Vinciane Despret

‘Becoming fabulous Humanimal with Michel Serres’

(Chair: Matthew Chrulew)

This keynote speech was given on May 23, 2025 as the second keynote speech for the ‘Rethinking Fables’ final conference, in which Prof. Vinciane Despret discusses Michel Serres’s final book La Fontaine (Le Pommier, 2021) and to also reflect on her own practice as ‘a fabulist’. Please enjoy the recording of this fabulous talk, beautifully introduced by Matthew Chrulew with his fable, ‘The Fable of the fabuous Philospher’. 

Vinciane Despret is a Belgian philosopher of science. A foundational thinker for the consolidating field of animal studies, Despret’s transdisciplinary approach is located across philosophy of science, epistemology and behavioural science. Her research began to focus on the relationship between observers and the observed during the conduct of scientific research. She since then Investigate the political consequences of our theoretical choices, she undertakes a critical understanding of how science is fabricated, following scientists doing fieldwork and observing how they actively relate to their objects of study. Some of her books had been translated in English, as The dance of the Arabian Babbler, What would animals say if we asked the right questions?, Living as a bird, and Our Grateful Dead.