@article{ART003330839},
author={Kim Mirae},
title={Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals},
journal={Journal of Modern English Drama},
issn={1226-3397},
year={2026},
volume={39},
number={1},
pages={33-59}
TY - JOUR
AU - Kim Mirae
TI - Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals
JO - Journal of Modern English Drama
PY - 2026
VL - 39
IS - 1
PB - 한국현대영미드라마학회
SP - 33
EP - 59
SN - 1226-3397
AB - This paper explores how Stef Smith’s Human Animals critiques the violence of anthropocentric classification and reimagines coexistence with the nonhuman other. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s critique of “the Animal,” it demonstrates that categories such as “pest” and “animal” in the play are not natural, but socially constructed. In doing so, the paper shows how the exclusion and extermination of nonhuman animals are justified in the name of human safety, comfort, and normality. It also argues that the play does not reduce nonhuman beings to mere symbols or allegories, but presents them as irreducible others who demand an ethical response. Through the gaze and face of nonhuman animals, Smith unsettles the human-animal boundary and reveals them as vulnerable others who call for ethical responsibility. The paper further turns to the play’s distinctive dramaturgy, especially its “blink scenes.” Inserted between the duologues, these scenes dramatize the presence of the nonhuman through fragmented language and dispersed voices that cannot be fully contained within everyday human language and order. In this sense, they function as a dramatic embodiment of what Timothy Morton calls the “strange stranger,” extending the play’s theme of coexistence into a material and sensory dimension. Ultimately, this paper suggests that Human Animals presents theatre as a posthuman ecological space for thinking about the more-than-human world and sensing coexistence with the nonhuman other.
KW - Stef Smith;Human Animals;nonhuman alterity;strange stranger;ecodramaturgy
DO -
UR -
ER -
Kim Mirae. (2026). Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals. Journal of Modern English Drama, 39(1), 33-59.
Kim Mirae. 2026, "Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals", Journal of Modern English Drama, vol.39, no.1 pp.33-59.
Kim Mirae "Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals" Journal of Modern English Drama 39.1 pp.33-59 (2026) : 33.
Kim Mirae. Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals. 2026; 39(1), 33-59.
Kim Mirae. "Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals" Journal of Modern English Drama 39, no.1 (2026) : 33-59.
Kim Mirae. Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals. Journal of Modern English Drama, 39(1), 33-59.
Kim Mirae. Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals. Journal of Modern English Drama. 2026; 39(1) 33-59.
Kim Mirae. Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals. 2026; 39(1), 33-59.
Kim Mirae. "Facing the Nonhuman Other: The Ethics of Coexistence in Stef Smith’s Human Animals" Journal of Modern English Drama 39, no.1 (2026) : 33-59.
