On Long-Lasting Humanimal Friendships: Gayness, Aging, and Disease in Lily and the Octopus

2021

This paper analyzes the significance and structural development of the theme of aging in Steven Rowley’s debut novel, the bestselling Lily and the Octopus (2016), a narrative that extends and reinvents the literary approach to manhood through alternate forms of humanimal relations. The novel intersects postmodern conceptions of madness, grief, loneliness, intimacy, and death through a tragicomic exploration of the symmetry between an unlikely (insofar as literary tradition goes) couple: Ted, a gay white male in his early forties, and his senior female dachshund, Lily. As signs of the end of Lily’s life are fleshed out by the cancerous “octopus” that chokes her brain, Ted inadvertently paral…

Animality and Biblical Masculinities in Conflict: Moses and the Golden Calf (Exodus 32)

2020

The purpose of this article is to analyze the masculinity of the biblical figure Moses in relation to the golden calf in Exodus 32. The prophet has been used as a model of biblical masculinity based on criteria such as violence, persuasive ability, his relationship to women, and physical disability. However, no gender construction derived from his interaction with the animal idol has been considered. In the context of the intersection of “animal studies” and “masculinity studies,” this article proposes the conceptualization of a biblical “zoomasculinity” linked to the prophet. Cohabitation with the theriomorphic statue allows Moses to embody diverse alternative masculinities that culminate…

‘Des singes, c’était le narcisse’: class, imitation and performing monkeys in late-eighteenth century Paris

2018

This paper focuses on the use of performing monkeys in boulevard and foire theatres in late eighteenth-century Paris. I will concentrate on the issues raised by ‘Turco,’ Jean-Baptiste Nicolet’s leg...

'A Ghastly and Blasphemous Nightmare ': Environmental Ethics in Dickens's Journalism

2018

In the article ironically entitled A Monument of French Folly, published in Household Words, 8th of March, 1851, Charles Dickens targeted a number of civic reforms in municipal abattoirs located within the city walls of London as well as the English arrogant reluctance to adopt the hygienic measures practiced in French slaughterhouses. Dickens’s article was part of the foregoing struggle to relocate the Smithfield livestock market and surrounding slaughterhouses from the City of London in the city outskirts, so as to prevent ventilation problems and the risk of miasmic infection. The aim of this paper is to examine Dickens’s article in the light of contemporary environmental concerns. I wil…

Zoomasculinities: At the Intersection Between Animals, Animality, and Masculinity

2020