Conversations With Animals

Conversations With Animals

Share this post

Conversations With Animals
Conversations With Animals
Wild Thing: reprint of my essay "Violences in Language"

Wild Thing: reprint of my essay "Violences in Language"

For theory nerds, horror film fans, and activists curious about how anti-racist work intersects with animal liberation, this essay is for you. Originally published by VIDA Review in 2018.

Juliana's avatar
Juliana
Jan 16, 2024
∙ Paid

Share this post

Conversations With Animals
Conversations With Animals
Wild Thing: reprint of my essay "Violences in Language"
Share
From Jordan Peele’s Get Out.

For this month’s dig into my animal archives, I’m sharing an essay I wrote originally as an academic paper for graduate school in 2017, but then later presented the paper at Temple University’s Language, Linguistics, and Life Conference: “Language and Community” in April 2018.

Originally, the paper began as a pitch called “Perceptions of Consumption: anthropocentrism, othering, and sensuality.” I even found my original abstract when the essay was in a very nascent phase (told you this was for the theory nerds).

I also uncovered the original cat photo (of course) that I used to deliver my presentation.

As any maker knows, sometimes the seeds of ideas you plant take a shape you can’t expect, and sometimes they introduce ideas, concepts, or creations that will follow you for your entire creative life. This essay holds many of my dearest wishes, and I hope you enjoy reading them in full…

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts • Home

Recalling the days after Bush’s re-election, Toni Morrison wrote an article for The Nation outlining the strategies malicious forces use to take control of the collective imagination. They start with language, with using language to subjugate: “the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive…their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an ‘Other’—to convert rage into conflict, even war,” she writes. Isolating the self from “an Other” may be the primal first step in disassociation; the distinction between “us” and “them” where the death of connection begins. Examining the category of “an Other” as not just a place for violence, but as a locality for repair, Morrison complicates the us-them binary, suggesting that this relationship could be where we bridge the damage the despotic imagination does in separating us from others, and from ourselves.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Conversations With Animals to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Juliana Roth
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share