[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-317994-105":59,"doc-detail-317994-en":131},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":124,"head_meta":126,"extra_data":128,"updated_unix":130},105,"en","animal-studies-introduction","ANIMAL STUDIES - Introduction","","Animal studies challenges the idea that literature is only about human beings by taking real and imaginary animals seriously as characters with actions, feelings, and relationships to people. It examines how human-animal interactions reveal human culture and the ways animality shapes narratives and understanding. From scientific traditions to cultural animal studies, the field draws on thinkers and critics to argue for reading animals as agents, not background settings, and for reevaluating how we treat them.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/animal-studies-introduction/317994/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/animal-studies-introduction/317994.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Finn","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-02","2026-09-20",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",11,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"What is the core claim of animal studies about literature?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"Animal studies argues that animals should not be treated as mere background settings; they function as characters with agency, feelings, and meaningful relationships to humans.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How do animal studies theorists connect animality to human culture?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"They study what human-animal interactions reveal about human culture, showing how animality is intertwined with how people think, act, and understand fictional and real worlds.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"Why does the text use examples like Garfield to explain the value of studying animals?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"It illustrates that removing animals from the frame makes human actions and thoughts seem incomplete or nonsensical, emphasizing that other animals help define human identity and meaning.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},317994,1791023787,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":145,"read_time":146},34359740700684,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1f400023980c374ae676?_k=1777273430885731487","1  \nANIMAL STUDIES  \n\n|  |\n| --- |\n| INTRODUCTION |\n\nWe tend to think that literature is all about human beings—after all, it is our species that imagines plots, narratives, and stanza forms. The poet Wallace Stevens might look at blackbirds in thirteen ways, but when was the last time a blackbird considered the being of a poet? (Actually, it  \nhappened exactly once, and the bird got bored. )  \nAnimals show up in our stories some times—birds flit about in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure; some dogs cause trouble in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights—but these nonhuman beings are in the background. They're kind of like the setting in most stories. Come to think of it, most authors treat setting itself like a well-trained pet: sit, shake, roll over.  \nGood boy!  \nFor the most part, animals in our stories (and often in our everyday lives) just kind of pass us by. Think of those pigeons outside your window, or those pesky rabbits eating your Grandma's lettuce. Animal studies theorists respond to decades of criticism that assumes this has to be the case—who cares about our furry, finned and feathered \"friends,\"  \nanyhow?—and call all these assumptions into question.  \nUnlike most of us, animal studies theorists and critics take real animals (and imaginary ones) seriously. They think about their actions, feelings, and their relationships to human beings—animals become characters in the full sense of the term. They look at them in a lot more than just thirteen lousy ways. They care about what happens to them, and argue  \n2  \nabout the best way to read animals and even weigh in on how we should  \ntreat them.  \nAnimal studies is like the Humane Society of Academia, but without the cute puppies to adopt. Animal studies believes that those birds in Hardy's novel have a lot to tell us about themselves and their fictional world, and Bronte's dogs are important characters too as they catalyze  \nevents and shape characters' understandings of one another.  \nStill seems weird? Fun fact: Emily's sister, Charlotte Bronte, wrote a first version of her famous novel Jane Eyre as a dog story—and we're not just talking about the fact that Mr. Rochester is a dog. Rochester: Woof!  \nWoof! Jane Eyre: Bark, Bark!  \nAnimal studies critics are interested in what human-animal interactions can tell us about human culture and how it is wrapped up with animality.  \nWhoa. If that sounds deep, it's because it is.  \nStudying animals has been a mainstay of scientific disciplines for centuries, but \"cultural animal studies\" began to take off when feminist theorists like Carol Adams started talking about an ethics of care for other animals, Donna Haraway started writing about our relations with primates from an anthropological perspective, andJacques Derrida spent the last years of his life thinking through our relationships with animals and animality. Some spend their retirement playing golf, some spend it  \ntheorizing animality—what can we say?  \nWith these kinds of moments in mind, it starts to seem that not paying attention to animals is what's strange. For a quick illustration of how strange our world would bewithout animals, see Garfield minus Garfield. Seriously, go check it out—we're going to be referring back to it. Also, it's  \n\n| hilarious and weird and sad. |\n| --- |\n| If we don't have other animals in our worlds (e.g. if Jon doesn't have |\n\nGarfield to talk to) then nothing we think or do can really make sense. The human (or our representative Jon) is nothing without other animals  \n\n| —they (like Garfield) define and help make us who we are. |\n| --- |\n| It's not just dogs that are (hu)man's best friend. It's the whole zoo. |\n\nWhy Should I Care?  \nWhy Should Readers Care?  \nNoah's game was weak. All those animals were rounded up and then never thought of again. And even today, most animals are seen as  \nstowaways on the ark of literature.  \nAnimals abound in literary works but we've pretty much always ignored them. And if we haven't ignored them, we've alw","cbCail7f7yEdYJO2","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCail7f7yEdYJO2","pdf",290043,29,"English","# Introduction\n## Why Should I Care?\n## Why Should Readers Care?\n## Why Should Theorists Care?","[{\"question\":\"What is the core claim of animal studies about literature?\",\"answer\":\"Animal studies argues that animals should not be treated as mere background settings; they function as characters with agency, feelings, and meaningful relationships to humans.\"},{\"question\":\"How do animal studies theorists connect animality to human culture?\",\"answer\":\"They study what human-animal interactions reveal about human culture, showing how animality is intertwined with how people think, act, and understand fictional and real worlds.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the text use examples like Garfield to explain the value of studying animals?\",\"answer\":\"It illustrates that removing animals from the frame makes human actions and thoughts seem incomplete or nonsensical, emphasizing that other animals help define human identity and meaning.\"}]","ANIMAL STUDIES - Introduction | PDF",1789939224,45]