian, together the two works under review offer divergent but, in important ways, complementary models on how to engage questions of animal/ity in a field of multiple, differential, and entangled inequalities and vulnerabilities. The Birth of the Jungle powerfully delineates a pivotal moment in US cultural history in which discursive identification with the nonhuman animal went hand in hand with violent social domination. The book's title refers to the "Darwinist-Freudian jungle," a discourse of the essential animality of human beings that coalesced at the turn of the twentieth century, as Lundblad's coinage asserts, under the influence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Sigmund Freud's of sexual instinct, and continues to hold sway today. "'Naturally' violent in the name of survival" and "heterosexual in the name of reproduction" (2), this newly ascendant human-animal sprang into Progressive-Era US cultural politics, giving fresh form and force to racism, classism, and hetero-American Literature

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Governing the Wild: Ecotours of Power

ISLE, 2012

Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPH... more Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 3. GOVERNING THE WILD Page 4. This page intentionally left blank Page 5. Governing ...

Research paper thumbnail of Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 2010

ABSTRACT Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human em... more ABSTRACT Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male? Or a rat who refused to push a lever for food when he saw that doing so caused another rat to be shocked? Aren’t these clear signs that animals have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence? With Wild Justice Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce unequivocally answer yes. Marrying years of behavioral and cognitive research with compelling and moving anecdotes, Bekoff and Pierce reveal that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity. Underlying these behaviors is a complex and nuanced range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, in short, are incredibly adept social beings, relying on rules of conduct to navigate intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. Ultimately, Bekoff and Pierce draw the astonishing conclusion that there is no moral gap between humans and other species: morality is an evolved trait that we unquestionably share with other social mammals. Sure to be controversial, Wild Justice offers not just cutting-edge science, but a provocative call to rethink our relationship with—and our responsibilities toward—our fellow animals.

Research paper thumbnail of Antoine Traisnel, Capture: American Pursuits and the Making of a New Animal Condition

American Literary History, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Animals in War

The Palgrave International Handbook of Animal Abuse Studies, 2017

This chapter describes animal abuse in war through time, focusing especially on two of the most c... more This chapter describes animal abuse in war through time, focusing especially on two of the most commonly used species: horses and dogs. It argues that animal abuse in war does not always derive from deliberately harmful human treatment, although that does occur. Rather, the worst abuse often grows out of the structural violence implicit in the form of organized activity that constitutes war as such. Animals have regularly been systematically abused alongside human soldiers, all of whom, at best, endure trying circumstances with poor nourishment in unfamiliar settings, challenging travel and logistics, and so on. The exigencies of war frequently produce the most egregious examples of abuse, with thousands or millions of horses or pigeons or dogs involuntarily exposed to suffering and death, including, too often, mass execution.

Research paper thumbnail of Dogs of War: The Biopolitics of Loving and Leaving the U.S. Canine Forces in Vietnam

Animal Studies Journal, 2013

This essay uses Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower to explore how dogs were used by the United ... more This essay uses Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower to explore how dogs were used by the United States military in the Vietnam wars to mitigate the territorial advantages of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. Relying in particular on the account by U.S. soldier and dog handler John C. Burnam, the essay also shows agency to be situational: since the dogs’ superior sensory abilities enabled them to help significantly the United States military, their presence complicates and at times …

Research paper thumbnail of History of War

Handbook of Historical Animal Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Animal suicide and "anthropodenial

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narratives // Reseña de Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narratives

Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

Research paper thumbnail of Becoming with Animals: Sympoiesis and the Ecology of Meaning in London and Hemingway

Studies in American Naturalism

Research paper thumbnail of Adaptive Rhetoric: Evolution, Culture, and the Art of Persuasion

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

Research paper thumbnail of Dogs of War: The Biopolitics of Loving and Leaving the U.S. Canine Forces in Vietnam

Animal Studies Journal, 2013

This essay uses Michel Foucault's notion of biopower to explore how dogs were used by

Research paper thumbnail of Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

... Even more interesting, how-ever, is that he is also capable of a form of reasoning ... approa... more ... Even more interesting, how-ever, is that he is also capable of a form of reasoning ... approaching the agency of other animals 5 ment) or fireworks (fear).14 As social animals, humans ... manifest proliferation of differences that exists in animal lives, from lizard to dog, shark to lamb ...

Research paper thumbnail of Animals and War: Introduction

Research paper thumbnail of Governing the Wild: Ecotours of Power

Interdisciplinary studies in literature and environment, Jul 26, 2012

Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPH... more Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 3. GOVERNING THE WILD Page 4. This page intentionally left blank Page 5. Governing ...

Research paper thumbnail of Animals and Agency

Contributors include: Rebecca Bishop, Matthew Candelaria, J.J. Clark, Debra Durham, Ryan Hediger,... more Contributors include: Rebecca Bishop, Matthew Candelaria, J.J. Clark, Debra Durham, Ryan Hediger, David Lulka, Jed Mayer, Sarah E. McFarland, Debra Merskin, Dipika Nath, Rebecca Onion, Stephanie Rowe, Shelly R. Scott, Laurence Simmons, Traci Warkentin, and Cat Yampell.

