Animal Remains

Sarah Bezan is Postdoctoral Research Associate in Perceptions of Biodiversity Change at The University of York’s Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity in the UK. Her research focuses on the entangled social and ecological dimensions of species loss and revival in contemporary British, North American, and Australian literature and visual culture. She is currently at work on two book projects: Dead Darwin: Necro-Ecologies in Neo-Victorian Culture (under advance contract with Manchester University Press), along with a second monograph (in progress) that examines species revivalist representations of the woolly mammoth, great auk, dodo, Steller’s sea cow, thylacine, and Pinta Island tortoise. Robert McKay is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Sheffield, where he is Co-director of the Sheffield Animal Studies Research Centre. He has published widely on the politics of species in modern and contemporary literature and film, including the co-edited volumes The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature (Palgrave, 2021) and Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Wales UP, 2017). He is series Co-editor for Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature and Associate Editor (Literature) for Society & Animals.

Animal Remains: An Introduction

Sarah Bezan and Robert McKay

I. Fossil Figurations






J.G. Ballard’s Fossil Imaginaries: Apocalypse, Deep Time and Deathly Life
Peter Sands




Photographing Dead Animals: Taphonomy as Embedded Media
Ana María Gómez López

II. Extinction Futures




Snail Trails: A Foray into Disappearing Worlds, Written in Slime
Thom van Dooren




Making Specimens Sacred: Putting the Bodies of Solitario Jorge and Cụ Rùa on Display
Gitte Westergaard and Dolly Jørgensen




A Tale of Two Bucardo: Laña, Celia, and the Contested Meanings of Animal Remains
Adam Searle

III. The Political Cultural Lives of Animal Remains




Beef, Bull and Ballyhoo: America’s Cattle-Cinema Complex
Michael Lawrence




Read Meat
Robert McKay




Le Voreux: Scenes of Animal Labour in Émile Zola’s Germinal
Dinesh Wadiwel

IV. Empire, Colony: Animal Remains as Infrastructure




Making Cows Live: Bovine Remains and the Rise of Hindu Nationalism
Sundhya Walther




Before The Thing: Viruses, Sled Dogs, Seabirds, and Science Fiction
Lucinda Cole

V. Ethics and Affects: Mourning Animal Remains




Between Data and Affect: Interspecific Accommodation in the Models of Art
Mark Wilson and Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir




Up in Smoke: Cremation, Mourning, and the Afterdeaths of Bodily Remains for Companion Animals
Jane Desmond




Fish Market, Lagos: Artist Pages and Supporting Statement

Steve Baker