The Rabbit Between Us (Hardcover)

One morning as they parted, Victor Menza's young daughter handed him a bunny postcard. This gift made him wonder anew why rabbits were their symbol of visitation: "How did this kind of creature become such a powerful way of feeling your presence?" Through philosophy, history, education, art, and personal musing on everyday uncanny experiences, Menza reveals why people have long found rabbits our special kin and emblems of love. Menza considers human nature and how we are undone by separation--both from one another and from our childhood selves. Surprising allies in these non-traditional philosophical wanderings include Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Bowen, William Turner, Albert Murray, Beatrix Potter, Henry Koster's film Harvey, Jean Toomer, Donald Winnicott, Leopold Senghor, and Lev Vygotsky. Menza offers examinations of what symbols are and how they work, the value of dialect, and the subversive lessons in animal fables, alongside his thoughts on language learning, memory, and slavery. Only now did he see that he'd taken to Brer Rabbit early on. Just as the Uncle Remus tales displayed the small hero's virtues in warm dialogues, The Rabbit Between Us shows how we abound in talents and moves when we 'lean like Socrates did to the Aesop in us'. Gentle and political at once, this unique book will appeal to any intellectually curious reader.