Murdering Animals

Writings on Theriocide, Homicide and Nonspeciesist Criminology

verfasst von: Prof. Dr. Piers Beirne

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies in Green Criminology

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Murdering Animals confronts the speciesism underlying the disparate social censures of homicide and “theriocide” (the killing of animals by humans), and as such, is a plea to take animal rights seriously. Its substantive topics include the criminal prosecution and execution of justiciable animals in early modern Europe; images of hunters put on trial by their prey in the upside-down world of the Dutch Golden Age; the artist William Hogarth’s patriotic depictions of animals in 18th Century London; and the playwright J.M. Synge’s representation of parricide in fin de siècle Ireland. Combining insights from intellectual history, the history of the fine and performing arts, and what is known about today’s invisibilised sites of animal killing, Murdering Animals inevitably asks: should theriocide be considered murder? With its strong multi- and interdisciplinary approach, this work of collaboration will appeal to scholars of social and species justice in animal studies, criminology, sociology and law.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction: Rights for Whom?

Abstract

This introduction summarizes how Murdering Animals crisscrosses the intersections of animal rights theory, criminology and the history of the fine and performing arts. It is the first text in any discipline to argue that if the killing of an animal by a human is as harmful to her as homicide is to a human, then the proper naming of such a death—‘theriocide’—offers a remedy, however small, to the extensive privileging of human lives over those of other animals. Whether the focus is on prose, painting, poetry or a play, each chapter addresses the killing of animals by humans, except for Chap. 6, the repeatedly threatening images of which unfold as the homicide of a father seemingly twice committed by his son. Though each of the chapters can stand alone, I hope it is not too fanciful to suggest that each also leads into the next and at strategic points dissects the others.

Piers Beirne

2. Theriocide and Homicide

Abstract

Theriocide refers to those diverse human actions that cause the deaths of animals. Like the killing of one human by another (e.g. homicide, infanticide and femicide), a theriocide may be socially acceptable or unacceptable, legal or illegal. It may be intentional or unintentional. It may involve active maltreatment or passive neglect. Theriocides may occur one-on-one, in small groups or in large-scale social institutions. The numerous sites of theriocide include one-on-one acts of cruelty and neglect; state theriocide; factory farming; hunting and blood sports; abduction and kidnapping (‘trafficking’ in wildlife); vivisection; militarism and war; pollution; and human-induced climate change. Inevitably, the chapter leads to a shocking question: is theriocide murder?

Piers Beirne

3. Hunting Worlds Turned Upside Down? Paulus Potter’s Life of a Hunter

Abstracts

This chapter is a case study of the extraordinary painting Life of a Hunter (1647–50) by the Dutch artist Paulus Potter. It boasts fourteen rectangular panels and multiple narratives. It depicts a hunter and his hounds who have been captured by their animal quarry. The hunter is tried by the animals, condemned to death and roasted alive. Life of a Hunter provokes several questions: What did Life of a Hunter mean to Potter and to the painting’s audience? When and where did its viewpoint of an ‘upside down’ animal trial originate? Was its moral message encouraged by the pro-animal sentiments expressed by Montaigne? As happened here, an image sometimes manages simultaneously to reflect prevailing cultural standards and to show the way to their erosion and possible transcendence.

Piers Beirne, Janine Janssen

4. On the Geohistory of Justiciable Animals: Was Britain a Deviant Case?

Abstract

This chapter begins with the mysterious image of a cat hanged in 1554 London and investigates whether this particular hanging was similar in nature to the extensive medieval and early modern animal prosecutions in continental Europe reported on by the historian E.P. Evans. It examines the adequacy of Evans’ claims about the periodicity, the geography and the meaning of animal prosecutions. The existence of deodands notwithstanding, no evidence is found of any animal trials in the British Isles. The chapter warns that the power of medieval criminal law to punish animals has been usurped by the bureaucratic regulations attached to the circumstances in which animal shelters and animal control officers put animals to death.

Piers Beirne

5. Hogarth’s Patriotic Animals: Bulldogs, Beef, Britannia!

Abstract

Scholars of art history, literary criticism and animal studies have paid considerable attention of late to how visual representations of animals have frequently and sometimes to great effect been deployed in the imagination of national identity. Though the broad backcloth of this chapter is woven from the engagement of these several disciplines with such images, its concern is limited to those that couple nationalism with carnivorism. This couplet has not yet been explored in sufficient detail or depth. The chapter’s particular focus and its sole instantiation of this couplet is how the irascible English artist William Hogarth (1697–1764) deployed images of animals’ edible flesh—of ‘beef’, especially—in order to nourish a nascent national identity in eighteenth-century Britain.

Piers Beirne

6. Gallous Stories or Dirty Deeds? Representing Parricide in J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

Abstract

This chapter tries to uncover the violence between humans rather than that by humans against animals. Its focus is J.M. Synge’s oddly neglected play Playboy of the Western World. The culture wars and associated media frenzy over the play provide an ever-looming backcloth against which to interpret the meanings of intergenerational violence in a colonial society lurching towards national self-determination. Progress and failure, triumph and despair, tragedy and comedy—Playboy’s swirling plot and counterplot offer fertile ground for studies of lethal violence. Besides shedding fresh light on some of the shenanigans around Playboy, this chapter shows the worth of directing attention not only to a medium that is seldom dwelt upon, namely, the cultural productions of playwrights, but also to the social context of their performance.

Piers Beirne, Ian O’Donnell

7. Is Theriocide Murder?

Abstract

Many societies widely consider certain theriocides reprehensible. Examples are sadistic killings and the killing of charismatic wildlife. But the great majority are seen as neither wrong nor illegal. However, given the looming possibility that some animal species will be granted legal personhood, some theriocides might eventually be criminalized. If vivisection were criminalized, for example, then a corollary and a distinct practical possibility is that those who engage in scientific experimentation will be prosecuted for murder. Are we ready for this potential bombshell? Only if animals acquire legal personhood does this question make any sense. Three pressing further issues are (1) the criteria of legal personhood; (2) the species who will achieve legal personhood; and (3) with what sort of justice will theriocidal acts be served?

Piers Beirne

Backmatter

Titel: Murdering Animals
verfasst von: Prof. Dr. Piers Beirne
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-57468-8
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57467-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57468-8