Philosophy Program and the Thinking Animals Initiative Present
Flesh, Fur, Forgetting: Creaturely Remains in Coetzee and de Bruyckere
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Olin Humanities, Room 102
4:45 pm – 6:15 pm EST/GMT-5
4:45 pm – 6:15 pm EST/GMT-5
Kari Weil
University Professor of Letters, Wesleyan University
The terms “creature” and “creaturely” have newly received attention in the field of animal studies, bringing awareness to the shared status of human and non-human animals as vulnerable beings whose lives may be shed of historical agency and abandoned, in Eric Santner’s words, to the “mute thingness” of matter. But is the creaturely necessarily mute? In this paper I turn to recent collaborations between the taxidermy artist, Berlinde de Bruyckere and the writer, J.M. Coetzee, to consider how and whether creaturely memory and history might speak otherwise and what it might mean, in the words of Walter Benjamin, “to pick up the forgotten” from animals.University Professor of Letters, Wesleyan University
For more information, call 845-758-7280, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:45 pm – 6:15 pm EST/GMT-5
Location: Olin Humanities, Room 102