Introduction: Rat Laughter and its (Literary) Implications. Fiction and the Affective Lives of Non-Human Animals
Introduction: Rat Laughter and its (Literary) Implications. Fiction and the Affective Lives of Non-Human Animals

Summary/Abstract: Rats laugh when tickled – a fact established by Jaak Panksepp (1943-2017), one of the founders of affective neuroscience, the proponent, since the late 1990s, of the seven core emotional systems existent across the mammalian brain, namely SEEKING, CARE, PLAY, LUST, FEAR, RAGE, PANIC / GRIEF (Affective Neuroscience, Affective Consciousness, Basic), and the world’s most famous rat tickler (Hook, Affective). Despite the decades that have passed since Panksepp’s pioneering work, and notwithstanding research across fields such as ethology, anthropology, and ecological philosophy – including the famous contributions of Frans de Waal and Jane Goodall, along with recent reflections by Corine Pelluchon, Baptiste Morizot, and Vinciane Despret, among others – the capacity of animals to emote often remains an elusive idea.

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