Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human Book

Although I read almost half of "Animal Lessons" I greatly enjoyed what I did get through (chapters 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, so on Derrida, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Kristeva). Yes, Oliver does have a highly repetitive writing style and there were times when I wished she would go more in-depth or even further beyond the material she was looking at, rather than simply backpeddaling and repeating her initial thesis-like thoughts to the reader. However, as someone who hasn't read most of these theorists directly, Oliver's writing style is highly accessible and the repetition does have a silver lining to it by helping to reinforce Oliver's thoughts. It's a good starting point and a great resource, although I was really surprised that Deleuze and Guattari were not included in here, whereas Derrida got two chapters, both an individual one and in pairing with Rousseau, so the selection criteria is a bit iffy and could have been better/more diverse (I similarly think of Elizabeth Grosz and Jane Bennett, who I believe also had some interesting things to say about animals, and the notable absence of Donna Harraway feels like a big oversight). So for those who, like me, don't have the solid background in the subject, "Animal Lessons" is a great place to start and an accessible entry point, though it's not entirely clear/self-guiding on where one might go from here.