Research paper thumbnail of Our Animals, Ourselves: Representing Animal Minds in Timothy and The White Bone

Research paper thumbnail of INTRODUCTION Denaturalizing the Slow Violence of Work

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of 3 ▶ UNFREE LABOR Slavery and the Anthropocene in the Americas

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of The Ecological Thought

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of The Birth of a Jungle: Animality in Progressive-Era U.S. Literature and Culture

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2013

In The Birth of a Jungle, Michael Lundblad calls for a new taxonomy of "animal studies," the grow... more In The Birth of a Jungle, Michael Lundblad calls for a new taxonomy of "animal studies," the growing body of literary and cultural studies scholarship that has emerged under the heterogeneous influence of poststructuralist theory (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari), posthumanist philosophy (Cary Wolfe et al.), and multispecies ethnography (Donna Haraway et al.). Since the term is already taken to imply an "advocacy for nonhuman animals" (12), Lundblad proposes, in effect, a doubling-down: animal studies should be defined as the project to "identif[y] whether texts and practices succeed or fail in modeling ethical treatment of animals" (12). He coins the term animality studies for works in "historicized cultural studies" that, like his own, take seriously the constitutive role of animals in human political discourse but are primarily, fundamentally grounded in concerns for social justice among humans (12). In positing the need for an animality studies with a distinct political and methodological agenda, Lundblad raises an important question. Is the "animal turn"-along with, one might add, the move towards affect, cognition, the material, the posthuman-a turn away from the politically engaged race/ gender/class intersectionalist analysis that has animated American literary and cultural studies since the late twentieth century? If a course adjustment is needed, does it require a reprioritization of the human? Susan McHugh's Animal Stories, it seems to me, offers a productive alternative road map. Following a conceptual itinerary via feminist and queer theory, McHugh puts forth a species politics that goes beyond ethical advocacy for animals and insists on multispecies coagency-of humans acting with animals-in social transformation. One cautionary, one utopian, together the two works under review offer divergent but, in important ways, complementary models on how to engage questions of animal/ity in a field of multiple, differential, and entangled inequalities and vulnerabilities. The Birth of the Jungle powerfully delineates a pivotal moment in US cultural history in which discursive identification with the nonhuman animal went hand in hand with violent social domination. The book's title refers to the "Darwinist-Freudian jungle," a discourse of the essential animality of human beings that coalesced at the turn of the twentieth century, as Lundblad's coinage asserts, under the influence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Sigmund Freud's of sexual instinct, and continues to hold sway today. "'Naturally' violent in the name of survival" and "heterosexual in the name of reproduction" (2), this newly ascendant human-animal sprang into Progressive-Era US cultural politics, giving fresh form and force to racism, classism, and hetero-American Literature

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Governing the Wild: Ecotours of Power

ISLE, 2012

Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPH... more Page 1. GOVERNING THE WILD Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 2. Ecotours of Power STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD Page 3. GOVERNING THE WILD Page 4. This page intentionally left blank Page 5. Governing ...

Research paper thumbnail of Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 2010

ABSTRACT Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human em... more ABSTRACT Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male? Or a rat who refused to push a lever for food when he saw that doing so caused another rat to be shocked? Aren’t these clear signs that animals have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence? With Wild Justice Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce unequivocally answer yes. Marrying years of behavioral and cognitive research with compelling and moving anecdotes, Bekoff and Pierce reveal that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity. Underlying these behaviors is a complex and nuanced range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, in short, are incredibly adept social beings, relying on rules of conduct to navigate intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. Ultimately, Bekoff and Pierce draw the astonishing conclusion that there is no moral gap between humans and other species: morality is an evolved trait that we unquestionably share with other social mammals. Sure to be controversial, Wild Justice offers not just cutting-edge science, but a provocative call to rethink our relationship with—and our responsibilities toward—our fellow animals.

Research paper thumbnail of Antoine Traisnel, Capture: American Pursuits and the Making of a New Animal Condition

American Literary History, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Animals in War

The Palgrave International Handbook of Animal Abuse Studies, 2017

This chapter describes animal abuse in war through time, focusing especially on two of the most c... more This chapter describes animal abuse in war through time, focusing especially on two of the most commonly used species: horses and dogs. It argues that animal abuse in war does not always derive from deliberately harmful human treatment, although that does occur. Rather, the worst abuse often grows out of the structural violence implicit in the form of organized activity that constitutes war as such. Animals have regularly been systematically abused alongside human soldiers, all of whom, at best, endure trying circumstances with poor nourishment in unfamiliar settings, challenging travel and logistics, and so on. The exigencies of war frequently produce the most egregious examples of abuse, with thousands or millions of horses or pigeons or dogs involuntarily exposed to suffering and death, including, too often, mass execution.

Research paper thumbnail of Dogs of War: The Biopolitics of Loving and Leaving the U.S. Canine Forces in Vietnam

Animal Studies Journal, 2013

This essay uses Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower to explore how dogs were used by the United ... more This essay uses Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower to explore how dogs were used by the United States military in the Vietnam wars to mitigate the territorial advantages of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. Relying in particular on the account by U.S. soldier and dog handler John C. Burnam, the essay also shows agency to be situational: since the dogs’ superior sensory abilities enabled them to help significantly the United States military, their presence complicates and at times …

Research paper thumbnail of History of War

Handbook of Historical Animal Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Animal suicide and "anthropodenial

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narratives // Reseña de Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narratives

Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

Research paper thumbnail of Becoming with Animals: Sympoiesis and the Ecology of Meaning in London and Hemingway

Studies in American Naturalism

Research paper thumbnail of Adaptive Rhetoric: Evolution, Culture, and the Art of Persuasion

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

Research paper thumbnail of Dogs of War: The Biopolitics of Loving and Leaving the U.S. Canine Forces in Vietnam

Animal Studies Journal, 2013

This essay uses Michel Foucault's notion of biopower to explore how dogs were used by

Research paper thumbnail of Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

... Even more interesting, how-ever, is that he is also capable of a form of reasoning ... approa... more ... Even more interesting, how-ever, is that he is also capable of a form of reasoning ... approaching the agency of other animals 5 ment) or fireworks (fear).14 As social animals, humans ... manifest proliferation of differences that exists in animal lives, from lizard to dog, shark to lamb ...

Research paper thumbnail of Animals and War: Introduction