- William Ian Miller (2006) Eye for an Eye – the discussion of why a penis is worth three wergelds (a wergeld is a “man-price”) while the middle finger is the least valuable finger is worth the price of the book. Short answer, flipping the bird is obscene, but losing your dick in battle is even more obscene.
- Domique Laporte (2000[1978]) The History of Shit – the hardcover English edition is especially wonderful: black “velvet” instead of the usual paper. It’s about poop, language, money and civilization. Wonderfully illustrated.
- E.P. Evans (1906) The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals – not as gruesome as castration or icky as poop, but perhaps more interesting: how do you present rats with a summons when you know that they can’t leave their holes and hiding places and report at the appointed time because, as it is well known, cats are the mortal enemies of rats and if the cats were to know that the rats would assemble at an appointed time, then the rats had no legal obligation to appear before the court. Further, why would it even occur to you to initiate legal proceedings against rats, locusts, ingers, donkeys, pigs, chickens and whatever else?
- Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1957) The King’s Two Bodies – Simply put, what king’s believe about themselves and what people were willing to believe about king’s is more or less completely nuts. Worth reading in conjunction with Ralph Giesey’s The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France and Marc Bloch’s The Royal Touch.
- Charles Butler (1609) The Feminine Monarchie – setting aside the scientific achievements (for instance, being the first to correctly identify that the hive was ruled by a queen) and his odd attempt to represent the buzzing of bees in musical notation so that bee-masters could properly hum to their bees, the absolute confusion between bees and humans is wonderful. It is difficult to tell if he is talking about bees being like humans or humans being like bees – or, worse, bees being like humans being like bees or humans being like bees being like humans. He also initiates the genre of comparing whoever was ruling England at the time to bee – Cromwell ruling? Well, clearly the beehive is organized like a Protectorate with a Commander.
About
This is the personal website of Craig McFarlane, a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Programme in Sociology at York University, Toronto and a lecturer in the Department of Law at Carleton University, Ottawa. I also contribute to The Inhumanities.
Theoria
Recent Comments
- Δελτίο του Σαββάτου 26.6.10 « Τεχνηέντως on What’s So ‘Critical’ About Critical Animal Studies?
- Interesting CAS paper online « Deconstruction, Inc. on What’s So ‘Critical’ About Critical Animal Studies?
- Craig on OSPCA York Region Mass “Euthanasia” Stopped
- Jan on OSPCA York Region Mass “Euthanasia” Stopped
- Chris on David Noble vs. York University
- Bartholomew Ryan on Schmitt and Kierkegaard
- Weekly Round up, January 31, 2010 « The Inhumanities on The Concepts of “Human” and “Animal”
- Weekly Roundup – January 24, 2010 « The Inhumanities on Influential Texts
- Scu on “Puritan Streak”
- Craig on “Puritan Streak”
Categories
- Animals (76)
- Barbarians (8)
- Being Critical (7)
- Boneheaded (9)
- CFPs, Conferences, Lectures and Journals (49)
- Commentary (16)
- Dissertation (34)
- Election (4)
- Foucault (15)
- John Locke (3)
- Lanark County (11)
- Mandeville (1)
- Montesquieu (6)
- Music (17)
- Other (99)
- Pirates (5)
- Research Notes (89)
- Sociology (20)
- State, Sovereignty & Violence (63)
- Teaching (21)
- Thomas Hobbes (4)
Archives
- July 2010 (5)
- June 2010 (4)
- May 2010 (1)
- February 2010 (2)
- January 2010 (7)
- December 2009 (5)
- November 2009 (3)
- August 2009 (9)
- July 2009 (7)
- June 2009 (5)
- May 2009 (10)
- April 2009 (5)
- March 2009 (5)
- February 2009 (2)
- January 2009 (3)
- December 2008 (4)
- November 2008 (8)
- October 2008 (4)
- September 2008 (6)
- August 2008 (8)
- July 2008 (10)
- June 2008 (13)
- May 2008 (6)
- April 2008 (5)
- March 2008 (4)
- February 2008 (10)
- January 2008 (6)
- December 2007 (5)
- November 2007 (3)
- October 2007 (3)
- September 2007 (5)
- August 2007 (7)
- July 2007 (1)
- June 2007 (6)
- May 2007 (12)
- April 2007 (9)
- March 2007 (7)
- February 2007 (9)
- January 2007 (18)
- December 2006 (5)
- November 2006 (13)
- October 2006 (19)
- September 2006 (15)
- August 2006 (15)
- July 2006 (7)
- June 2006 (13)
- May 2006 (11)
- April 2006 (7)
- March 2006 (14)
- February 2006 (11)
- January 2006 (25)
- December 2005 (17)
- November 2005 (27)
- October 2005 (6)
- September 2005 (10)
- August 2005 (3)
RSS
2 Comments
I am really glad that they made an affordable copy of the King’s Two Bodies.
And I guess I should read the Evans book sometime. But somehow I doubt it will be anytime soon.
The Evans is helpful in terms of thinking about the general economy of violence, the relation between man/animal and sacred/profane. There are, of course, a number of problems with it: the work is not especially coherent – conflicting explanations are given for what appear to be the same phenomena (sometimes it is because they are superstitious, sometimes because they are uncivilized, sometimes because of lex talionis, etc), it isn’t especially well organized, but there is a wealth of information, should anyone want to do the requisite work and make it intelligible.
Post a Comment