Flocking together : collective animal minds in contemporary fiction
- Author
- Marco Caracciolo (UGent)
- Organization
- Project
-
- NARMESH (Narrating the Mesh: Ecology and the Non-Human in Contemporary Fiction and Oral Storytelling (NARMESH))
- Abstract
- The remarkable coordination displayed by animal groups such as an ant colony or a flock of birds in flight is not just a behavioral feat; it reflects a full-fledged form of collective cognition. Building on work in philosophy, cognitive approaches to literature, and animal studies, I explore how contemporary fiction captures animal collectivity. I focus on three novels that probe different aspects of animal assemblages: animals as a collective agent (in Richard Powers's The Echo Maker), animals that communicate a shared mind through dance-like movements (in Lydia Davis's The Cows), and animals that embrace a collective "we" to critique the individualism of contemporary society (in Peter Verhelst's The Man I Became). When individuality drops out of the picture of human-animal encounters in fiction, empathy becomes abstract: a matter of quasi-geometric patterns that are experienced by readers through an embodied mechanism of kinesthetic resonance.
- Keywords
- LANGUAGE
Downloads
-
Caracciolo Flocking Together PMLA submission accepted version.pdf
- full text (Accepted manuscript)
- |
- open access
- |
- |
- 238.29 KB
-
(...).pdf
- full text (Published version)
- |
- UGent only
- |
- |
- 467.76 KB
Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8662658
- MLA
- Caracciolo, Marco. “Flocking Together : Collective Animal Minds in Contemporary Fiction.” PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, vol. 135, no. 2, 2020, pp. 239–53, doi:10.1632/pmla.2020.135.2.239.
- APA
- Caracciolo, M. (2020). Flocking together : collective animal minds in contemporary fiction. PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, 135(2), 239–253. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2020.135.2.239
- Chicago author-date
- Caracciolo, Marco. 2020. “Flocking Together : Collective Animal Minds in Contemporary Fiction.” PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 135 (2): 239–53. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2020.135.2.239.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Caracciolo, Marco. 2020. “Flocking Together : Collective Animal Minds in Contemporary Fiction.” PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 135 (2): 239–253. doi:10.1632/pmla.2020.135.2.239.
- Vancouver
- 1.Caracciolo M. Flocking together : collective animal minds in contemporary fiction. PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. 2020;135(2):239–53.
- IEEE
- [1]M. Caracciolo, “Flocking together : collective animal minds in contemporary fiction,” PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, vol. 135, no. 2, pp. 239–253, 2020.
@article{8662658,
abstract = {{The remarkable coordination displayed by animal groups such as an ant colony or a flock of birds in flight is not just a behavioral feat; it reflects a full-fledged form of collective cognition. Building on work in philosophy, cognitive approaches to literature, and animal studies, I explore how contemporary fiction captures animal collectivity. I focus on three novels that probe different aspects of animal assemblages: animals as a collective agent (in Richard Powers's The Echo Maker), animals that communicate a shared mind through dance-like movements (in Lydia Davis's The Cows), and animals that embrace a collective "we" to critique the individualism of contemporary society (in Peter Verhelst's The Man I Became). When individuality drops out of the picture of human-animal encounters in fiction, empathy becomes abstract: a matter of quasi-geometric patterns that are experienced by readers through an embodied mechanism of kinesthetic resonance.}},
author = {{Caracciolo, Marco}},
issn = {{0030-8129}},
journal = {{PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA}},
keywords = {{LANGUAGE}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{239--253}},
title = {{Flocking together : collective animal minds in contemporary fiction}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2020.135.2.239}},
volume = {{135}},
year = {{2020}},
}
- Altmetric
- View in Altmetric
- Web of Science
- Times cited: