Donna Haraway
History of Consciousness, UCSC

Lecture Series Description: Being companion species is relentlessly about "becoming with" and is one way to refuse human exceptionalism without invoking posthumanism. The concept of companion species plays the cat's cradle games where who is/are to be in the world gets constituted in intra-and inter-action. The partners do not precede the meeting; species of all kinds are consequent upon worldly subject- and object-shaping entanglements. In human-animal worlds, companion species are ordinary beings-in-encounter in the house, lab, field, zoo, park, truck, office, prison, ranch, arena, village, human hospital, slaughter house, vet clinic, stadium, barn, wildlife preserve, farm, city streets, factory, and more. I am especially committed to inhabiting both the trouble and the vitality of the contact zones of companion species called "domestic," where the situated work and play of myriad critters (including people) make history.

The Wellek Library Lectures were recorded May 2-5, 2011 at the Critical Theory Institute, UC Irvine.
The poster at left was designed and produced by Nasser Mufti.