The Question of the Animal and Religion

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The book began with a detailed account of the scandals at Agriprocessors (located in Postville, Iowa, one of the largest kosher slaughterhouses) and their significance for the American and international Jewish community. The author argued that without a proper theorization of "animals and religion," we cannot fully understand religiously and ethically motivated diets and how and why the events at Agriprocessors took place. Subsequent chapters recognize the significance of animals to the study of religion in the work of Ernst Cassirer, Emile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Jacques Derrida and the value of indigenous peoples' understanding of animals to the study of religion in our daily lives and self-imagination through animals.