Addressing the questions raised by the "animal turn" in literature, we propose that an approach to animal representation contributes to an understanding of the crisis of meaning we are experiencing and the role that literature plays in it. Thus, the panel begins with Renata Villon's essay: "Learning Life from Dogs: Identification, Death, and Representations of Womanhood in Contemporary Latin American Literature," which addresses the kinship between women and animals and critiques their shared objectification and subjugation in patriarchal society. By analyzing the representations of dogs in Lispector's work A Breath of Life [1978], as well as Quiltras (2016) by Chilean author Arelis Uribe and La perra (2017) by Colombian author Pilar Quintana, it is argued that these texts use canine figures as an invitation to move beyond human-centered narratives. The focus is specifically on mixed-breed dogs as a way of marking an initial point of contact with otherness, which becomes increasingly hybrid, challenging our perceptions of what is human and what is not. The stray dog in particular emerges as an emblem of autonomy, a guide to alternative modes of being that subvert imposed social constraints. Through this lens, these works illuminate systemic violence and reframe perceptions of otherness. Rather than anthropomorphizing animals, however, these writings suggest an intentional "animalization" that rejects anthropocentric ideals that marginalize the nonhuman.

In "Dismantling Indifference: An Approach to the Life of Fish in Latin American Literature," María Aldana-Mendoza wonders about the scope and limits of the anthropomorphic representation of fish, the contrasts with non-anthropocentric representations, and their effects on the figurations we make of these animals. To this end, a comparative reading of the short story "El matrimonio de los peces rojos" (2013) by Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel and the novel Historia de una ballena blanca (2018) by Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda is proposed. In addition to questioning anthropocentric ideology, contemporary representations of animals give rise to a critique that questions the subordinate status of animals. According to Lámbarry (2019), the satirical use of the animal to denounce despotic human systems in the twentieth century shifts to questioning the relationship of animal domination, inviting the creation of new relationships between humans and animals. The contrast between Nettel's and Sepúlveda's representations raises the question of whether anthropomorphic modes of representation always imply an anthropocentric tendency. In this way, the contrast between these and more than anthropomorphic modes of representation is approached, as well as the challenges posed by their writing.

Oscar Pérez concludes the panel with the presentation "Buzzing Beyond Boundaries: Mosquitoes, Mutants, and More-than-Human Ways of Knowing in Michel Nieva's Dengue Boy". It shows how animality, more than a fixed entity, is a shifting identity that destabilizes categorical distinctions between human and nonhuman, subject and object, self and other. The novel imagines a future in which the logics of neoliberal science reshape not only human lives but also the very structure of knowledge production. In this context the mosquito-human protagonist highlights the ambiguous and liminal nature of insect life, one characterized by “different states of in-betweenness, arousing the same spasmodic reactions in humans as the monstrous, the sacred, or the alien” (Braidotti, Nomadic Theory 104). Thus, the novel interrogates the anthropocentric assumptions embedded in the Western scientific epistemological paradigm and offers an alternative model of knowledge production that foregrounds nonhuman animal intelligence, perception, temporality, and modes of communication. Through an approach to the "insect paradigm," which understands animal life as "a radical form of otherness" (Braidotti 102), subject to both scientific fascination (categorized and valued in entomological collections) and human efforts of extermination (the insecticide industry), the novel offers an alternative model of knowledge production that emphasizes nonhuman animal intelligence, perception, and modes of communication.