“My latest monograph, ‘Flat Aesthetics,’ is an analysis of contemporary U.S. literature and the ‘contemporary’ more broadly. My focus, this time around, is on the non-human entities present in the system of world relationships. 

“I try to do away with the distinction – and hierarchy – between subjects and objects. We’re all objects, or ‘sobjects,’ which means, among other things, that we all have some kind of capacity to affect others. A rock, a tree, the coffee mug on my desk – we’re all capable of causing events together as part of our entanglements. 

“I produce words on paper or on a computer screen. But I am being made, to the same extent, as an author by the so-called ‘instruments’ surrounding me. Everything can be a source of affect – whatever effects obtain are the result of all those things, human and not, which all exist – all are – on the same level ontologically, if not politically. 

“That brings us back to my notions of care, responsibility, and obligation. The more we recognize in things attributes traditionally set aside for humans, the more we have to rethink the way we behave toward non-human others.”