What is it about Western society, ask the authors, that makes it possible for people to express great affection for animals as sentient creatures and simultaneously turn a blind eye to the most callous behavior toward them? Animals are sold as expensive commodities, used as food and clothing, killed as vermin and hunted for sport. But they also are treated as members of the family, used as the cause celebre of social movements, and made the subject of art, film and poetry. In this book, the people who work with the animals and live through them talk to the authors about the strategies they...

Explores the day-to-day experiences of living and working with domestic dogs. This title examines how everyday dog owners come to know their animal companions as thinking, emotional, and responsive individuals. It views human and animal efforts to understand, manipulate, care for, and interact with each other.

Marginal Conventions contains twelve essays by social scientists centering around the general connections between popular culture and deviant behavior. In addition to speaking to the commonsensical view that exposure to representations of misbehavior makes people misbehave, this collection focuses on media presentations of crime, violence, and villainy; the utility of deviance theme for societal elites; and the taste publics centered around disreputable products and rituals.