The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness (Paradigm)

I can see a couple of reasons to read this book:-you are a fan of Haraway (like me!)-you are a fan of non-fiction about dogs or other non-humans-you want advice about how to live with/train a dogThe book is fairly successful on all three accounts. Harraway introduces several ideas about the ways humans and dogs interact, while including the usual philosophical and historical background to help situate this relationship in the larger world.It is a fun little pamphlet. I read it in short bursts on the bus or while waiting for a friend to turn up to a restaurant. The book fits easily in a back pocket or purse so you can take it along anywhere.If you are a big fan of Haraway's feminist work, you might be a little disappointed by this book. I was hoping to see her invoke a lot more of the ideas that she introduces in "Cyborg Manifesto," but I understand now that she chose not to subordinate this topic to her earlier theory in order to do justice to this work as an end in itself.

More intriguing and more encompassing but in the same line as her Cyborg work, this short text is an interesting philosophical exercise for thinking through the human relationship with dogs--and other 'Others' as well, as the title suggests. As a means of opening up the parameters for what constitutes 'Companion Species', Haraway thinks through our relationship with our dogs but insists on incorporating other species. It is a fun experiment that makes evident Haraway's true love for dogs, and her own dog especially. It is a bit self-indulgent and a little messy, but I like the messiness of it if not the former part. It is nevertheless an interesting read.

A book filled with fascinating insights on the relationships between humans and animals that questions how much of our understanding of being "human" is dependent of our four legged friends. Haraway not only raises some thought provoking and well placed points on the boundaries between people and animals, but also writes in a clear and often amusing way.

Really strange perspective. Author doesn't support her point very well.

A good quick read for those with non-human friends, family, and acquaintances.

This is a lovely, engaging short volume. It was just the right mix of theory and very pragmatic discussion to appeal to anyone from the reader who just plain loves dogs ... to those interested in better understanding contemporary scientific discourses.Highly recommended.

A great price for an important treatise. Very portable - no electricity needed!

The traditional contradictions found in relationships between human/nature, nature/machine, art/science, have no place in this work by Donna Haraway. In The Companion Species Manifesto (2003), Haraway spends a fair portion of the book in what seems to be a possible beginning of a future book; in honor of Foucault, she might name it "The Birth of the Kennel" (61). Haraway's distinctively postmodernist style gives voice to those groups who otherwise do not have any; she speaks mostly of dogs in the book but notes that the dog is really a metaphor, "Let the dog stand for all domestic plant and animal species, subjected to human intent in stories of escalating progress or destruction, according to taste" (28). The relationships between human and dog are seen as creating a new history, one that breaks down the traditionally bifurcated social construction among the species.Humans more and more are defining themselves, their activity, and their lifestyle with dogs (companion species) in mind. This may be truer in Western cultures, but there is a curious "emergent natureculture" emanating in modern society, one that sees human-pet relations as central to one's being. Dogs are not only welcomed at some houses, they are expected, because they participate in the social structure we have created, a pack of humans and dogs with clearly delineated rules of social interaction and an equally clear, although often challenged hierarchy. The animals and humans interact within curious sets of relationships. Dogs and humans are certainly not the same species, no matter how large we define species as, but Haraway's attempt at deconstructing relationships and reconstructing them in terms of intra-specie relations is both creative and difficult to conjure. While this book was a good read, it seems incomplete at times and could use some further fleshing out of the logic and themes.

For a short book, it manages to be very disconnected in terms of what it seems to be aiming to do as well as of in terms of style. There are interesting passages of argument but these are interspersed with apparently random musings. The whole is marred by over use of opaque jargon, which I found intensely irritating. Also there are multiple references back to the author’s earlier work (on cyborgs) which felt repetitive and not entirely relevant. Overall I was disappointed.

Really helped me with my project - it is very academic and sometimes hard to keep up but very good!

Dans The Companion Species Manifesto, Donna Haraway livre son amour des chiens et réfléchit aux implications que la relation d'humain à animal domestique engendre pour chacun des protagonistes. Elle retrace de façon intéressante l'histoire de certaines races de chiens, et met ainsi en lumière les devoirs et les responsabilités qui nous lie à ces espèces-compagnons.

The book arrived on time and was in great condition. Content wise, I think it's awful and the author needs lessons on how to communicate effectively... But I think she's been criticized on that issue by other people already.

un muy buen texto que recomendaría a todos, explica la visión del mundo de la sociedad a la que estudia