The Golden Ass
Page 15
Acknowledgments
ELLEN FINKELPEARL
This project has combined much of what is most important to me: Apuleius, animal welfare, an exercise in creativity, and the chance to reach an audience outside academia. So, above all, I thank Peter Singer for reaching out to me to collaborate with him. It has been an honor and a pleasure. As a vegetarian since 1968, I am grateful for the opportunity to help bring Apuleius to a community of like-minded readers and (naively) hope that his donkey will help save at least a few animals.
I also thank my beloved Apuleius community for the many years of discussion and inquiry and sharing of ideas. I know that the abridgment of the text and at least one of the changes will be jarring to some of you, but I hope you will forgive me, as I believe this edition will make Apuleius better known in the English-speaking world at large. I have gained much from deep discussions about Apuleius and animals from Sonia Sabnis, who is both a vegetarian and an Apuleius scholar; Richard Fletcher, who urged me to bring Apuleius to the critical animal studies community and gave me a reading list; and Sasha-Mae Eccleston, whose ideas about “animality” in Apuleius are different from mine and better documented. Also, I warmly thank Maaike Zimmerman and all of the Groningen Apuleians, whose commentaries I used throughout.
I am grateful to Scripps College for generously allowing me a last-minute sabbatical to work on this project, and to the support I receive as Helen Chandler Garland Chair of Ancient Studies. I also thank Bob Weil at Norton for feedback on my afterword, and the copy editor Amy Robbins for her detailed reading and suggestions. I am especially grateful to my students this semester, both in my “Animals Ancient and Contemporary” class and in the “Apuleius and Translation” Latin class, for all the mutual support in these unprecedented times.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to the two most important vegetarians in my life, my daughter, Sarah Condomitti, and my brother, Tom Finkelpearl.
APULEIUS (circa 123–180 CE) was a Roman novelist, philosopher and rhetorician.
PETER SINGER, an Australian philosopher, is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Ethics in the Real World and The Most Good You Can Do. Singer divides his time between Princeton and Melbourne.
Prominent Apuleius scholar ELLEN FINKELPEARL is the Helen Chandler Garland Professor of Ancient Studies at Scripps College, California.
Twin sisters ANNA AND VARVARA KENDEL studied at the Stieglitz Academy of Arts in St Petersburg, where they live. They have illustrated several books and won prizes at international art competitions.
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First published in the USA by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2021
Published in Australia by The Text Publishing Company, 2021
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ISBN: 9781922458063 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781922459367 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.