Reading Cultures

Thinking with Animals:

We think in metaphors — they are our bridge of meaning between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Anthropocentrism — the tendency to project human qualities onto nonhuman beings and objects — is perhaps the most common of all metaphorical modes. In our earliest conscious experiences, we are surrounded by toy animals and immersed in children’s books rife with animal characters — in fact, cognitive scientists now know that the development of metaphorical thinking in children is what gives rise to the imagination, so imagining animals as ourselves and projecting ourselves onto animals is a developmental achievement for the human mind. But using animals as a mode of clarifying the human experience is something that permeates every stage of life and every epoch of our civilization, from ancient creation myths to Aesop’s fables to Orwell’s allegorical masterworkAnimal Farm to Lolcats.

A fascinating exploration of how we think with animals, which began as a workshop at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. 

The PEN Ten is PEN America’s weekly interview series. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be speaking to participants of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, which runs May 4–10 in New York City.

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