Autobiografie eines Kraken

What if humans are not the only beings that demonstrate creativity and wish to be remembered for their existence? In the world where the three stories of this volume are set, animals are regarded as beings capable of play, ritual, and poetry. Anthropology has been replaced by therology (from the Greek therion, meaning animal), particularly therolinguistics. Despret invites us to dive into the exciting debates of this new discipline: Do spiders send out vibrating distress signals as they suffer from the excess of human-produced vibrations? Do the dung constructions of wombats testify to a "fecal cosmology"? Do octopuses lament the ink traces on clay shards, mourning the overfishing and pollution of the oceans that prevent their rebirth? Vinciane Despret literally writes science fiction. She skillfully blurs the boundaries between science and literature, between human and animal. A thought-provoking and imaginative plea for a radically new perspective on the animal world—and our place within it.