Vinciane Despret

Vinciane Despret is a philosopher. She teaches at the University of Liège and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Passionate about ethology, she has published numerous works, including La danse du cratérope écaillé (The Dance of the Arabian Babbler: Birth of an Ethological Theory); Quand le loup habitera avec l’agneau; Bêtes et Hommes; Penser comme un rat; Que diraient les animaux, si… on leur posait les bonnes questions? (What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions?); Et si les animaux écrivaient?; and Habiter en oiseau (Living as a Bird). She has also investigated the human condition, notably with Au bonheur des morts. Récits de ceux qui restent (Our Grateful Dead: Stories of Those Left Behind) and Les morts à l’œuvre. Her Autobiographie d’un poulpe et autres récits d’anticipation (Autobiography of an Octopus and Other Tales of Anticipation), published in 2021, revisits the questions she has been exploring with animals, but this time in the experimental mode of fiction. These experiments will be taken up again in the fiction imagined for the catalogue of the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023: Living in Mycelium.