ABSTRACT
Animal studies are interdisciplinary, transfaculty, integrating the humanities and cultural studies, the natural and social sciences, jurisprudence and agronomics. Cultural animal studies work with a great variety of animal-theoretical positions. In recent years, six theories in particular have proven inspirational and fruitful: the historical discourse analysis of Michel Foucault, the concept of the anthropological machine of Giorgio Agamben, the becoming-animal paradigm of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida's animot /animalword, Donna Haraway's companion species and the political ecology of Bruno Latour. Actor-network theory (ANT) is intensively used as a methodological and theoretical basis in cultural animal studies. Given their universalist claim to knowledge, cultural animal studies have the same importance for all disciplines of the humanities and of cultural studies, and thus for film, media and image studies as well. Yet in particular, there are three work fields in which research has intensified over the past years: philosophy, history and the arts.
