Conversations with Vinciane Despret 1: Cosmopoetic Ethologies

This event will take place in English and French

Inspired by the work of Vinciane Despret, this roundtable will explore points of contact between ethology and literary study. To observe non-human animal behavior is—potentially—to become aware of multiple ways of making a world. Put in literary terms, the ethologist is a close reader, attentive to subtle differences and variations, to traces and expressive modes: the polyphonic compositions of birds, the “speculative scatology” of wombats, the vibratory archives of spiders, the visual grammar of octopuses. Speakers will examine connections between texts and living forms, between artworks and habitats, with special consideration for the styles of attunement—from curiosity to captivation—that ecological close reading invites.

Speakers: Vinciane Despret (Professeure de Philosophie, Université de Liège & NYU Visiting Professor), Alejandra Mena (Ph.D. Candidate in French, NYU), Etienne Miqueu (Ph.D. Candidate in French, NYU), Ada Smailbegovic (Associate Professor of English, Brown). Moderated by Hannah Freed-Thall (Professor of French, NYU).

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