ReadingAnimals

For the Week #7, the latest installment of Weekly Geeks the idea is to use photos:

Decide what to illustrate and start taking photos: Most of you are book bloggers, so you may want to post photos of your favorite reading spot, your TBR pile(s), your local book store, your favorite librarian, your child reading, etc. You may want to post several photos of a certain topic (like all nine of your kids reading!) or a mixed bag of photos that are unrelated except that they’re bookish. Or you may want to post just one photo, it’s up to you. If you have a different type of blog, post photos of whatever you think is suitable.

I took photos of three stacks of books on disparate topics that I am using for three different projects. With many of my non-fiction books, I don’t actually read cover to cover or even read segments in order because I am researching the material and cross-referencing from it, rather than “reading” it. I attempted to explain my love of this sort of reading in the inaugural post for ReadingAnimals, entitled Reading Journeys.

Primate Life History

The USDA is soliciting comments on a new regulation that would set minimum age standards for when animals can be taken from their mothers and transported across state lines. (Can you believe they would say 8 weeks is the right age for all animals - pygmy mouse lemur to elephant? Common sense says that just isn’t right, and the science definitely backs that up!)

I’m writing a brief about primates in response, so I have put together a stack of books dedicated to the growth and maturation of primates. Salt and Peppah adorn the top of the stack, which bottom to top is:

• Primates in Perspective,
• The Evolution of Life Histories,
• Primate Life Histories and Socioecology,
• Mother Nature, and
• Comparative Primate Socioecology.

Sounds like a veritable party, yeah?

Critical Animal Studies

My second stack is a series of books that I am quoting in a lecture that I am giving next Thursday at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. The topic of the lecture is The trans-species cultural paradigm. Joe and Tang decorate this stack.

I love these books and am excited to talk about them in class. From bottom to top, this stack is:

• Images of Animals,
• When Species Meet,
• The Lives of Animals (Look! Some fiction. Ok it’s not all fiction, but some counts, yeah? ),
• Zoontologies (Talk about paradigm shift!),
• Animal Attractions,
• Dominance and Affection (Nothing that even compares has been attempted since its publication), and
• Beyond Boundaries, which is as relevant today as it was the day it was printed!

Feminist Ethics and Philosophy

The third and final stack is a group of books that I have been reading in tandem as part of my own research on in intersection of the ethics of care, standpoint theory and compassion for animals. You may recognize some of the books from past posts here. Sugar and Spice sit atop and provide a special touch.

Once again, from bottom to top:

• The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics,
• Knowledge Difference and Power,
• The Ethics of Care,
• The Ethics of Care and Empathy (really hard to see in image - it’s by Slote),
• Nature Ethics, and
• The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader (I’m loving this book!).

The last volume and Knowledge, Difference and Power are collections of essays from a wide range of feminist philosophers and theorists. Amazingly rich material, but that means some slow going. One essay a night at most, and then some mental time off to percolate properly.

Inspiration from other Weekly Geeks

Sadly, I could not get a member of the pack to pose with any of my book stacks, though I thought of putting the stacks sideways next to one of the wiener dogs to illustrate scale. No one was down with my plan, if you know what I mean. It appears that Nymeth over at things mean a lot had a more cooperative carnivore on her team, who apparently didn’t mind or even notice that he was part of the photo shoot! Smokey was also a photogenic carnivore helper over at ConfuzzledBooks, despite her latest medical challenges. What a trooper, and best wishes for her comfort and care.

Update 6/10/08 at 16:03: Another feline helper caught on film at Adventures in Reading.  (are the members of my pack on strike?  sheesh!)