A Human Is a Being Halfway Between an Alligator and a Bird Who Wants to Be a Bird: Blood and Guts in Kathy Acker's Bestiary
Loading...
Authors
Aiello, Thomas
Issue Date
2025-08-04
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Academic theses , Animal symbolism in literature , Feminist literary criticism , Poststructuralism , American literature , English literature , Literary criticism , Animals in literature , 20th century music
Alternative Title
Abstract
The writing of Kathy Acker from the 1970s to the 1990s has been analyzed extensively for its critique of capitalism and patriarchal norms, for its punk aesthetic, for its cut-and-paste, plagiaristic style. It has been critiqued for its explicit sexuality and willingness to carve a feminist path decidedly different from that of her contemporaries. Her explicit, continued reference to animals, however, has gone largely unexplored. It is a surprising omission, as Acker’s depiction of animals is not ancillary to her broader feminist critiques or those rooted in the poststructural theory that so captivated her. Animals are central to both her storytelling and the theory that undergirds it, though her depictions of and arguments about animals changed over the course of her career, best understood as traversing a bell curve. She begins her career by finding liberatory possibility in nonhuman species until she finally reaches apotheosis in a becoming-animal, the ultimate weapon in her battle against limiting human power structures. As the curve bends back toward a baseline, Acker begins in her later career to question the viability of such embodiments, and animals begin to assert themselves more forcefully as agents who have their own interests, beings with value outside of any human gaze. That conflict ultimately redounds to open animal hostility toward human engagement as her writing, cut short by a cancer that would kill her in 1997, comes to an end. This thesis tracks the trajectory of her representation of animals over the course of her career.
Description
Citation
Publisher
License
This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.