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1 results

  • A Theoretical Introduction: Insects as Visible Invisibles

  • Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace, Boston College, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Insects and the Enlightenment
    Published online:
    20 February 2026
    Print publication:
    19 February 2026, pp 1-21
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  • Summary

    How are insects both visible and invisible? To return to the eighteenth century is to see the moment when they were assigned to entomological science but not to literary forms like the realist novel. The results of this dual movement include the separation of man from animal and human from non-human, leading us to think of ourselves as distinct from the natural world. This book addresses how the rise of the novel, contemporaneous with emerging entomology, shaped a sense of the “real,” as well as the “real” human conditions of terrestrial existence. The theoretical underpinnings for the argument include animal studies, material ecocriticism, and critical insect studies, with recourse to critics such as Jane Bennett. Key concepts include horizontal thinking, vibrant materiality, entanglement, symbiosis, and holobiont. The chapter closes with the words of Ed Yong, acknowledging the vital natural networks in which we find ourselves.