ABSTRACT
This contribution aims to examine two fundamental (historical and modern) perspectives on human–human relationships (racism) and human–animal relationships (speciesism) as reflected in the literary works of the South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee and the Slovenian writer Jure Detela. The investigation is based in textual analysis and theoretical discourses from ecocriticism, speciesism theory, critical animal studies, and philosophical and anthropological studies of representations of the Other. The author argues that discriminations based on race and species are strongly interrelated and that human rights could provide the legal ground for the development of animal rights. Both are further connected to issues of freedom, both collective and individual. The chapter asks whether literary thematizations can transform the existing comprehension of the Other (both human and animal) and shift hidden racist and openly anthropocentric views on the world toward non-racist and ecocentric views, by embracing a new world paradigm where human and animal are perceived as two independent subjectivities.
