One of the conference’s highlights was undoubtedly the workshop led by Professor Vinciane Despret, titled ‘Changing Fables’ (May 24, 2025), the purpose of which was to experiment with creative thinking and writing fables collaboratively. Originally scheduled for a seminar room with rows of seats, we ventured out to the foyer space outside the room, with chairs in hand, as Vinciane wanted us to sit in a circle. Having heard a wide range of papers on fables in the previous days, participants were up for trying their hands with creating their own. Excitingly, the workshop group included eminent animal scholars such as Susan McHugh, Erica Fudge, Boria Sax, and Chris Danta, several creative writers including the fabulist Suniti Namjoshi, and research students who brough to the session fresh ideas and perspectives. It was indeed a magic circle of storytelling which we formed – and magic did happen.
Vinciane opened the session by inviting us to think of a traditional fable, which we could rethink or change. For instance, how would you read ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ in the era we are living in, how would you retell it to challenge the ideas which the fable seems to embody – competition, for instance? This prompted people to put forward some fables and ideas. But it was a fascinating fox fable, which Boria Sax brought to our attention, which sparked a wide-ranging discussion. This particular fable is a Sumerian text from about 1,700 BCE, written in cuneiform on clay tablets, and it goes: ‘The fox, having urinated into the sea, said “The whole sea is my urine.”’
The participants explored not only what the fox’s behaviour and remark might represent, but also our relationships with bodily waste, as well as the ocean and all that nourishes or pollutes it. For instance, many of us imagined how oceanic creatures might talk back to the fox. Fitting for our project theme, in which we rethink fables to challenge the genre’s supposedly anthropocentric nature, our engagement with the fox fable was certainly subversive of human-centred, male-dominated, land-based territorialising logics, and it took decidedly animal / oceanic turns. It was also delightful to see Suniti the fabulist in action — she was one of the first to respond by adding this superb possible ending to the fox saying ‘The whole sea is my urine’.
Hearing this, a woman walked up to the fox, picked him up by the scruff of his neck and flung him into the ocean. She said to him, “The ocean is not your urinal, it’s your bathtub.
(Whether the fox swam back or drowned depends on how annoyed you are with him.)
Seeing the group full of ideas, Vinciane then asked the participants to form groups of five and create some fables in response to the discussion. Please see below the recording of what they came up with. It was a truly fun, inspiring and thought-provoking session, and I am deeply grateful to Vinciane for facilitating this fantastic session. It was inspirational to see her lead the discussion – asking, listening, gently weaving everybody’s ideas together to transform everybody into fabulists. I am in awe of the way in which the session resulted in so many interesting fables – thank you so much, everybody. You are all amazing.
Postscript: in response to this workshop run by Vinciane, Suniti invites everybody to have a go at her fable writing exercise ‘to repeat the exhilaration we felt working together.’ If they can deal with the fox, they can certainly take on that challenging frog as well. (The link will be available till the end of October 2025!).