Tok Thompson (University of Southern California)
Contemporary times have seen an explosion in discourses regarding more-than-human stakeholders, often with notions of legal rights and protections. What constitutes ethics in a posthuman environment? In this talk I explore compassion as a trans-special rhetoric. As in the tale of the Lion and the Mouse (ATU 156), the rhetoric of compassion allows a truly posthuman approach towards crafting inter-special ethics, allowing us to understand some of the unique folk groups, including interspecial folk groups, that can arise via this powerfully motivating force.
Part of 02-05 The Interspecies Folklore of Humans and Other Animals, Thursday, November 02, 10:30 am–12:30 pm