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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2021

        Writing on sheep

        Ecology, the animal turn and sheep in poetry

        by William Welstead

        Sheep are marginalised in literary criticism and in discussion of pastoral literature. This book brings an animal studies approach to poetry about sheep that allows for the agency of these sentient beings, that have been associated for humans over ten thousand years. This approach highlights the distinction between wild and domesticated species and the moral dilemma between the goals of animal welfare and those of saving species from extinction. Discussion of mostly contemporary poetry follows a new reading of works from the pastoral and georgic canon. Allowing for the sentience and sociality of this species makes it easier to imagine a natureculture within which to make kin across the species boundary. Reading poetry about sheep has the power to make new meanings as we try to adapt to an increasingly complex and problematic environment.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2021

        Writing on sheep

        Ecology, the animal turn and sheep in poetry

        by William Welstead

        Sheep are marginalised in literary criticism and in discussion of pastoral literature. This book brings an animal studies approach to poetry about sheep that allows for the agency of these sentient beings, that have been associated for humans over ten thousand years. This approach highlights the distinction between wild and domesticated species and the moral dilemma between the goals of animal welfare and those of saving species from extinction. Discussion of mostly contemporary poetry follows a new reading of works from the pastoral and georgic canon. Allowing for the sentience and sociality of this species makes it easier to imagine a natureculture within which to make kin across the species boundary. Reading poetry about sheep has the power to make new meanings as we try to adapt to an increasingly complex and problematic environment.

      • Conservation of the environment

        Predatory Bureaucracy

        The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West

        by Michael Robinson

        Tracking wolves from the days of the conquistadors to the present, author Michael Robinson shows that their story merges with that of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey. This federal agency was chartered to research insects and birds but -- because of various pressures -- morphed into a political powerhouse dedicated to killing wolves and other wildlife. Robinson follows wolves' successful adaptation to the arrival of explorers, mountain men, and bounty hunters, through their disastrous century-long entanglement with the federal government. He shares the parallel story of the Biological Survey's rise, detailing the personal, social, geographic, and political forces that allowed it to thrive despite opposition from hunters, animal lovers, scientists, environmentalists, and presidents. Federal predator control nearly eliminated wolves throughout the United States and Mexico and radically changed American lands and wildlife populations. The extermination of predators led to problems associated with prey overpopulation, but, as Robinson reveals, extermination and control programs still continue.

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