Trust and the (human) animal: writers workshop with Alex Lockwood

A writing workshop focused on how we describe and write about encounter with bodies – our own and the bodies of nonhuman others. The premise for this session is that, for many individuals and for our wider culture, it is far too easy to lose touch with the somatic knowledge that comes from the body. We deny brain-body-world entanglements to our detriment, and it is (as Alex and others argue) this loss and lack of attending to our existing entanglements with the world that is really at the heart of our distance from nonhuman animals.

This session will ask writers to think about the concept of trust in relation to entanglements with other bodies, and to think about trust between human and nonhuman. We will do some writing exercises around encounter with other animals, with some extracts from stories. We may also work briefly outside.