Donovan research featured in CBC article about the role of dogs in literature
Josephine Donovan, professor emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maine, was featured in a CBC article about the treatment of dogs in American literature. Donovan is one of the founding figures in animal standpoint theory, which aspires to analyze literature from the animals’ perspective. “Animals should not just be used as literary devices,” said Donovan. “So often, they’re just used as symbols or metaphors, or in some way to comment on the state of mind of the human character, and the animal herself is discarded and then basically ignored.” Donovan is the author of “The Aesthetics of Care: On the Literary Treatment of Animals” and the forthcoming book “Animals, Mind and Matter.”