What It Means to Be Human Historical Reflections from the 1800s to the Present

Bourke (Rape: Sex, Violence, History), professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, analyzes formulations of the supposed human/animal divide over two centuries. Her novel employment of a 'Mobius Strip' analogy reveals invalid distinctions between humans and animals often used as justification for subjugating those deemed less than human. With this approach, she demonstrates that the concept of life itself is difficult to pin down, perhaps best expressed negatively the way Dionysius the Areopagite discussed the attributes of God. Bourke then debunks the idea that language and feeling are characteristics unique to humans with examples from around the animal kingdom. Her point is that making such distinctions has been a step on the slippery slope of denying human-ness to women, slaves, or specific racial and ethnic groups, all of whom have been relegated to the non-human side of this divide by bigots. Bourke passionately argues against these specious justifications for the cruelty, torture, and other horrors of which we are capable. Agent: The Wiley Agency. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Joanna Bourke is Professor of History in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, where she has taught since 1992. She is a Fellow of the British Academy. Her books range from the social and economic history of Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to social histories of the British working classes between 1860 and 1960s, to cultural histories of military conflict between the Anglo-Boer war and the present. She explores history through the lens of gender, ivtersectionalities, and subjectivities. She has worked on the history of the emotions, particularly fear and hatred, and the history of sexual violence. In the past few years, her research has focused on questions of humanity, militarisation, and pain. She wrote a book entitled What It Means to Be Human. In 2014, she published two books: Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War Games Invade Our World and The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers.