New Books Network: Jemma Deer on "Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World”

Host: Natalia Espilova Said

Guest: Jemma Deer

Date: November 16, 2025

Book: "Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

Episode Overview

This episode of New Books Network features a conversation with Jemma Deer, a researcher in residence at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, about her book Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World. Deer explores the intersections of literature, language, and the environment, arguing that new forms of reading and understanding literary texts can help us confront the challenges of the Anthropocene and climate crisis. The conversation connects concepts from psychoanalysis, philosophy, and modernist literature to environmental thought through a radically animist lens.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Jemma Deer’s Background and Genesis of the Book [02:11–04:14]

• Interweaving Literature & Environment: Deer describes her academic journey, starting in English literature, and how her concerns about climate change prompted her to reorient her doctoral work:
  • “This book actually grew out of my doctoral work … I had this real strong worry about climate change and the environment. And it just felt like doing a literature PhD was, you know, pointless.” [03:04]
  • Her return to academia hinged on finding a way to merge her literary and environmental interests.

2. Defining Radical Animism & The Anthropocene [04:51–09:14]

• Animism Reconsidered: Deer reclaims animism from its colonial and “primitive” framing:
  • “Animism ... was a word ... to designate so-called primitive systems of thought that see life, personhood or agencies beyond the human. ... In the context of climate change and the Anthropocene, this notion of agencies and life beyond the human or beyond the organically living starts to look quite logical rather than primitive.” [04:59]
• Fourth Blow to Human Narcissism: Drawing on Freud’s concept of “blows to human narcissism”, Deer argues climate change is a fourth, material blow:
  • “Climate change and the Anthropocene comes as a fourth blow to human narcissism, and it comes as a direct result of the failure to take into account the previous three blows.” [08:19]
  • This fourth blow starkly reveals humanity’s interconnectedness and lack of agency.

3. The Place and Power of Literature [09:14–13:09]

• Animism of Language and Texts:
  • “I’m interested in the way that language and literary texts can be seen to have a certain life of their own.” [10:13]
  • Even texts not explicitly about climate change (e.g., Virginia Woolf, Kafka, Lewis Carroll) acquire new meanings in the Anthropocene.
• Transformative Reading: The contemporary context transforms both how we interpret classic texts and our sense of what’s at stake in reading.

4. Etymology, Derrida, and the Secret Life of Words [13:09–17:28]

• Attention to Etymology: Deer frequently traces word origins to reveal language’s “evolutionary history”:
  • “By thinking about etymology, I’m drawing attention to the fact that… words have this history, this evolutionary history … the way that they give rise to meaning can really live in literature.” [14:10]
  • Memorable example: the etymology of Charles Darwin’s name literally means “man, animal, kin”. [16:24]
• Derrida and Metaphoricity: Language’s fundamental metaphoricity and instability is central; there is always a “carrying of meaning” beyond direct reference.

5. Generalized Notion of Text in the Anthropocene [17:28–21:13]

• Textuality Everywhere:
  • Derrida’s “generalized notion of text or trace”: geological marks, genetic code, and semiotic processes in nature all become textual.
  • “Everything is textual in a certain sense. … The Anthropocene, quite literally, marks or traces into the planet, marks that will remain in the geological record and that we are reading and interpreting.” [18:47]
  • The world and life itself are writable and readable in a broad sense.

6. Reading Practices in the Anthropocene [23:12–25:40]

• Anthropocene Reading—Three Meanings:
  1. Reading the geological traces left by humanity.
  2. Reading all texts with environmental consciousness.
  3. Understanding the Anthropocene as reading and redefining humanity.
  • “We can’t read the same text that we used to 100 years ago … We have to read in a way that understands this transformed relation that we have to the world around us.” [24:20]

Engaging Literary Readings and Examples

7. Virginia Woolf and the Copernican Revolution [25:40–29:05]

• De-centering and Rescaling:
  • Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and The Waves exemplify narrative decentering, attending deeply to non-human forces.
  • “Into the Lighthouse, there’s that middle section … ‘Time Passes’ in which the house is left to the forces of entropy and decay. … So you see very much that kind of de-centering of the human. She’s asking what might narrative be without humans there?” [27:21]
  • Woolf’s rhythms and cosmic/minute scales create “an animistic and post-Copernican” mode.

