Although Foucault did not address the question of the animal, he asserted the assessment of whether a new politics of truth can be constituted as "the essential political problem" (1980, p. 134). Though the "essential political problem" may be considered as it relates to the politics of truth about animals, a Foucaultian perspective does not allow a prediction in response, other than the recognition that change may occur. What is understood to be "true" about animals may change if the relationships between events that exist at a given time ("conditions") require the emergence of a different way of knowing. This Foucaultian critique of thought about animals examines "truth" about animals as an historical contingency, variable according to the conditions that have allowed its production. This project contributes to the development of a theoretical context of the politics of truth about animals. The politics of truth about animals is understood to be the push and pull of knowledge generated and perpetuated about them, together with concurrent power apparatuses in support of that knowledge as well as the ever present resistance to that power. By applying and extending Foucault's theory of power -that is, that knowledge is a carrier of power, power is a perpetuator of knowledge, and all power relations have resistances - this work employs Foucault's archaeological method to uncover dominant and subjugated discourses about animals and to describe power-knowledge associated with statements about animals that are understood to convey true things. This project describes the changeable nature of "truth" about animals and, necessarily, the politics of it, since the politics of truth is understood to be propelled by whichever knowledge and associated power are then dominant. Statements in "error" are also examined as resistance to power-knowledge about animals. The project describes subjugated discourses about animals that have been understood in various times and places to have truth-telling powers or, at least, to have been understood as "error," which provided points of resistance to the dominant discourse. It describes the partial derivation of discourse about animals by examining dominant discourses (e.g., the discourse of law and the discourse of lines) and subjugated discourses (e.g., animals are not personal property, karmic discourse, transmigration of souls discourse, rational animal discourse). Additionally, it describes like disperse statements among different referents (i.e., slave, animal, woman) that comprise various discursive formations that have been understood at various times to have truth-telling power about different referents. Subjugated discourse sometimes emerges as new "truth," though no such prediction can be made. To illustrate the point, the project describes the emergence of the new academic field related to the question of the animal, which resurrects or draws from some subjugated discourse (e.g., animals are not personal property).

The following dissertation examines the philosophy of the animal as it appears in twentieth-century British and American literature. I argue that evolutionary theory, along with the Romantic emphasis on sympathy, creates an historical shift in our perception of humans and nonhumans. Beginning with Herman Melville's classic novel, Moby-Dick, the whale represents what I call a transitional animal figure in that the whale not only shows the traditionally symbolic literary animal but also the beginnings of the twentieth century shift toward the literal animal-as-subject. My proposed comparative analysis consists of a return to classic existential and phenomenological philosophers with animal studies in mind. A handful of critical essays in recent years have conducted just such an analysis. My contribution extends these philosophical endeavors on the animal and applies them to major literary authors who demonstrate a notable interest in the philosophy of animals. The first chapter of the dissertation begins with D.H. Lawrence, whose writings in selected essays, St. Mawr, and "The Fox" continue considerations made by Melville concerning animal being. Because Lawrence often focuses on gender, sexuality, and intuition, I discuss how a Heideggerian reading of animals in Lawrence adds value to interpretations of his fiction which remain unavailable in analyses of human subjects. In Chapter Two, I move on to William Faulkner's classic hunting tale of "The Bear" and other significant animal sightings in his fiction and nonfiction. For Faulkner, the animal subject exists in the author's particular historical climate of American environmentalism, modernism's literary emphasis on visuality, and race theory. / This combination calls for a natural progression from a Heideggerian existential phenomenology: a contemporary Sartrean reading of animal being. Finally, the last chapter examines J.M. Coetzee, an author whose texts show the accumulated existential and phenomenological progression in the philosophy of the animal with a combined interest in current political and social issues surrounding animal life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. / by Jamie Johnson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.