Response to "Thinking about animals..." book proof queries compiled

Yesterday I finished coordinating and compiling response to proof queries for our forthcoming book Thinking about animals in the age of the Anthropocene. 17 pages, no less.

7 hours of teaching

Today I taught for another 7 hours in the UiS EVU course "Philosophy of science and health care ethics" (course code FXPSH100). This included 5 hours of student presentations, with feedback and input from me, and two hours of my stand-in "student presentations" in philosophy of science (including issues in positivism and phenomenology).

Table of contents for "Thinking about animals in the age of the Anthropocene"

Here is the Table of Contents for our forthcoming book Thinking about animals in the age of the Anthropocene (Lexington Books):

Acknowledgments 

Introduction: Once upon a Time in the Anthropocene

Morten Tønnessen & Kristin Armstrong Oma 

Part I: Beyond Human Eyes 

Chapter 1: Held Hostage by the Anthropocene
Susan M. Rustick 

Chapter 2: Dangerous Intersubjectivities from Dionysos to Kanzi
Louise Westling 

Chapter 3: Animals in a Noisy World
Almo Farina 

Part II: Phenomenology in the Anthropocene 

Chapter 4: A Phenomenological Approach to the Imaginary of Animals
Annabelle Dufourcq 

Chapter 5: Speaking with Animals: Philosophical Interspecies Investigations
Eva Meijer 

Chapter 6: Desire and/or Need for Life? Towards a Phenomenological Dialectic of the Organism
Sebastjan Vörös & Peter Gaitsch 

Part III: Beast No More 

Chapter 7: Understanding the Meaning of Wolf Resurgence, Ecosemiotics, and Landscape Hermeneutics
Martin Drenthen 

Chapter 8: Behaving like an Animal? Some Implications of the Philosophical Debate on the Animality in Man
Carlo Brentari 

Chapter 9: Seeing with Dolphins: Reflections on the Salience of Cetaceans
Katharine Dow 

Part IV: New Beginnings 

Chapter 10: Out of the Metazoic? Animals as a Transitional Form in Planetary Evolution
Bronislaw Szerszynski 

Chapter 11: Dangerous Animals and Our Search for Meaningful Relationships with Nature in the Anthropocene
Mateusz Tokarski 

Chapter 12: Don Quixote’s Windmills
Gisela Kaplan 

About the Contributors 

Index

6 hours of teaching

Today I taught for 6 hours in the UiS EVU course "Philosophy of science and health care ethics" (course code FXPSH100). The topic was introduction to philosophy of science for health and social studies. 

"Agency in Biosemiotics and Enactivism" revised second time

Today I finished the second round of revisions of my forthcoming book chapter "Agency in Biosemiotics and Enactivism".

Supervision commenced

The last few days I have supervised two students in bachelor thesis in child welfare at University of Stavanger´s Department of social studies, via Skype. This is the first of four supervision sessions.

Abstract for Gathering in Biosemiotics 16: "A brief history of the cultural semiotic of wolves and sheep"

Today I have submitted the abstract below to the organizers of Gathering in Biosemiotics 16 (Prague July 4-8).

***

A brief history of the cultural semiotic of wolves and sheep

Morten Tønnessen

University of Stavanger, Norway

Wolves and sheep go together – at least in the public mind. In terms of ecological range, 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 4–5% of depredation on sheep (Rovdata). 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.

In this paper I will present central and illustrative examples of the symbolism of wolves and sheep from a historical point of view. The historical perspective will help making sense of developments in animal imagery. The topic matter is of interest not only because it says something about how we conceive of animals, but also because our representations of wolves and sheep are often used to construct human identities. As a matter of fact, the cultural imagery of wolves and sheep is just as telling about who we are, as humans, and how we think about ourselves, as it is about actual wolves and sheep.

Acknowledgement: This work has been carried out thanks to the support of the research project Animals in Changing Environments: Cultural Mediation and Semiotic Analysis (EEA Norway Grants/Norway Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 under project contract no. EMP151).

Reference

Rovdata. http://www.rovdata.no.