File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2004/postcolonial.0410, message 19


Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 11:05:29 -0600
From: Walter Putnam <wputnam-AT-unm.edu>
Subject: RE: new directions in poco


Speaking of fur and in the spirit of subversive playfulness (or playful 
subversion), I committed an article on stuffed animals that is available 
on-line:

http://www.reconstruction.ws/033/putnam.htm

While indulging in shameless self-promotion, I could add that I am engaged 
in a project tentatively called "The Colonial Animal."  It deals with the 
intersection of animals, especially large land mammals, within the context 
of the colonial project.  Some postcolonial issues are finding their way 
into the project.  I have been focussing more on the historical occurences 
of animals as tokens of empire but a projected chapter will deal with some 
of the issues on this thread, especially the discourses surrounding 
conservation issues in post-colonial cultures.  To give an idea, I would 
refer you to my chapter "Afican Animals in the West: Can the Subaltern 
Growl?" contained in *Remembering Africa*, edited by Elisabeth 
Mudimbe-Boyi, Heinemann, 2002.

To be continued...

Walter

--On Tuesday, October 05, 2004 4:27 PM +0800 Rashmi K <rarara-AT-graffiti.net> 
wrote:

> While we're on the subject of the intersections between postcolonial
> theory, radical ecology, and the applications it might have in the
> blurring of boundaries between human and nonhuman, might I suggest that
> there's a case study of a geeky subculture that embodies many of those
> issues, in some capacity: furry fandom. Is anyone familiar with it?
>
> I won't write up a detailed introduction to furry fandom here, but there
> are a number of places to get an idea of what it's like: The best
> starting-point would be PeterCat's Furry Info Page:
> http://www.tigerden.com/~infopage/furry/ Of special interest is
> Manawolf's furry lifestyle page --
> http://www.firstlight.net/~chythar/manawolf/articles/furry.htm -- which
> does state some of the assumptions behind anthropomorphisation as a
> tendency in human culture, assumptions which would be of interest to
> scholars of that boundary between human and nonhuman.
>
> Perhaps the eccentric hobbies of a few obsessive artists and fans isn't
> as crucual to global wellbeing as eco-criticism, but it's still
> interesting to witness some of the permutations of the abstract concepts
> being discussed on lists like this within human culture/s and
> subculture/s. Playfulness, after all, is also a means of subversion.
>
> -Rashmi
> --
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