Nandita Batra is currently Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez. She is the editor of Of Mice and Men: Animals and Human Culture and This Watery World: Humans and the Sea.Mario Wenning is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macau. He is the editor of Comparative Perspectives on the Philosophy of Nature and Contemporary Perspectives on Critical Theory and Systems Theory.

Batra and Wenning edited and selected this excellent, diverse collection of scholarly essays that reevaluate or break human-nonhuman boundaries. The latest volume in Lexington's 'Ecocritical Theory and Practice' series, the book provides a welcome complement to the resulting discourse at two international conferences by the same name, held at the editors' home universities in Puerto Rico and Macau. The innovative essays demonstrate that boundaries have two sides. Humans and animals are different, mostly in self-appointed ways, but also markedly similar in terms of culture and innovation. For example, essays on Aesop’s fables and the Ramayana epic argue that humans are not only similar to some other animals but are, in certain cases, even beholden to them. Narratives of difference, such as Cartesian subjectivism and Heideggerian phenomenology, are juxtaposed with counter narratives from ancient texts and modern biology to an enlightening effect. Summing Up: Recommended.

• IntroductionNandita Batra and Mario WenningI. Contesting Exceptionalism1. Bridging the Abyss: Re-interpreting Heidegger’s Animals as a Basis for inter-species Understanding Joshua A. Bergamin2. Ramayana’s Hanuman—Animal, Human or DivineSukanya B. Senapati3. Aesop: Figuring the Human/Animal BoundaryJohn HartiganII. Representing the Human-Animal Boundary4. ‘Zones of Non-Knowledge’: Facing The Open with R. M. Rilke, Martin Heidegger, and Giorgio Agamben Sabine Lenore Müller5. The Avoidance of Moral Responsibility towards Animals: Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and the Human Animal BoundaryTomaž Grušovnik6. The Cattle in the Long Cedar Springs DrawGary Comstock7. Re-writing the Human-Animal Divide: Humanism and Octavia Butler’s “Amborg”Aparajita Nanda8. Milton’s ElephantJames P. ConlanIII. Re-Situating the Human/Animal Boundary9. The Moral Duties of DolphinsSara Gavrell Ortiz10. Great Apes and Lesser Humans: Goodall and the Geographic Entangled in UhuruKristian Bjørkdahl11. The Empress and the Beast: Finding a Philosophical Voice in FictionAlison Suen12. A Bestiary for the Anthropocene: The End of Nature and the Future of Animal Life on Planet Earth Eduardo Mendieta

Nandita Batra is currently Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez. She is the editor of Of Mice and Men: Animals and Human Culture and This Watery World: Humans and the Sea.Mario Wenning is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macau. He is the editor of Comparative Perspectives on the Philosophy of Nature and Contemporary Perspectives on Critical Theory and Systems Theory.

Batra and Wenning edited and selected this excellent, diverse collection of scholarly essays that reevaluate or break human-nonhuman boundaries. The latest volume in Lexington's 'Ecocritical Theory and Practice' series, the book provides a welcome complement to the resulting discourse at two international conferences by the same name, held at the editors' home universities in Puerto Rico and Macau. The innovative essays demonstrate that boundaries have two sides. Humans and animals are different, mostly in self-appointed ways, but also markedly similar in terms of culture and innovation. For example, essays on Aesop’s fables and the Ramayana epic argue that humans are not only similar to some other animals but are, in certain cases, even beholden to them. Narratives of difference, such as Cartesian subjectivism and Heideggerian phenomenology, are juxtaposed with counter narratives from ancient texts and modern biology to an enlightening effect. Summing Up: Recommended.

• IntroductionNandita Batra and Mario WenningI. Contesting Exceptionalism1. Bridging the Abyss: Re-interpreting Heidegger’s Animals as a Basis for inter-species Understanding Joshua A. Bergamin2. Ramayana’s Hanuman—Animal, Human or DivineSukanya B. Senapati3. Aesop: Figuring the Human/Animal BoundaryJohn HartiganII. Representing the Human-Animal Boundary4. ‘Zones of Non-Knowledge’: Facing The Open with R. M. Rilke, Martin Heidegger, and Giorgio Agamben Sabine Lenore Müller5. The Avoidance of Moral Responsibility towards Animals: Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and the Human Animal BoundaryTomaž Grušovnik6. The Cattle in the Long Cedar Springs DrawGary Comstock7. Re-writing the Human-Animal Divide: Humanism and Octavia Butler’s “Amborg”Aparajita Nanda8. Milton’s ElephantJames P. ConlanIII. Re-Situating the Human/Animal Boundary9. The Moral Duties of DolphinsSara Gavrell Ortiz10. Great Apes and Lesser Humans: Goodall and the Geographic Entangled in UhuruKristian Bjørkdahl11. The Empress and the Beast: Finding a Philosophical Voice in FictionAlison Suen12. A Bestiary for the Anthropocene: The End of Nature and the Future of Animal Life on Planet Earth Eduardo Mendieta

Nandita Batra is currently Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez. She is the editor of Of Mice and Men: Animals and Human Culture and This Watery World: Humans and the Sea.Mario Wenning is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macau. He is the editor of Comparative Perspectives on the Philosophy of Nature and Contemporary Perspectives on Critical Theory and Systems Theory.

Batra and Wenning edited and selected this excellent, diverse collection of scholarly essays that reevaluate or break human-nonhuman boundaries. The latest volume in Lexington's 'Ecocritical Theory and Practice' series, the book provides a welcome complement to the resulting discourse at two international conferences by the same name, held at the editors' home universities in Puerto Rico and Macau. The innovative essays demonstrate that boundaries have two sides. Humans and animals are different, mostly in self-appointed ways, but also markedly similar in terms of culture and innovation. For example, essays on Aesop’s fables and the Ramayana epic argue that humans are not only similar to some other animals but are, in certain cases, even beholden to them. Narratives of difference, such as Cartesian subjectivism and Heideggerian phenomenology, are juxtaposed with counter narratives from ancient texts and modern biology to an enlightening effect. Summing Up: Recommended.

• IntroductionNandita Batra and Mario WenningI. Contesting Exceptionalism1. Bridging the Abyss: Re-interpreting Heidegger’s Animals as a Basis for inter-species Understanding Joshua A. Bergamin2. Ramayana’s Hanuman—Animal, Human or DivineSukanya B. Senapati3. Aesop: Figuring the Human/Animal BoundaryJohn HartiganII. Representing the Human-Animal Boundary4. ‘Zones of Non-Knowledge’: Facing The Open with R. M. Rilke, Martin Heidegger, and Giorgio Agamben Sabine Lenore Müller5. The Avoidance of Moral Responsibility towards Animals: Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and the Human Animal BoundaryTomaž Grušovnik6. The Cattle in the Long Cedar Springs DrawGary Comstock7. Re-writing the Human-Animal Divide: Humanism and Octavia Butler’s “Amborg”Aparajita Nanda8. Milton’s ElephantJames P. ConlanIII. Re-Situating the Human/Animal Boundary9. The Moral Duties of DolphinsSara Gavrell Ortiz10. Great Apes and Lesser Humans: Goodall and the Geographic Entangled in UhuruKristian Bjørkdahl11. The Empress and the Beast: Finding a Philosophical Voice in FictionAlison Suen12. A Bestiary for the Anthropocene: The End of Nature and the Future of Animal Life on Planet Earth Eduardo Mendieta