Overview

The term ""vulnerable realism"" can imply two different understandings: one presenting weak realism as incomplete, and mixed with other literary styles; the other bringing realistic vulnerable experience into narration. The second is the key concern of this work, though it does not exclude the first, as it asks questions about realism as such, entering into a polemic with the tradition of literary realism. Realism, then, is not primarily understood as a narrative style, but as a narration that tests the probability of nonhuman vulnerable experience and makes it real.The book consists of three parts. The first presents examples of how realism has been redefined in trauma studies and how it may refer to animal experience. The second explores what is added to the narrative by literature, including the animal perspective (the zoonarrative) and how it is conducted (zoocriticism). The third analyses cultural texts, such as painting, circuses, and memorials, which realistically generate animal vulnerability and provide non-anthropocentric frameworks, anchoring our knowledge in the experience of fragile historical reality.

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9781443827324

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Reviews

The text is very sophisticated, worthy, and complimented by numerous poetic passages and captivating clear-formed claims on sensitive-reflective subjects. Susanne KarrTierstudien 13 (2018)

'The text is very sophisticated, worthy, and complimented by numerous poetic passages and captivating clear-formed claims on sensitive-reflective subjects.'Susanne KarrTierstudien 13 (2018)'Animal Narratives and Culture's response to its questions of what animals and fiction 'add' is that zoocentric narrations work to decentre the human, and that if real animals can be REVIEW: ANIMAL NARRATIVES AND CULTURE 225 projected through fiction, in place of human concerns being projected through fictional animals, then 'we may lose ourselves and make space for nonhuman others' (165). The book thoroughly illustrates that what realism adds is critical to this process; the realistic depiction of nonhuman animals (no matter, I would suggest, whether they are vulnerable, unpredictable, subversive or hostile), is what makes zoonarratives impossible to read without taking animals seriously. Overall, the book is both persuasive and insightful. While in places it might have benefitted from more engagement with existing animal studies scholarship and some clarification of zoocriticism's definition, it is of clear relevance to its discipline and indeed to others such as art and film, where many of its concepts will be applicable. Animal Narratives and Culture thus makes a valuable addition to animal studies as it sheds light on the challenges and the impact of representing animals in the Anthropocene.'Sally Borrell, University of Wollongong, Animal Studies Journal, Volume 7(2)

Author Information

Dr Anna Barcz is Trinity Long Room Hub Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow (2018-2019); the author of Ecorealism: From Ecocriticism to Zoocriticism in Polish Literature (Katowice 2016), Animal Narratives and Culture: Vulnerable Realism (Newcastle upon Tyne 2017) and co-author and editor of Animals and Their People: Connecting East and West in Cultural Animal Studies (Leiden 2018). Her research concentrates on socio-cultural representation and perception of animals and environment.

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