Animal-humanities and the Eco-sophical Parergon:

Homo Reflectus in Species History

Authors

  • Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha
  • Saptaparni Pandit

Keywords:

Anthropocentrism, Posthumanism, Animal Studies, Anthropocene, New Materialism, Manifesto

Abstract

Philosophy is perhaps all too human and excludes the non-human Other from its epistemic humano-sphere. This paper dislodges the human monopoly over the planetary life-world so that a “zoography” of morals can be inaugurated in a world witnessing the Anthropocentric apocalypse caused by our arrogant sense of human supremacy. In a restructuring attempt, we try to “think through” the Earth and the Earth Others, so as to expose the inherent violence in our normative nonchalance when it comes to our atrocities against animals or our colonization of non-humans. Perceived through post-Anthropocentric optics, the normative binary of human/non-human assumes larger significance as we endeavor to think through other fellow species to salvage the damage of our “common home”- the planet Earth, inhabited equally by humans and non-humans. Human-centric epistemic trajectories are premised on power bound binaries of inside/outside, human/non-human, etc and such divisions remind us of Derrida`s notion of the “parergon” that problematises the frame/content, or inside/outside binaries to tease out a bridge between the divided realms. We therefore, argue for an eco-sophical parergonal suturing of the human/non-human, the Earth/Earth-others to constitute a holistic frame of co-living. Borrowing Claire Colebrook, Tom Cohen and J Hillis Miller`s ideas in their Twilight of the Anthropocene Idols (2016), we intend to work for alternative philosophems – something Rosi Braidotti and Cary Wolfe named as anti-humanism or posthumanism. We propose to deepen such post-humanist approaches in the humanities and social sciences so that a better critique of Anthropocentric humanism can be actualized.

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Author Biographies

Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha

Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha is Associate Professor in the Department of English, Kazi Nazrul University, India. He has contributed in journals such as International Journal of Zizek Studies, Parallax, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Contemporary South Asia, Postcolonial Studies, History and Sociology of South Asia, Economic and Political Weekly, etc. His review work has appeared in Derrida Today, Deleuze Studies, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Postcolonial Text, New Formations, Ephemera, Journal of Social Movement Studies, Radical Philosophy, Philosophy in Review, etc. He co-edits the journal Kairos, the Journal of Critical Symposium and he is one of the founding members of the Postcolonial Studies Association of the Global South (PSAGS). He would be guest editing the 2016 special issue of Café Dissensus on “Humanimal and the Planet Earth”. He can be reached at anindyasp@gmail.com

Saptaparni Pandit

Saptaparni Pandit is currently a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of English, Kazi Nazrul University, India. Her broad area of PhD Research is Post-Anthropocentrism and a Postcolonial Rejoinder. She did her postgraduate research dissertation on Provincializing Shakespeare and Subverting the Beaten Track: Romeo+Juliet, Romeo/Juliet or Romeo and Juliet? She has been assigned to jointly write on the book The Routledge Companion to Alternative Organization (2014) for the journal Ephemera. She has also been assigned to jointly review the works, Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene (2015), and Capitalism in the Web of Life (2015) for the journal Environmental Humanities (Duke University Press). She can be reached at sapta.parni@rediffmail.com.

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Published

2021-11-01

How to Cite

Purakayastha , A. S. ., & Pandit, S. (2021). Animal-humanities and the Eco-sophical Parergon:: Homo Reflectus in Species History. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 3(1), 97–114. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/68