"Animality runs right through the human being". Interview with Anne Simon

Abstract

Zoopoetics studies the diversity of stylistic, linguistic and narrative means used to convey the diversity of animal emotions and behaviour, as well as the diversity of their worlds. How does this field of research fit in with environmental literary studies? How does zoopoetics help to renew the ways in which literature is studied, from school to university? Director of research at the CNRS, Anne Simon is a French researcher in literary and philosophical studies. A specialist in Proust, she has focused her work on the living and animality in literature, developing the field of zoopoetics research. Her publications include Une bête entre les lignes. Essai de zoopoétique (Marseille, Wildproject, 2021). She is in charge of the 'Animots' research programme, funded by the ANR between 2010 and 2014 and now supported by the République des savoirs unit (CNRS/ENS/Collège de France - PSL).