Abstract

This study researches the intricate relationships between poems, empathy and anymals (a term chosen to highlight the diversity of nonhuman animals) in an effort to move beyond the traditional binaries of ‘human vs animal’, ‘projection vs empathy’ and ‘text vs world’. This is done by analysing carefully selected ‘zoopoems’, poems in which anymals take part as protagonists, and exploring the poets’ use of tools and techniques to confront traditional binaries. Through these zoopoetical tools, such as metaphors, questions and hesitations, rhythm and pronoun drop, human subjectivity is silenced, allowing the reader to see the anymals in a new perspective – as themselves.

Speaker

Tirza Brüggemann (Hoogblokland, 1975) studied Philosophy and English Language and Culture at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She teaches philosophy at Het Amsterdams Lyceum and works at Radboud University as a teacher of didactics of philosophy

Chair

Dr. Dawn Skorczewski is a Research Professor of English Emerita at Brandeis University and a lecturer at Amsterdam University College. Her most recent books and articles consider psychoanalysis and trauma, Holocaust testimony, and the art of survivor Sieg Maandag. She is currently working on a book about Resistance artist Wim ten Broek.

Convenor

Dr. Lara Mazurski

Access the lecture

• Zoom link: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/84434276060