Literary paths for posthuman exploration: The emotional contagion of embodied empathy

In posthuman creative writing, narrative techniques that explore non-human and human protagonists may limit the expression of posthuman ideas of dynamic interconnectedness and multispecies agency. Through discussions on how posthuman fiction writing portrays humans, their companion species and their embedded environments, this article investigates narratological devices like anthropomorphism for their ability to preserve the alterity of non-human experience while fostering empathy for companion species in the reader. This article explores new literary pathways for posthuman exploration using emotional contagion, a form of embodied communication. Emotional contagion may assist in the transmission of cross-species empathy to the reader while maintaining an appreciation of alterity in non-human subjectivity. Narrating embodied experience in literature allows an exploration of companion species through comparative experience, appreciating differences and celebrating similarities.