On the Emphatic Possibilities of a Multispecies Ethnopoetics
On the Emphatic Possibilities of a Multispecies Ethnopoetics

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I delve into the difficulties of transcending species borders in literature. To what degree can the affordances of literature and its call to empathy provide answers to questions of animal experientiality? As the minds of animals are essentially, weirdly, unknowable, the animal Other confronts the human reader with a cognitive aporia. This article will offer a brief exploration of the use of empathy in reading animal literature, then investigate post-humanism as a troubling of the borders separating the human from the nonhuman animal. After discussing the moral dilemmas and multiple perspectives intrinsic to terms such as post-speciesism, anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism, I introduce the new approach of a multispecies ethnopoetics which would be attuned to Thomas Sebeok’s zoosemiotics. The intent is to demonstrate that the elisions inherent to the lyric offer spaces for writers and readers to thoughtfully engage with animal culture and possibly foster a multispecies empathy.

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