8. Alice in Wonderland, the Animal-Human Boundary, and Meat [31:21–36:52]

• Darwinian Blows and Language’s Nonhuman Vitality
  • The baby-to-pig transformation in Alice in Wonderland lays bare processes of dehumanization and animal commodification:
  • “We’ve gone from ‘it would be murder to leave it behind’ to ‘it would be absurd to carry it any further’ in this transition from baby human animal to pig, pork.” [33:51]
  • This scene, and others, expose the ease with which we objectify other species—resonant today given the scale of industrialized meat production and its environmental harms.
  • Childhood readings differ radically from environmental readings shaped by the present context.

9. Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Freudian Agency [36:52–40:37]

• Language’s Unconscious Agency:
  • In analyzing Hamlet and Freud’s writing about the “fort-da” game, Deer identifies echoes and repetitions that suggest language’s uncanny life:
  • “He [Freud] writes these four O’s… These four O’s seem to echo or mimic Hamlet’s last words before he dies … I’m showing again how language has this kind of life of its own. So consciously or unconsciously, it can make us think certain things.” [38:30]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On animism in modern context:
  “The more that we learn about the world, the more this kind of distinction between humans and other beings, between living and non living, all these distinctions start to crumble the closer we look.” — Jemma Deer [05:53]
• On climate change as a Fourth Blow:
  “Climate change shows us very forcefully that we’re not the center of the universe, either symbolically or materially.” — Jemma Deer [08:52]
• On language as animate:
  “Language really dictates our thoughts in a certain sense. We think within language and it has a kind of life of its own within our minds.” — Jemma Deer [10:47]
• On the etymology of Darwin:
  “His surname Darwin comes from Old English. Dior, which meant beast or animal of any kind. And wyn meant friend or kinsman. His first name, Charles, comes from Old Norse khal, meaning man. His name literally translates as man, animal, kin … which I then suggest is an etymology that kind of plays out in his life’s work.” — Jemma Deer [15:39]
• On Anthropocene reading:
  “The Anthropocene is doing the reading. It is reinterpreting what we are as the human species.” — Jemma Deer [25:16]
• On Woolf’s writing and rhythm:
  “She says that the rhythm of writing is very profound and that it goes far deeper than words. She calls it the most primitive of instincts. … She’s aware that… the rhythm of language, which she sees as this wild force that is outside of her, is to an extent dictating what she says.” — Jemma Deer [29:38]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction and Deer’s Background – [01:32–04:14]
• Defining Animism and the Fourth Blow – [04:51–09:14]
• Animism in Literature and Language – [09:14–13:09]
• Etymology, Derrida, and Language’s Secret Life – [13:09–17:28]
• Generalized Textuality, DNA, and the Anthropocene – [17:28–21:13]
• Reading Practices in the Anthropocene – [23:12–25:40]
• Virginia Woolf and Decentering – [25:40–29:05]
• Lewis Carroll, Animals, and Anthropocentrism – [31:21–36:52]
• Freud, Hamlet, and Agency – [36:56–40:37]
• Reading for/at the End of the World—Hope and Etymology – [40:49–42:52]
• Deer’s Current and Future Projects – [43:31–45:17]

Book’s Dual Tenor: Apocalypse and Hope

• The subtitle "Reading for the End of the World" is both apocalyptic and hopeful:
  • “The word world comes from the old Danish wer, eld, meaning literally man, age … The end of the were eld would be the beginning of a less destructive or pathological relationship between humans and the other forms of life with which we share the planet.” — Jemma Deer [41:29]

Closing and Future Work

• New Projects: Deer is now working on a book about extinction, broadening its meaning beyond biology, and exploring fungi (“mycomorphism”) as models of interconnection.
• First Book: “Yes, it is my first book, yeah.” [45:19]

This episode offers a deep, interdisciplinary dialogue about language, literature, animism, and the ecological crises of our age, inviting listeners to rethink how meaning arises and how reading itself might be a vital practice for what comes next.