Animal illness and the literary imagination : a cultural history of animal disease management / Raymond Malewitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Malewitz, Raymond, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animals in literature.

Diseases in literature.

Literature, Modern--History and criticism.

Literature, Modern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 261 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

This book shows how major literary works from the eighteenth century to the present not only reflect but also shape the thoughts and anxieties of people struggling to navigate crises brought about by animal diseases and their accompanying containment strategies. These literary responses to animal illness remind us that audiences not only within but also far beyond veterinary, agricultural, and political spheres have (and have always had) a stake in these discussions. Like the virus that caused COVID-19, animal disease outbreaks have touched all our lives, and learning to recognize older manifestations of this contact in our language and our literatures enriches our understanding of who we are, how we have come to be, and how we want to proceed in our entangled, multi-species environments.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Title page

Imprints page

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 Literature and the Early Biopolitics of Animal Disease

1.1 Foucault's Flu, Rinderpest, and the Paradox of the Shepherd

1.2 Detestable Creatures: Animal Diseases, Human Vices, and the Literature of Pastoral Power

1.3 From Farm to Market: Regulating a Plague Economy

1.4 Literature Under the Biopolitical Shadow of the State

Chapter 2 Beyond Biopolitics: Interspecies Intimacies and the Great Epizootic

2.1 An Initial, Etiological Etymology of ''Oops''

2.2 An Initial, Etiological Etymology of Ooperzootics

2.3 The Semantic Convergence of Oops and Ooperzootics

2.4 Makin' Whoopie in a Hoopie

2.5 Conclusions

Chapter 3 Literary Counter-Histories of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in North America

3.1 Animal Disease and American States of Exception

3.2 Campesinos, Cow Killers, and the Literature of Pastoral Power

3.3 Alternative Literary Histories of the Mexican FMD Epizootic

3.4 Aftosa as Biopower

Chapter 4 The Early Literature of COVID-19: Anthropomorphism, Zoomorphism, Biopolitics

4.1 Zoonotic Origin Stories in the Early Literature of COVID-19

4.2 Animals Triumphant? From Zoonotic Crossover to Global Pandemic

4.3 Becoming the Herd: COVID-19 and Zoomorphism

Conclusions

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 19 Nov 2025).

ISBN:

1-009-67012-3

1-009-67016-6