Tags
Cat Lady, Cats, Companion Species, Donna Haraway, Doris Lessing, J.M. Coetzee, Jane Campbell, Literature and Philosophy, Timothy Morton
In the third of my three posts about the figure of the cat lady, I examine the ways in which the old woman in Jane Campbell’s story ‘Cat Brushing’ is attuned to the complexities of the cat’s world, and how the inter-species companionship between the old woman and the cat represents a sophisticated form of ecological awareness.
Old Women and Cats: the Gendering of Solidarity
15 Friday Dec 2017
Posted in Philosophy
Tags
Cat Lady, Cats, Companion Species, Dogs, Doris Lessing, J.M. Coetzee, Jane Campbell, Literature and Philosophy, Timothy Morton
This is the second in a series of three posts in which I examine the figure of the cat lady. In this post, I read J.M. Coetzee’s ‘The Old Woman and the Cats’ and examine the gendering of solidarity between species in inter-species companionship, and how the rejection of the masculine becomes the space and mode of solidarity with non-humans.
Old Women and Cats: Exclusion as a Space for Companionship
08 Friday Dec 2017
Posted in Philosophy
Tags
Cat Lady, Cats, Companion Species, Donna Haraway, Doris Lessing, Giorgio Agamben, J.M. Coetzee, Jane Campbell, Literature and Philosophy, Timothy Morton
What does it mean to own a cat? This is the first in a series three posts in which I examine the figure of the cat lady and examine the forms of inter-species companionship that it represents, with particular emphasis of one of three short stories. In this post, I read Doris Lessing’s story ‘And Old Woman and Her Cat’ and examine how the inter-species companionship at the site of marginalisation subverts the anthropocentric regime of biopower in Western society.