The Animal That Therefore I Am.

About The Animal That Therefore I Am

The Animal That Therefore I Am is a book based on the ten-hour address on the subject of "the autobiographical animal" given by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida at the 1997 Cerisy Conference and subsequently published as a long essay under the title, "The Animal That Therefore I Am ". The book has gained notability as signalling Derrida's turn to questions surrounding the ontology of nonhuman animals, the ethics of animal slaughter and the difference between humans and other animals. Derrida's lecture has come to be a foundational text in animal studies within the fields of literary criticism and critical theory. Whilst the text is often seen as marking the "animal turn" in Derrida's oeuvre, Derrida himself said that his interest in animals was in fact present in his earliest writings.