'The Multiverse Quilt' building new worlds: can speculative fiction create a case for altered perceptions and behaviour towards non-human beings, ecosystems and real world application, for positive change?

How human beings consider, or do not consider, the lives of non-human beings, can be questioned quite boldly by looking beyond our real world, to alternative worlds offered by the mediums of science and speculative fiction, to ponder why humans behave as we do, towards ‘otherness’. Through speculative thought we can examine the shared entanglements of all living matter, discussed by philosophers such as Donna Haraway and Timothy Morton, to argue for a deeper consideration of non-human life. Narratives we engage with deeply affect how we see and interact with our shared environment. Creative writing is a powerful tool, capable of affecting real world shifts - thus closing a gap between scientific studies and speculative thinking as is demonstrated by authors such as Jeff VanderMeer, Carol Emshwiller, David Walton and Karen Traviss in their works on othering. Such writings align with shifts in scientific and philosophical thought towards non-human beings, like ideas evolving from the works of Jeffrey Masson, Susan McCarthy, Jonathon Balcombe and Marc Bekoff.

The Multiverse Quilt adds to a wave of eco-critical writing and ideas around the disjoined way we both live in the world (as it tumbles in environmental and capitalist turmoil), yet also wish to live outside of it, as woven into works such as Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet and Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations.² The Multiverse Quilt contributes to a wider debate around voice, ethics, and empathy, responding not just to themes of ‘othering’ but asking new questions such as how we bridge the gap between how we are and how we can be, and how humanity can begin to listen more deeply to non-human language and to interweaving discourses deeply embedded in nature’s own narrative.³

The interwoven themes within the thesis challenge speciesist thought by exploring voices outside the human realm, and how authors are drawing non-humans back into our shared story. The chapters move between social science and literary shifts in human perceptions of the more-than-human world. From the real to the imagined, the work argues for a re-visioning of species relationships towards what I am terming ‘eco-quality’.