Abstract: Drawn from his forthcoming book Jagged Ontologies, the talk explores two recent multispecies justice projects Wolfe has been involved in for the past few years, and their different (and competing) philosophical and ethical frameworks. It then examines the legal, philosophical, and ethical dimensions of current “rights of Nature” movements worldwide, both their foibles and their prospects.
Cary Wolfe is the Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor, emeritus, of English at Rice University. His most recent projects are Ecological Poetics, or, Wallace Stevens’ Birds (Chicago, 2020). His books and edited collections include Animal Rites: American Culture, The Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory (Chicago, 2003), the edited collections Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal (Minnesota, 2003), (with Branka Arsic), The Other Emerson (Minnesota, 2010), What Is Posthumanism? (Minnesota, 2010), and Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (Chicago, 2012). He is founding editor of the series Posthumanities at the University of Minnesota Press.
