Animals in Premodern Japan

In this Open Access book, the reader is presented with an outlook on current developments in Japanese Animal Ethics and how Andō Shōeki's depictions of non-human animals, as well as the examination of Chinese and Japanese traditions of animal description, could give a new impetus to the field. Andō Shōeki is one of the most important thinkers in Japanese intellectual history, as a philosopher who demonstrates remarkable creativity in his critical engagement with the traditional knowledge of China and Japan. This makes him an ideal starting point for a book on non-human animals in pre-modern Japan. This book not only explains the world of one of the most fascinating thinkers of pre-modern Japan in simple terms, but also introduces the reader to the Chinese and Japanese zoological traditions. It provides well-founded information on the role of each non-human animal in the Japanese (and also Chinese) human-animal relationship.

Melissa Ann Kaul is an SNSF-Postdoc.Mobility Fellow and a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh. Her research topics include Japanese Animal Ethics, Andō Shōeki, and Neoconfucianism. Her latest article has appeared in the Journal of Animal Ethics. She is currently working on a translation of Andō Shōeki’s Hōsei Monogatari .