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Part of
Dialogic Ethics
Edited by Ronald C. Arnett and François Cooren
[Dialogue Studies 30] 2018
► pp. 199–213

Agents of awakening

Ventriloquism, nature, and the cultural practice of dialogue

This chapter explores dialogic practices that integrate culture and nature, human and non-human agents, pointing to a form of participation in the world that engages various communicative practices such as listening, gazing, and drawing as much as speaking. Based on Cooren’s (2012) ventriloquial framework that is attentive to the ways in which interactants invite, mobilize, and stage various figures /entities in conversation, this study explores the dialogic interplay of multiple forms of agency including human and non-human actors that facilitate our understanding of human experience in the world. Specifically, I examine “nature’s agents” such as rivers and trees as they are ventriloquized in Zen dialogues, Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, and in a poetic autoethnography by Speedy (2016), Staring at the Park.

Keywords: ventriloquism, agency, dialogue, non-human agents, awakening
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The cultural practice of dialogue
  • 3.Ventriloquism and the question of agency
  • 4.Nature’s agents of awakening in Zen and beyond
    • 4.1Streams and rivers
    • 4.2Trees
  • References
Published online: 14 June 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.30.08ozu
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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Cooren, François
2020. Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies. Organization Theory 1:3 ► pp. 263178772095444 ff. DOI logo

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