Renaissance Animal Things

Fudge, Erica; Landes, Joan B. and Lee, Paula Young and Youngquist, Paul, eds. (2012) Renaissance Animal Things. In: Gorgeous Beasts. Pennsylvania State University Press, Philadelphia, pp. 41-56. ISBN 978-0-271-05401-8

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Abstract

This chapter uses thing theory to explore the uses of two animal things common in Renaissane culture: leather and civet. It argues that, even as the animal is dismembered and its parts used in the manufacture of commodities - gloves, perfume - those objects have a power to change the world in which they are used: that animal things are not inert, and are not simply evidence of human dominion, but are themselves active presences in culture.

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