1. First Dog, Last Dog: New Intertextual Short Fictions about Canis lupus familiaris
- Author
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Johnson, A and Johnson, A
- Abstract
This exegetical essay and 'companion' short fictions examines intertextual representations of Canis lupus familiaris’ from Homer to the present. As part of a larger short fiction project exploring life-long relationships between human and nonhuman creatures, I aim to explore how certain narrative techniques (intertextuality, fable, hyper-anthromorphism and other writerly modes identified by Ursula Le Guin, Jane Bennett, Anna Tsing and others) best (1) support re-voiced, silenced animal others; and (2) portray the dialogical ‘mesh’ of creaturely encounters. That is to say, how can imaginative narrative mechanics, as explored by Le Guin, Bennett, Tsing, Harriet Tarlo, Deborah Levy and others, problematise literary representations of domesticated creatures? Evoking both historical and future arcs of the Anthropocene, the stories aim to subtly shift fixed notions of power and exchange between human and non-human creatures. The double short story sequence ‘First Dog, Last Dog’ explores interdependencies between domesticated animals and humans. The first story, ‘The Death of the First Dog’, re-reads and quotes from Homer’s The Odyssey and the encounter between Odysseus and his aged hunting dog Argos. Its companion piece, ‘The Carrying’, is set in a speculative future. Exploiting qualities of the Borghesian fable, both tales are interspecies tales of love and loss. This work was read at the 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival ‘Animal Church’
- Published
- 2019