Abstract:

The significance of what it means to be human has become an explicit problem for many fields in literary and cultural studies today, from posthumanism and human-animal studies to disability studies and various forms of cultural studies focused on the historical and ongoing animalization of human populations. Whether self-identified as posthumanist or not, critical disability studies and critical race studies, for example, have revealed how constructions of what it means to be human have long been wielded to discriminate against both people of color and disabled people. As a result, advocacy movements have paradoxically needed to reclaim the humanity of certain human beings. At the same time, advocates for animals have questioned whether not being human is sufficient justification for being mistreated or killed. We might imagine that a common adversary—the determination of who is “human” (enough) and therefore deserving of ethical or political consideration—would logically lead to coalitions between advocacy movements for animals and historically animalized or dehumanized human populations. But this kind of link has remained fraught, particularly in relation to animality and disability, despite recent attempts in the academy to bring fields such as disability studies and human-animal studies together.

摘要：

对于人类而言，其意义的重要性已成为当今许多文学和文化研究领域的明确问题，从后人类主义和人类动物研究到残疾研究以及关注人类历史和持续动物化的各种形式的文化研究。例如，无论是否自我认同为后人道主义者，关键残疾研究和关键种族研究都揭示了人们早已运用了对人类意义的解释来歧视有色人种和残疾人。结果，反常的运动需要恢复某些人类的人性。同时，动物倡导者质疑人类不是被虐待或杀害的充分理由。我们可以想象，一个常见的对手（确定谁是“人类”（足够），因此值得道德或政治考虑）在逻辑上会导致动物的倡导运动与历史上动物化或非人类化的人口之间的联盟。但是，尽管该学院最近尝试将诸如残疾研究和人类动物研究等领域整合在一起，但这种联系仍然充满争议，特别是在动物和残疾方面。