Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series

This article is a study of animals and supernaturalism in the Siri Paiboun crime series, featuring Siri Paiboun, the national coroner of the newly established Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Mainly informed by critical theories of animal studies, the article contends that the animal offers a c...

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Main Author: Panida Boonthavevej
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2021
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/1/44680-159414-1-PB.pdf
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author Panida Boonthavevej,
author_facet Panida Boonthavevej,
author_sort Panida Boonthavevej,
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This article is a study of animals and supernaturalism in the Siri Paiboun crime series, featuring Siri Paiboun, the national coroner of the newly established Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Mainly informed by critical theories of animal studies, the article contends that the animal offers a critical intervention of crime fiction studies. Animals in the series are not just tools or companions to humans, but active agents that, along with preternatural happenings, operate to collapse the distinction between human and non-human animals. Categorised into speaking and gazing animals, fantastic animals, and real and symbolic animals, these animals serve to blur the demarcation line between subjects and objects, physical and spiritual forms, and animals and colonised subjects, respectively. Eventually, the trans-species traffic, witnessed by some of the human characters, results in the de-centring of the anthropomorphic definition of crime. Under supernatural circumstances, animals in this crime series function as a constant reminder that they can suffer like humans, and crime against animals should thus be punishable by law as crime against humans.
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spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:173092021-08-13T02:45:46Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/ Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series Panida Boonthavevej, This article is a study of animals and supernaturalism in the Siri Paiboun crime series, featuring Siri Paiboun, the national coroner of the newly established Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Mainly informed by critical theories of animal studies, the article contends that the animal offers a critical intervention of crime fiction studies. Animals in the series are not just tools or companions to humans, but active agents that, along with preternatural happenings, operate to collapse the distinction between human and non-human animals. Categorised into speaking and gazing animals, fantastic animals, and real and symbolic animals, these animals serve to blur the demarcation line between subjects and objects, physical and spiritual forms, and animals and colonised subjects, respectively. Eventually, the trans-species traffic, witnessed by some of the human characters, results in the de-centring of the anthropomorphic definition of crime. Under supernatural circumstances, animals in this crime series function as a constant reminder that they can suffer like humans, and crime against animals should thus be punishable by law as crime against humans. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2021-06 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/1/44680-159414-1-PB.pdf Panida Boonthavevej, (2021) Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 27 (2). pp. 62-75. ISSN 0128-5157 https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1407
spellingShingle Panida Boonthavevej,
Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series
title Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series
title_full Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series
title_fullStr Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series
title_full_unstemmed Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series
title_short Agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun crime series
title_sort agitated boundaries: non-human creatures and supernaturalism in colin cotterill’s siri paiboun crime series
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17309/1/44680-159414-1-PB.pdf