Murdering Animals

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Introduction: Rights for Whom?

   • Piers Beirne

   Pages 1-11

3. Theriocide and Homicide

   • Piers Beirne

   Pages 13-48

4. Hunting Worlds Turned Upside Down? Paulus Potter’s Life of a Hunter

   • Piers Beirne, Janine Janssen

   Pages 49-69

5. On the Geohistory of Justiciable Animals: Was Britain a Deviant Case?

   • Piers Beirne

   Pages 71-134

6. Hogarth’s Patriotic Animals: Bulldogs, Beef, Britannia!

   • Piers Beirne

   Pages 135-164

7. Gallous Stories or Dirty Deeds? Representing Parricide in J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

   • Piers Beirne, Ian O’Donnell

   Pages 165-195

8. Is Theriocide Murder?

   • Piers Beirne

   Pages 197-214

9. Back Matter

   Pages 215-225

   PDF

Murdering Animals confronts the speciesism underlying the disparate social censures of homicide and “theriocide” (the killing of animals by humans), and as such, is a plea to take animal rights seriously. Its substantive topics include the criminal prosecution and execution of justiciable animals in early modern Europe; images of hunters put on trial by their prey in the upside-down world of the Dutch Golden Age; the artist William Hogarth’s patriotic depictions of animals in 18th Century London; and the playwright J.M. Synge’s representation of parricide in fin de siècle Ireland. Combining insights from intellectual history, the history of the fine and performing arts, and what is known about today’s invisibilised sites of animal killing, Murdering Animals inevitably asks: should theriocide be considered murder? With its strong multi- and interdisciplinary approach, this work of collaboration will appeal to scholars of social and species justice in animal studies, criminology, sociology and law.

• Nonspeciesist Criminology
• social science
• violence against animals
• Theriocide
• animal rights
• animal execution
• early modern Europe
• Homicide
• hunting and blood sports
• Parricide
• criminal trials
• vivisection
• trafficking
• militarism and war
• pollution
• animal shelters
• green criminology
• violence and crime

“The central argument that brings this book together is that animals have a right to live their lives free from humanity’s needs, wants or presumed supremacy over them. … This book is suitable for criminologists and for scholars who study legal issues and animals, as well as animal rights activists, humanities’ scholars and artists who have depicted injustices toward animals.” (Shannon T. Grugan, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, clcjbooks.rutgers.edu, February, 2019)​

• Department of Criminology, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, USA

  Piers Beirne

Piers Beirne is Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Southern Maine, USA. The founder of nonspeciesist criminology, he is recognized as a leading scholar in green criminology and animal abuse studies. 

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