Can I read How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters. By Karl Steel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 280 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $108.00, paper $27.00. on EtoBox?

How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters. By Karl Steel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 280 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $108.00, paper $27.00. by Aylin Malcolm is a Arts and Humanities article available to read on EtoBox.

What is How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters. By Karl Steel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 280 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $108.00, paper $27.00. about?

Medieval philosophers typically drew an absolute distinction between humans and nonhuman animals: only humans were capable of the rational thought necessary for free will and Christian redemption. Yet there are marginal medieval texts that contest or complicate this distinction. Such "nonsystematic animal thinking" is the subject of Karl Steel's remarkable How Not to Make a Human, which considers what contemporary theorists might gain from recognizing the heterogeneity of medieval perspectives on animals (p. 4). This monograph complements Steel's previous book, How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Ohio State University Press, 2011), which explored how medieval writers used violence against animals to define humanity through opposition: unlike animals, humans cannot be harmed with impunity. While How to Make a Human had a significant impact within medieval studies, this accessible volume, published by a respected press with an affordable paperback option, will likely engage an even broader audience in the environmental humanities. Steel deftly situates medieval (as well as classical and early modern) texts in their historical and generic contexts, while quot

Who reads How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters. By Karl Steel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 280 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $108.00, paper $27.00.?

Author

Aylin Malcolm

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published

2020

Language

EN

Field

Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)