Reimbursement paperwork

Today I have spent quite some time doing paperwork in order to get reimbursed and compensated for my trips to Mexico City and Havana this January.

In transit

Just got back from Cuba (and Mexico). Well, not quite - Schiphol airport for the time being.

Predation paper given at MAC4

Today I presented my paper "The semiotics of predation and the Umwelten of large predators" in the session "Considering wildlife I" at the 4th international Minding Animals Conference, held in Mexico City. Some 12 people were present.

Day off at MAC4 - trip to Teotihuacán

Yesterday I went with a bunch of fellow MAC4 conference participants to Teotihuacán about an hour´s drive from Mexico City, to see the remnants of this ancient city.

Panel "Animals and philosophy" held at MAC4

Today I participated in the panel "Animals and philosophy", moderated by Andy Lamey and with the panel also including Dale Jamieson, Erin McKenna and Mylan Engel  Jr. The panel was attended by some 50 people.

 

Welcome reception for MAC4

Tonight I have attended the first couple of hours of the welcome reception of the 4th international Minding Animals Conference, which is held here in Mexico City January 17-24th. The reception took place at Hotel Royal Pedregal.

Heading for Mexico

I am about to board a plane heading for Amsterdam, after which I will transfer to a plane for Mexico City, where the 4th international Minding Animals Conference is held January 17-24th.

Two papers accepted for MAC4, Mexico City

I have been notified by the organizers of Minding Animals Conference 4, to take place in Mexico City January 17-24th, that my papers "The cultural semiotic of wolves and sheep" and "The semiotics of predation and the Umwelten of large predators" have been accepted for oral presentation at the conference.

Abstract for MAC4: "The cultural semiotic of wolves and sheep"

I have just submitted the abstract below to the organizers of Minding Animals Conference 4 (Mexico City, January 17-24th 2018).

***

The cultural semiotic of wolves and sheep

Morten Tønnessen

University of Stavanger, Norway

Wolves and sheep go together – at least in the public mind. They are among the most widespread mammals of wild and domesticated species respectively. While the wolf is in several countries the most controversial large carnivore, it is also, and not coincidentally, the most symbolically laden Western carnivore. The wolf is a symbol of large carnivores, governmental interference in local issues, freedom and authenticity, evil, hunger, sexuality, etc. Sheep, on the other hand, represent among other things innocence and vulnerability (and, of course – food, wool and thus economic value).

The juxtaposition of the symbolism of wolves and sheep go all the way back to the Bible, if not even further. In the Bible, this archetypical opposition is only resolved in the vision of a new Earth and new Heavens, when, in this new paradise, “[t]he wolf and the lamb will feed together” (Isaiah 65:25). Meanwhile, everybody “knows” that wolves prey on sheep. However, many would be surprised to learn that in Norway, wolves over time only account for less than a tenth of depredation on sheep. This demonstrates the way in which people are informed not only by facts, but also by cultural imagery.

Familiarity with the cultural imagery of wolves and sheep is arguably a precondition for fully understanding the fierce human emotions that are invoked in social and political conflicts on wolf management and conservation. Although there are local variations, and even though imagery and symbolism can change over time, the “background noise”, as it were, of the historical cultural semiotic of wolves and sheep is significant practically wherever there are, or were, wolves.

To take part in "Philosophy and Animals" panel

In Bulletin 43 issued by Minding Animals International, I am listed as one of the panelists in the panel "Philosophy and Animals", which is to be held during Minding Animals Conference 4, in Mexico City in January 2018.

MAC4 panel on animals and philosophy

At the 4th Minding Animals Conference, to take place in Mexico City January 17-24th, I will be one of the participants in the Animals and Philosophy panel.

To take part in two panels at MAC4, Mexico City

I will take part in a panel on "Animals and philosophy", and another on "Animals, history and ethology" during Minding Animals Conference 4, which is to be held in Mexico City January 17-24th 2018.

Panel participation at MAC4?

I have signalled interest in taking part in three panels at Minding Animals Conference 4, to take place in Mexico City next January, particularly "Ecophilosophy".

Minding Animals Conference 4 to be held in Mexico City

As was announced in the latest bulletin (#30) of Minding Animals International, which was recently distributed, Minding Animals Conference 4 will be held in Mexico city, in July 2018.

Reference to "Umwelt transitions" in Mexican philosophy journal

My 2009 article "Umwelt transitions: Uexküll and environmental change", published in the journal Biosemiotics in 2009, is referred to in the following article by Víctor Castillo Morquecho:

Morquecho, Víctor Castillo 2012. Orden, limites y transgression. Reflexiones en torno a la obra de Jakob von Uexküll [pp. 96, 106, 110, Tønnessen 2009b pp. 49, 58]. Signos Filosóficos vol. XIV, núm. 28 (julio-diciembre): 91-111.

The journal Signos Filosóficos is published by the Department of Philosophy at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, located in Iztapalapa, a borough in Mexico City.

Quote, p. 96 (footnote 9):

En este punto es preciso aclarar que, a diferencia de Kant, Uexküll pone entre interrogantes la posibilidad de una realidad fenoménica: “While Kant established that reality has a phenomenological character, Uexküll added that this reality is not purely human, enveloping, as it does, a vast and diverse realm of phenomena of which but a fragment is exclusively human. Further, according to Uexküll, man is not pure mind, but a corporeal reality or an embodied mind, which is in its turn indistinguishable from the phenomenal world it carries with it, and without which its bodily performance would make no sense” (Tønnessen, 2009: 58).

Quote, p. 106 (footnote 21):

Desde una perspectiva macroevolutiva, dice Tønnessen, invocar una crisis ambiental es invocar un cierto cambio (adverso): “Among the forerunners of the current global U[n]welt transition we find the five mass extinctions following the Cambrian explosion, known as The Big Five[s]. During these global events, what rule the day was curtailed and unfulfilled duets of nature or, as we might say ‘dissonances’ in the symphony of nature” (2009: 49).