Divinanimality ─ Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology

A turn to the animal is underway in the humanities, most obviously in such fields as philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. One important catalyst for this development has been the remarkable body of animal theory issuing from such thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway. What might the resulting interdisciplinary field, commonly termed animality studies, mean for theology, biblical studies, and other cognate disciplines? Is it possible to move from animal theory to creaturely theology? This volume is the first full-length attempt to grapple centrally with these questions. It attempts to triangulate philosophical and theoretical reflections on animality and humanity with theological reflections on divinity. If the animal-human distinction is being rethought and retheorized as never before, then the animal-human-divine distinction needs to be rethought, retheorized, and retheologized along with it. This is the task that the multidisciplinary team of theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers, and historians assembled in this volume collectively undertakes. They do so frequently with recourse to Derrida's animal philosophy, but also with recourse to an eclectic range of other relevant thinkers, such as Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Emmanuel Levinas, Gloria Anzaldua, Helene Cixous, A. N. Whitehead, and Lynn White Jr. The result is a volume that will be essential reading for religious studies audiences interested in ecological issues, animality studies, and posthumanism, and for animality studies audiences interested in how constructions of the divine have informed constructions of the non-human animal through history.

Stephen D. Moore is Professor of New Testament Studies at the Theological School, Drew University. He has written or co-written, edited or co-edited close to twenty volumes, most recently The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto, with Yvonne Sherwood. He is currently working on The Bodybuilder, the Sex Worker, and the Sheep: Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation.

Laurel Kearns is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies in the Theological School and Graduate Division of Religion of Drew University.