Saskia McCracken – författare

Meet the British animals we tend to ignore – and discover why they matter more than we think. From midge clouds and riverside bat walks to slug-slick gardens and wasps’ nests in the eaves, Awful Creatures follows writer Saskia McCracken as she seeks out the British animals we dismiss, shun or quietly resent.Travelling across the country, she encounters species often dismissed as pests – midges, slugs, wasps, toads, pigeons, ravens and jellyfish – and asks what changes when we look at them with curiosity rather than discomfort. Their stories reveal the surprising ways these creatures shape our landscapes: midges holding grazing in check, pigeons enriching soils, ravens helping forests spread, and jellyfish flourishing as the seas warm.Blending travel writing with natural and cultural history, McCracken explores how these species connect our lives with wider ecological change, and what they tell us about shifting public attitudes, folklore and the future of Britain’s wildlife.

A contemporary collection of scholarly essays exploring the vibrant intersections of modernist studies and critical animal studiesPresents the diverse range of intersections between modernist and critical animal studiesIncludes cutting-edge research contributions from a heterogenous and interdisciplinary range of modernist scholarsOffers a key research resource for scholars in modernist studies, critical animal studies and cognate areasProvides a classroom-ready collection of essays relevant to undergraduate and graduate courses on modernist writing and critical animal studiesThe intersection of modernist studies and critical animal studies is a new, progressive field that raises crucial questions about what it means to live with animals in modernity. Beastly Modernisms gathers essays from leading figures in the field alongside emerging scholars who, together, revisit canonical figures and decentre the canons and geographies of modernism. Grounded in interdisciplinary approaches, the contributions work with cultural history and theoretical frameworks to unearth the multispecies dynamics of twentieth-century literature and culture. The chapters in Beastly Modernisms present a diverse range of approaches and topics, exploring dogs in Virginia Woolf to Republican China, animals and gender in surrealism to African-American texts, S mi reindeer to rat propaganda, modernist jellyfish to metamodernist beasts, 1940s poetry to Indian Partition stories, charting the current and future state of modernist animal studies.

The intersection of modernist studies and critical animal studies is a new, progressive field that raises crucial questions about what it means to live with animals in modernity. Beastly Modernisms gathers essays from leading figures in the field alongside emerging scholars who, together, revisit canonical figures and decentre the canons and geographies of modernism. Grounded in interdisciplinary approaches, the contributions work with cultural history and theoretical frameworks to unearth the multispecies dynamics of twentieth-century literature and culture. The chapters in Beastly Modernisms present a diverse range of approaches and topics, exploring dogs in Virginia Woolf to Republican China, animals and gender in surrealism to African-American texts, Sámi reindeer to rat propaganda, modernist jellyfish to metamodernist beasts, 1940s poetry to Indian Partition stories, charting the current and future state of modernist animal studies.