Anthropofugal FictionsLiterature, Species Politics and Flight from Humanity

Reveals how animal rights and species identity are reimagined in literature of the late twentieth century

• Presents challenging new perspectives on key works by major writers – J.M. Coetzee, David Foster Wallace, and Alice Walker – and rediscovers a key voice in the literature of animal rights: Brigid Brophy
• Offers a new framework for future work in animal studies – the anthropofugal – that rethinks the implications of posthumanism for species politics
• Brings an unexpected range of key thinkers to discussions about animals, and connects questions of species identity to debates in queer ecology, critical race studies, vegan studies, and cultural politics

This book traces a radical politics of species across the work of four significant Anglophone authors of the late twentieth century: Brigid Brophy, Alice Walker, J.M. Coetzee and David Foster Wallace. Presenting an exciting and original perspective, Robert McKay argues that these literary figures tell anthropofugal stories, in which a tendency towards animals coincides with a desire to flee from humanity. Their writing disavows allegiance to humanity’s various guises and ideals, dismissing human distinctiveness and disturbing human privilege to reimagine life with so-called animals. While deeply grounded in the practice of literary close reading, Anthropofugal Fictions is also a work of philosophy and theory that shows how doubts about species identity lie at the heart of live debates about gender, sexuality, race and ethics. It is a challenging and provocative account of what it means not to be human, and of living amongst animals without species difference as a legitimation of one’s actions.