I was very conscious of the premium importance these three different pieces placed on narrative. In the Kynard, Flossie creates her own agency by spinning her own narrative for the Fox. In PAX, where the essential question is whether you…

The story from the Trickster anthology that stuck with me the most was the one of the deadly beaver, which essentially baits the men by offering them a piece of its own flesh. Because the beaver is offering the meat…

Questions: Why did White have a literate spider save Wilbur rather than allowing Wilbur to be literate, the better to save himself? It ensures that what wins Wilbur his freedom is a lie (there’s nothing special about Wilbur), though, of…

I’d never read Dolittle before, and I have to say I was utterly shocked, first by the level of racism and secondly by how just “not good” it was. It was only upon reflection that I realized the extent to…

The “Fantastic futures” and “flying Africans” Fielder describes remind me of Christina Sharpe’s “wake work” and, with the reference to wings suddenly appearing, they remind me of Bruno Bettelheim’s theorization of fairytales in which protagonists find solutions to troubling situations…

I’m interested in this historic belief that empathy towards animals translates into empathy towards humans. It’s easy to see this isn’t true—however, patriarchal “power of care” does seems to translate. It seems as though ideas relating to hierarchy are easier…

My question: To what extent does animals’ speechlessness contribute to their status as our “elders?” I appreciate LeGuin’s point that animals do communicate, and yet I believe that it is humans’ words, in part, that distance us from the wilderness we long…

I chose the chapter on “difference” with the hope that it would touch on semiotics and the definition of the human. I was not disappointed. The first half of the chapter was deceptively simple, parsing ethical concerns in animal studies…