Animal Advocacy in Ka-Shiang Liu's Hill of Stray Dogs: Jacques Derrida's Animal Concern as a Point of Departure
Journal
中外文學
Journal Volume
37
Journal Issue
1
Pages
81-115
Date Issued
2008-03
Date
2008-03
Author(s)
Abstract
Continually devoting himself to ecology observation and incessantly writing about various kinds of animals, Ka-Shiang Liu plays a vital role in contemporary Taiwan's nature writing. His recent work, The Hill of Stray Dogs, is a novella in memory of the dogs that were killed in the stray dog eradication program enforced by Taipei City Government. In this novella, Liu does not confine himself to describing stray dogs' behavior from the ethological perspective. He also speaks for them by unearthing their thoughts and even their unconscious. Liu's mode of writing brings us to the controversy concerning whether animal writers are justified in endowing non-human animals with a voice of their own. In this paper, I argue that The Hill of Stray Dogs, instead of uncritically underwriting anthropomorphism, aims at criticizing anthropocentric prejudice. Liu's involvement with animal protection will be thrown into relief once we bring Jacques Derrida's theoretical dealings of animals in dialogue with Liu's novella. Derrida has contended that the animal-other still has the power to “manifest to me in some way its experience of my language” (2002: 387, original emphases), even though they cannot speak human language. Moreover, he questions whether we can deny non-human animals' abilities, such as mourning, pretending, suffering, as traditional philosophers do. I therefore maintain that Derrida's animal concern finds a loud echo in The Hill of Stray Dogs. In addition to drawing on Derrida's theory, I will resort to Martha C. Nussbaum's appeal for animal flourishing, Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert's advocacy of human-animal geographical co-existence, among others, to demonstrate how Liu's anti-anthropocentric stance is justified.
However, while Liu vividly describes the exchanges between strays as well as their gazes at one another, in contrast to Derrida's emphasis on the experience of being looked at by the animal, he fails to portray how humans feel about being seen by strays. I thus conclude that if Liu did not shun depictions of how strays may look at human beings, he might address the human-animal relations in a more enlightening way. For the answer to the question concerning “who I am,” as Derrida asserts, actually lies in “the animal that I therefore follow after” (l'animal que donc je suis (? suivre)).
Subjects
劉克襄
德希達
動物
化人主義
人類中心論
Ka-Shiang Liu
Derrida
animal
anthropomorphism
anthropocentrism
Type
journal article
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