{"product_id":"the-accommodated-animal-cosmopolity-in-shakespearean-locales-9780226924175","title":"The Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean Locales","description":"\u003cp\u003eShakespeare wrote of lions  shrews  horned toads  curs  mastiffs  and hellhounds. But the word animal itself only appears very rarely in his work  which was in keeping with sixteenth-century usage. As Laurie Shannon reveals in The Accommodated Animal  the modern human \/ animal divide first came strongly into play in the seventeenth century  with Descartess famous formulation that reason sets humans above other species: I think  therefore I am. Before that moment  animals could claim a firmer place alongside humans in a larger vision of belonging  or what she terms cosmopolity.  With Shakespeare as her touchstone  Shannon explores the creaturely dispensation that existed until Descartes. She finds that early modern writers used classical natural history and readings of Genesis to credit animals with various kinds of stakeholdership  prerogative  and entitlement  employing the language of politics in a constitutional vision of cosmic membership. Using this political idiom to frame cross-species relations  Shannon argues  carried with it the notion that animals possess their own investments in the world  a point distinct from the question of whether animals have reason. It also enabled a sharp critique of the tyranny of humankind. By answering the question of the animal historically  The Accommodated Animal makes a brilliant contribution to cross-disciplinary debates engaging animal studies  political theory  intellectual history  and literary studies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647619227701,"sku":"ByrdShop_0226924173","price":27.04,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780226924175.jpg?v=1781696199","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-accommodated-animal-cosmopolity-in-shakespearean-locales-9780226924175","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}