ABSTRACT
In a September 3, 2001, New Yorker cartoon by Jack Ziegler (Figure 1.1), a toga-wearing man balanced on a walking stick meets a bearded centaur under a tree. The centaur informs his companion, “Being a hybrid, I get to have my way with a variety of species, and at the same time I enjoy a healthy tax credit.” This encounter between one “man” who openly declares himself a hybrid and another who depends on an extra appendage made of the same substance as the tree intimates how human-animalplant interdependence might itself constitute a form of hybridity. And this encounter between different forms of hybrids is crucially staged on the common ground of disputes over same-sex marriage and the special tax credits afforded married couples and couples with children, the characterization of same-sex unions as akin to bestiality, and controversies over human embryonic stem cell transplants. Jack Ziegler, “Being a hybrid,” cartoon, The New Yorker, September 3, 2001, © Jack Ziefler/The New Yorker Collection/<uri><a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com" target="_blank">www.cartoonbank.com</a></uri>. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203814918/a4907981-00a6-4c5c-8f77-b7f94c36d10b/content/fig4_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
