Animality Beyond Humanism in David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster

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نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

University of Paris VIII

چکیده

Consider the Lobster (2004), originally written as a report on the Maine Lobster Festival for Gourmet magazine, is one of David Foster Wallace’s most discussed essays. Through a close reading of the text, this article examines posthumanism not in terms of human–machine hybridity, but as a perspective that emerges after humanism. Accordingly, the article investigates the relationship between the lobster as a non-human animal and the human as a human animal. This duality emerges as a question of self and other that, in a broader sense, constitutes a foundational logic of humanist thought.
This article examines David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” through three interconnected perspectives: historical, literary, and philosophical. It explores the relationship between the figure of the lobster and the human, and, more broadly, the relationship between humanity and nature, with particular attention to bioethics and the question of killing and violence in the Anthropocene. The study also foregrounds the relationship between habitat and the living being, examining how the presence or absence of habitat, here represented by the body of water, can challenge the humanist framework. Through an engagement with different theoretical perspectives, the article demonstrates how Wallace's ethical position can be understood at the intersection of humanism and posthumanism.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

Animality Beyond Humanism in David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster

نویسنده [English]

  • Ahmadreza Tavasoli
University of Paris VIII
چکیده [English]

Consider the Lobster (2004), originally written as a report on the Maine Lobster Festival for Gourmet magazine, is one of David Foster Wallace’s most discussed essays. Through a close reading of the text, this article examines posthumanism not in terms of human–machine hybridity, but as a perspective that emerges after humanism. Accordingly, the article investigates the relationship between the lobster as a non-human animal and the human as a human animal. This duality emerges as a question of self and other that, in a broader sense, constitutes a foundational logic of humanist thought.
This article examines David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” through three interconnected perspectives: historical, literary, and philosophical. It explores the relationship between the figure of the lobster and the human, and, more broadly, the relationship between humanity and nature, with particular attention to bioethics and the question of killing and violence in the Anthropocene. The study also foregrounds the relationship between habitat and the living being, examining how the presence or absence of habitat, here represented by the body of water, can challenge the humanist framework. Through an engagement with different theoretical perspectives, the article demonstrates how Wallace's ethical position can be understood at the intersection of humanism and posthumanism.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • David Foster Wallace
  • Posthumanism
  • Animal Ethics
  • Self and Other
  • New Humanism

مراجع

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Eve, Martin Paul. 2017. “Preferential Consideration: Bartleby, Class, and Genocide in David Foster Wallace’s ‘Consider the Lobster.’” C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings 5 (3). https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.17.
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Lobster Anywhere. n.d. “Lobster History: How America’s ‘Poverty Food’ Became Luxury Cuisine.” Accessed May 19, 2026. https://lobsteranywhere.com/seafood-savvy/history-of-lobster/.
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Morizot, Baptiste. 2022. Ways of Being Alive. Translated by Andrew Brown. Polity.
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Wolfe, Cary. 2009. “Human, All Too Human: ‘Animal Studies’ and the Humanities.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 124 (2): 564-75. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2009.124.2.564.
Wolfe, Cary. 2011. What Is Posthumanism? 3. print. Posthumanities 8. Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Wolfe, Cary. 2019. “Turning Toward and Away.” In Messy Eating: Conversations on Animals as Food, edited by Scott Carrey. Fordham University Press.
 
 
 
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انتشار آنلاین از تاریخ 13 تیر 1405

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