Research Article

The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal

Number: 1 October 28, 2021
  • Thomas Aiello
TR EN

The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal

Abstract

Stanley Elkin’s The Dick Gibson Show and Searches and Seizures present two human encounters with the animal – the former a dodo, the latter a bear. One encounter is violent, the other sexual, but both provide an interpretation of interspecies encounters that exposes the masks humans use to ignore the violence practiced on nonhuman animals. Most interpretations of Elkin’s animal encounters read the dodo or the bear as lenses through which to judge either the human protagonist or the human condition in general, but an anthrozoological reading of the texts gives weight to the experiences of the animals and finds an argument for equivalency across species.

Keywords

References

  1. Aguila-Way, Tania. “Beyond the Logic of Solidarity as Sameness: The Critique of Animal Instrumentalization in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Marian Engel’s Bear.” Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 23, no. 1 (2016): 5-29.
  2. Barrett, Paul. “ʽAnimal Tracks in the Margin’: Tracing the Absent Referent in Marian Engel’s Bear and J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals.” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 45, no. 3 (2014): 123-149.
  3. Blue, Gwendolyn and Melanie Rock, “Trans-Biopolitics: Complexity in Interspecies Relations.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness, and Medicine 15, no. 4 (2011): 353-368.
  4. Borneman, John. “Race, Ethnicity, Species, Breed: Totemism and Horse-Breed Classifi-cation in America.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 1 (1988): 25-51.Coover, Robert. “Reflections and Reminders.” New England Review 27, no. 4 (2006): 60-62.
  5. De Ornellas, Kevin. ““Fowle Fowles”? The Sacred Pelican and the Profane Cormorant in Early Modern Culture.” in A Cultural History of Animals in the Renaissance, edited by Bruce Boehrer, 27-52. London: Routledge, 2007.
  6. Derrida, Jacques. “The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow).” Critical Inquiry28, no. 2, (2002): 369-418.
  7. Doughterty, David C. “A Conversation with Stanley Elkin.” Literary Review 34, no. 2, (1991): 175-195.—. Shouting Down the Silence: A Biography of Stanley Elkin. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010.
  8. Dwyer, Peter D. and Monica Minnegal. “Person, Place or PIg: Animal Attachments and Human Transactions in New Guinea.” in Animals in Person: Cultural Perspectives on Human-Animal Intimacy, edited by John Knight, 37-60. London: Routledge, 2005.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Literary Theory, Comparative and Transnational Literature, Literary Studies (Other)

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Thomas Aiello This is me
0000-0003-2766-0271
United States

Publication Date

October 28, 2021

Submission Date

June 11, 2021

Acceptance Date

September 13, 2021

Published in Issue

Year 2021 Number: 1

APA
Aiello, T. (2021). The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 1, 11-36. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15881576
AMA
1.Aiello T. The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2021;(1):11-36. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15881576
Chicago
Aiello, Thomas. 2021. “The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters With the Animal”. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 1: 11-36. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15881576.
EndNote
Aiello T (October 1, 2021) The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 1 11–36.
IEEE
[1]T. Aiello, “The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal”, Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 1, pp. 11–36, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.15881576.
ISNAD
Aiello, Thomas. “The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters With the Animal”. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 1 (October 1, 2021): 11-36. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15881576.
JAMA
1.Aiello T. The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2021;:11–36.
MLA
Aiello, Thomas. “The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters With the Animal”. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 1, Oct. 2021, pp. 11-36, doi:10.5281/zenodo.15881576.
Vancouver
1.Thomas Aiello. The Dodo and the Bear: Stanley Elkin’s Encounters with the Animal. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2021 Oct. 1;(1):11-36. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15881576

Authors retain copyright of the works they submit to Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies, while agreeing to distribute their work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this license, others may share, reproduce, distribute, and reuse the work, provided that appropriate credit is given to the author(s), the title of the work, and the name of the journal. Nesir holds only the first publishing rights; all copyright remains with the author(s).


Home | Aim & Scope | Boards | Guidelines | Ethics | Peer Review | Price Policy | Indexes | Archive | CfP | Contact

Published by the Association for Thought and Literary Studies (Samsun, Türkiye)
Journal contact: editor@nesirdergisi.com | Publisher contact: info@dedad.org