Observing “the digitalization of distraction” that is turning distraction into “the rule rather than an exception,” Dominic Pettman comments, “matters of historic import, like a civil rights issue … are now flattened into the same homogenous, empty digital space as a cute critter or an obnoxious celebrity” (34). While the ‘flat ontology’ of the “digital space” may not be such a bad thing if animals become “matters of historic import,” it is worrisome that they do so through distraction, that is, by diverting us from, to borrow John D. Eastwood’s phrase, “an endless dissatisfying present.” Drawing upon Martin Heidegger’s discussion of “profound boredom,” which offers Dasein “the moment of vision as the properly authentic possibility of its existence,” yet twisting the discussion with Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology that flattens Dasein’s existence, this paper proposes that boredom is animals’ gift for humans that is of existential import for both.

Dongshin Yi is Professor of English at Seoul National University. His research interests include posthumanism, contemporary American fiction, science fiction and animal studies. He has published “Salvaging the Contemporary with Speculative Science Fiction” (Exposition, 2024), “Indifference: An Imperative of Posthuman Life (Journal of Posthuman Studies, 2022), Humans and Things: Three Streams of Posthumanism (Galmuri, 2022), SF, the Spirit of the Contemporary (Book21, 2021), and From Boundary to Empathy: Humans and Animals (Edabooks, 2021).

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