Conclusion

The Conclusion situates the findings of the book in relation to the current environmental crisis, arguing that effective responses to this crisis demand a plurality of approaches to nonhuman life, rather than an empathy which is restricted to certain living beings. It argues that literature is not a protected, apolitical space, but a world-making space, whose tools – metaphor, trope, allegory – should be evaluated as better or worse tools of being-with other forms of life, rather than merely in terms of their representational value. The Conclusion appeals to a mode of ‘noninnocent thinking’ which links the critical and imaginative, and advances ways of cultivating less violence, rather than eradicating it completely.

Telling Nonhuman Stories: ‘The secret contours of objects’

This chapter puts the novels of Jim Crace in conversation with Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of the development of OOP in contradistinction to Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory, it assesses the claims made by Harman for the superiority of OOP over contemporary relational ontologies such as that espoused by Jane Bennett. Turning to Crace, the chapter argues that his fiction enacts a sustained movement away from anthropocentrism, demonstrating the collaborative nature of storytelling and absenting the human from a variety of different landscapes. It argues that, in their examination of the ‘allure’ of objects, these novels espouse a position closer to Harman than Bennett. Finally, the chapter interrogates Harman’s presentation of aesthetics as first philosophy, arguing that the clear alignment between Crace’s fiction and Harman’s work reinforces the claim that aesthetics gives access to the ontological, and demands a reconsideration of agency.

Anthropomorphism and the ‘Ends of Man’ in the Anthropocene: ‘My chimp nature’

Examining Donna Haraway’s critique of primatological practices and narratives, and Karen Joy Fowler’s fictional account of primate relations, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,alongside humanist figures of Man, this chapter explores the relationship between accounts of nonhuman primates and perceptions of human identity. Comparing Fowler’s ambivalence towards anthropomorphism to the recent resurgence of scientific interest in anthropomorphism, it develops a parallel between anthropomorphism and empathy. Contending that empathy, like anthropomorphism, is an inescapable component of cross-species relations, it argues that both should be cultivated only insofar as they stimulate new ethical and political responses to nonhuman life. The chapter concludes by outlining how different modes of primatological reading and writing might generate alternatives to the figure of Man which are better able to acknowledge and respond to our responsibilities to nonhuman life.

The Sexual Politics of Nature Writing and Lepidoptery: ‘The siren song of entomology’

Arguing that the discourse of insect collecting is one of objectification and domination, and that entomological classification and practices continue to reflect concerns about sex and gender which were present in its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instantiations, this chapter aligns the objectification of women with that of insects. It interrogates the notion of aesthetic disinterestedness as licence for such objectification, asking whether aesthetic disinterestedness permits an empathetic disengagement which, at its worst, leads to a sociopathic lack of ethical awareness. The chapter has three parts, focusing on John Fowles’s The Collector, insects (particularly butterflies and moths) in contemporary nature writing and, finally, the role of lepidoptery in the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov. The closing section examines the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, appealing to the simultaneous necessity of both cross-species empathetic engagement and of a distancing that is alert to its own subjective positioning.

Introduction: Ten Statements about Empathy and Animal Studies

The introduction examines the role played by empathy in contemporary Animal Studies within the broader context of the affective turn. Outlining key features of Animal Studies, it contends that over-emphasis on empathy is problematic because it restricts engagement with animal life to sentient beings who share qualities with humans. In order to respond to the current environmental crisis, it argues that we need affective and cognitive responses which acknowledge the ethical value of all living beings, and a new model of cross-species storytelling.

Insect Ethics and Aesthetics: ‘Their blood does not stain our hands’

This chapter tracks the flying and scurrying of disparate unpinned insects, emphasising both their instrumental and intrinsic value, and the necessity of supplementing empathetic with non-empathetic approaches when thinking and writing with them. It examines three figures of the insect: the first, the insect as other other in Damien Hirst’s work, exposes the limitations of empathetic responses to nonhuman life. The second, the queer insect, draws on Elizabeth Grosz’s reading of Darwin, Roger Caillois’s interpretation of mimicry and Lee Edelman’s work in queer theory to argue that the insect provides a figure of the inhuman that counters logics of heteronormative futurity. The final figure, that of the disgusting insect, is generated through Rosi Braidotti’s reading of Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion of G.H. and Derrida’s reading of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The chapter concludes by advancing disgust as a useful tool in the development of inhuman ethics.

Fragile Bodies, Cross-species Empathy and Suspended Allegories: ‘It hurt, it was painful – that’s all there is to say’

This chapter focuses on Yann Martel’s allegorical novels Life of Pi and Beatrice and Virgil in order to assess the possibility of articulating cross-species vulnerability and its connection to cross-species empathy, where empathy is understood as imaginative perspective-taking. Engaging with theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Carey Wolfe and Anat Pick, it argues that Martel resists the temptation to reinstate the human as master-storyteller. Instead, it identifies an ironic or deconstructive approach to storytelling in Martel’s fiction, which shuttles between critique (stories tend towards the reactionary reiteration of the familiar) and affirmation (stories promise imaginative innovation which enables ‘reworlding’). Taking seriously the possibility of nonhuman storytelling, the chapter closes by proposing ways in which alternative modes of storytelling might ground an inhuman ethics.