On Animal Subjectivity in Contemporary US Cinema

• Thesis title in Czech: O zvířecí subjektivitě v současném americkém filmu
• Thesis title in English: On Animal Subjectivity in Contemporary US Cinema
• Key words: zvířecí subjektivita|intersubjektivita|animalita|biopolitika|fenomenologie|více než lidský svět|vztahová subjektivita|zvířecí aktérství|zvířecí kapitál|Tenká červená linie|Tance s vlky|Okja
• English key words: animal subjectivity|intersubjectivity|animality|biopolitics|phenomenology|more-than-human-world|relational subjectivity|animal agency|animal capital|The Thin Red Line|Dances with Wolves|Okja
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2021/2022
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: doc. Erik Sherman Roraback, D.Phil.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 17.03.2022
• Date of assignment: 17.03.2022
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 23.03.2022
• Date and time of defence: 02.02.2023 00:00
• Date of electronic submission: 06.01.2023
• Date of proceeded defence: 02.02.2023
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. David Vichnar, Ph.D.

Guidelines

Recently there has been a rise of philosophical and political inquiries into the newly
emerging field of animality studies within the critical studies in literatures and cultures.
Such prominent scholars as Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari have posed a question on the very concept of «the animal» and essentially what it
means to be human as the latter has traditionally been defined in opposition to the former
in Western history.
Man and animal relationship, as we now know it, is a result of a long historical
development comprised of urbanism, industrialism and capitalism to name a few. Prior to
that, in prehistoric societies, especially those reliant on hunting, the boundaries between
humans and animals reflected more reverence and fluidity. From representing animals in
ceramics and cave paintings to burying animal remains individually and with deceased
humans, people were always interested in making sense of human/animal kinship. In the
words of Agamben, «even the physical demarcation between man and the other species
entailed zones of indifference in which it was not possible to assign certain identities».
Western metaphysics put a stamp of «exclusion» on animal. The foundation of
Enlightenment with its emphasis on logos and rationality has established a biopolitical and
anthropocentric bias which justifies vivisection, breeding, lab experiments in the name of
science, prosperity and human comfort. Animals have since been perceived as insensate
things which need to be either ruled, dominated or saved and taken care of. Therefore,
animals are denied subjectivity, labelled as passive agents not capable of independent
action. This, according to Derrida, puts an animal outside of the logic of ethics allowing
people, with clear conscience, to utilize animals as food and resource.
In culture industry, animals are typically portrayed according to the stereotypes enhanced
by the logic of exclusion. They are represented as either commodities, tokens, therapy
pets or loyal companions. To be more precise, Steven Spielberg’s epic film War Horse
(2011) is an emblematic example of seeing animal body, through the lenses of biopolitics
and human domination, as simple technology, which is then replaced by more advanced
technology like tanks. Not only is the animal body rendered as subservient to humans, this
portrayal facilitates a constructed sentimentality in the relation to the trope of the good
human master and a loyal animal friend. The sentimentalized body of the animal casts a
veil over our critical understanding of human/non-human relationship making an actual
animal a rather mediated representation far removed from its reality. As a result, this
version of the animal establishes itself in the cultural imagination.
On the other side of the spectrum, there is a different endeavor to rethink our cultural
awareness towards animals and nature in its all-encompassing sense. The cinema of
Terrence Malick is a prime example of the non-hierarchical approach of portraying
ontological realities of non-human beings be it animals or plants at the same level as
human ontological reality. Broadly speaking, Malick is interested in the interconnectedness
of nature and humans, i.e in the potentiality of nature to provide multiple forms of
engagement with humans. In Malick’s films nature acts as a framework for human conflict
(the war in Thin Red Line (1998) and therefore reflects the inner state of humans as well
as as an autonomous reality independent of human action.
From simply looking at nature as a thing-in-itself to perceiving it as a phenomenon; from
romanticizing it as paradise (The New World (2005) to gazing at it though the
anthropocentric vision of Captain Smith (The New World), in his attempt to make sense of
what nature is, Malick applies a manifold of perspectives or modes of engagement with
nature.
Applying Malick’s core aesthetics, both cinematic and thematic, Bong Joon-ho’s Okja
(2017) and Viktor Kossakovsky’s Gunda (2020) are the two recent films that attempt to
challenge our current constrained perception of animals as passive recipients of human
will. I would argue even further that they manage to transcend the paradigm of the human
master or the good master as it were. In Gunda, a farm pig is not a medium or a tool to
make man better and make him realize something about himself or the world around him.
Instead, Kossakovsky solely focuses on the animal subjectivity beyond man’s
anthropocentric dominance and mutual dependency on one another. Gunda radicalizes a
new kind of subjectivity that sees an animal as an independent subject. In Okja, a pig-like
creature is a Derridean allegory that questions a technoscientific and utilitarian mode of
engagement with animals, namely corporate greed, factory farming and breeding.
This thesis, therefore, will attempt to pose an ontological question - what exactly
constitutes the boundary between humans and animals? To do that, it will venture to
reassess the historical and cultural production of such concepts as man and animal in
order to challenge the current conceptual and ethical frameworks established in Western
societies and perpetuated by neoliberal culture industry. Moreover, the thesis will situate
the aforementioned films within the discourse on biopolitics and the philosophical tradition
of the demarcation between human and animal to illuminate the broader thematic
concerns about animal subjectivity, the human-nonhuman relationship, the logic of
exclusion and animal exploitation.

References

Secondary literature:
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-
Human World. Vintage Books Editions, 1996.
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University
Press, 1998.
Adamben, Giorgio. The Open: Man and Animal. Stanford University Press, 2004.
Daston, Lorraine and Mitman, Gregg. Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on
Anthropomorphism. Columbia University Press, 2005.
Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Derrida, Jacques. “Eating Well”, or the Calculation of the Subject: An interview with
Jacques Derrida’. In E. Cadava, P. Connor and J-L Nancy (eds.), Who Comes After the
Subject? New York and London: Routledge, 1991.
Derrida, Jacques. The Animal That Therefore I Am. Stanford University Press, 2008.
Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979
(Lectures at the College de France). Picador, 2010.
Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodor. Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the
Present). Stanford University Press, 2007.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat”, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 83, No. 4
(Oct., 1974), 435-450. JSTOR URL: 1 May 2021.
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. Bodley Head, 2015.
Shukin, Nicole. Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times. University Of
Minnesota Press, 2009.
Weil, Karen. Thinking Animals: Why Animal Studies Now? Columbia University Press,
2012.
Wolfe, Cary. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist
Theory. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Films:
War Horse. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Walt Disney Studios, 2011.
Thin Red Line. Dir. Terrence Malick. Fox 2000 Pictures, 1998.
The New World. Dir. Terrence Malick. First Foot Films, 2005.
Okja. Dir. Bong Joon-ho. Plan B Entertainment, 2017.
Gunda. Dir. Viktor Kossakovsky. Louverture Films, 2020.