Cirrus@Austlit

'Most of the ever-growing body of creative and critical literature that explores human and nonhuman animal relationships addresses the various ways that humans think about and connect to living beings. Scholars focus on the lives of kin and the ways that humans have exploited or preserved our interdependencies with both domestic and wild nonhuman beings. The discipline of animal studies over decades has emboldened discussions about and activism towards the rights of nonhuman animals, working incrementally towards nonhuman animal rights to habitat, shelter, food, voice and a life and death with dignity. For nonhuman animals to someday enjoy the same rights as homo sapiens remains at the forefront of scholarly and activist efforts. Few writers enter the territory of how humans and nonhumans share death. Hayley Singer’s collection of ‘essays for the dead’ opens hearts, minds and souls to this important junction by drawing attention to the scourge of industrial-scaled deaths in abattoirs and slaughterhouses.' (Introduction)