First Dog, Last Dog: New Intertextual Short Fictions about Canis lupus familiaris

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, ..