Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    What It Means to Be Human
    Unavailable
    What It Means to Be Human
    Unavailable
    What It Means to Be Human
    Ebook750 pages11 hours

    What It Means to Be Human

    By Joanna Bourke

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From the author of The Story of Pain. “This deeply scholarly work is lively and challenging in equal measure, and rewarding throughout” (The Boston Globe).
     
    In 1872, a woman known only as “An Earnest Englishwoman” published a letter titled “Are Women Animals?” in which she protested against the fact that women were not treated as fully human. Her heartfelt cry was for women to “become-animal” in order to gain the status that they were denied on the grounds that they were not part of “mankind.”
     
    In this fascinating account, Joanna Bourke addresses the profound question of what it means to be “human” rather than “animal.” How are people excluded from political personhood? How does one become entitled to rights? The distinction between the two concepts is a blurred line, permanently under construction. If the Earnest Englishwoman had been capable of looking 100 years into the future, she might have wondered about the human status of chimeras, or the ethics of stem cell research. Political disclosures and scientific advances have been re-locating the human-animal border at an alarming speed. In this meticulously researched, illuminating book, Bourke explores the legacy of more than two centuries, and looks forward into what the future might hold for humans, women, and animals.
     
    “Ultimately, What It Means to Be Human is less an answer than it is an invitation to a series of questions, questions about who and what we are as a species, as souls, and as nodes in a larger complex ecosystem of sentient beings.” —Brain Pickings
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 1, 2011
    ISBN9781619020283
    Unavailable
    What It Means to Be Human

    Related to What It Means to Be Human

    Related ebooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Consciousness Doesn’t Depend on Language

      Sep 26, 2019

      The contrast could not have been starker—here was one of the world’s most revered figures, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, expressing his belief that all life is sentient, while I, as a card-carrying neuroscientist, presented the contemporary

      9 min read

    • Article

      1 All About Us

      Jan 29, 2019

      1 All About Us
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Cosmopolitan Ape: Empathy, morality, community, culture—apes can have it all!

      Apr 29, 2013

      The next time you mutter under your breath about the big gorilla in the next office, you might want to reconsider. The insult may reflect badly on you. Renowned primatologist Frans de Waal has spent decades studying chimpanzees and bonobos and found

      14 min read

    • Article

      ‘Our Wild Calling’ Argues For Emotional Connection With Animals

      Dec 31, 2019

      Richard Louv makes the case that animals not only have emotions, but that humans are enriched by interspecies contact.

      3 min read

    • Article

      After Life

      Aug 27, 2020

      After Life
      7 min read

    • Article

      Writers’ Circle

      Apr 8, 2020

      Writers’ Circle
      3 min read

    • Article

      What Made Early Humans Smart

      Jun 30, 2021

      Talking to Jeremy DeSilva about human evolution was so fun. As was reading his recent book, First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human. I learned something new and fascinating on every page. Do you picture our hominin ancestors as hunters? I did.

      12 min read

    • Article

      Cuddly Foxes Show The ‘Softer Side’ Of Evolution

      Jan 16, 2019

      This year marks the 60th anniversary of an experiment at Russia’s Institute of Cytology and Genetics that is shedding light not just on the origins of dogs, but perhaps even on modern humans.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Jul 15, 2021

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      Breastfeeding Beats Chestfeeding

      Nov 16, 2022

      I sat across the table from the late April Ashley at a pre-pandemic Oldie lunch and thought her amazing. She was a beautiful old lady - she died in 2021 - as she once had been a beautiful young man. She made history as one of the first openly transge

      3 min read

    • Article

      Learning To Live With Our Neighbours

      Aug 10, 2022

      THE world evolves and changes at different rates. In recent times, the changes have been shattering for so many creatures living on the earth. Witness the Covid pandemic; the Ukraine war and its ramifications globally; and, maybe the most important,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Learning From The Past

      Dec 23, 2020

      Learning From The Past
      5 min read

    • Article

      A New Take On Neanderthals

      Sep 29, 2023

      A New Take On Neanderthals
      13 min read

    • Article

      Claire Fuller’s Visions of Multispecies Justice

      Aug 2, 2023

      In 'The Memory of Animals,' justice for animals does not have to come at the expense of justice for humans, and vice versa. The post Claire Fuller’s Visions of Multispecies Justice appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Leap Into The Unknown

      Jan 25, 2023

      A Leap Into The Unknown
      5 min read

    • Article

      What Primates Reveal About Us

      Apr 22, 2022

      What Primates Reveal About Us
      4 min read

    Reviews for What It Means to Be Human

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words