Attraction is not just another thing to be anxious about. It seems, especially now, in ever shorter supply, ever more unsustainable. The long term threat is that of the death of interest itself, the dark pit of bottomless boredom. This anxiety is thus an ur-anxiety, the fear that there may truly be nothing, not in the metaphysical sense (why is there something rather than nothing?), but in the late capitalist sense (am I still relevant? Do I have your attention?). It is in response to this anxiety that whale sounds—imagined sometimes as music, other times as speech—are enjoying a new cultural moment. Research with and around charismatic, higher order intelligent wild animals is becoming ever more focused on not their charisma, but that of humans, as it surreptitiously equates intelligence with curiosity (about humans). But are these animals really interested? Why should they be interested? Are humans interesting? And finally, why does the animal voice—including that of the human animal–play such an important, but slippery role in this problem-space?

Margret Grebowicz is a continental philosopher, researching environmental imagination and desire. She is especially interested in wilderness, public lands, wild animals, and pet-keeping. She has authored the following books: Rescue Me: On Dogs and Their Humans (2021), Mountains and Desire: Climbing vs. The End of the World (2020), Whale Song (2017), The National Park to Come (2015), Beyond the Cyborg: Adventures with Donna Haraway (2015, co-authored with Helen Merrick) and Why Internet Porn Matters (2013). She also co-edited Lyotard and Critical Practice (2021) and Still Seeking an Attitude: Critical Reflections on the Work of June Jordan (2004), and edited Gender After Lyotard (2007) and SciFi in the Mind’s Eye: Reading Science Through Science Fiction (2007). Her current writing projects include Foraging, a book on mushroom foraging and another book about the national parks on the border, titled The Border Sublime. She is a native of Poland and is currently affiliated with the University of Silesia in Poland. Prior to that, she taught in Siberia. Prior to that, she held tenure at two American colleges, Goucher College and University of Houston-Downtown. During this time she also worked as a jazz singer for about a decade, in Texas and New York City. She was a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Scholar at University of Dundee, the inaugural Resident in Situated Philosophy at Arizona State University, and a Marc Sanders Foundation Philosophy in the Media Fellow. She has written articles for the Atlantic, LA Review of Books, and Slate—and founded and edits the Practices series for Duke University Press, which features public-facing writing by a wide range of scholars and practitioners.