Fables of Response-ability: Feminist Science Studies as Didactic Literature

Abstract

Recent literature in feminist science studies is rich with stories about how we are constituted by and in relation to (sometimes toxic) chemicals.  Scholars such as Natasha Myers, Mel Chen, and Eva Hayward have written vivid accounts of the chemical ecologies of late industrialism, arguing that we cannot think of bodies as separate from environments. In this article, I read feminist scholarship on chemical ecologies as fables of response-ability, stories that teach us to attend and respond within our more-than-human world.  Amplifying their didactic registers, I pay attention to moments in the texts that are speculative, poetic, and personal, moments that work on the bodies, imaginations, and sensoria of their readers.  By reading these texts together, I hope to both acknowledge the didactic work that feminist science studies scholars are already doing and encourage others to experiment with telling their own fables of response-ability.