History of Animals

"Following the Turco-Mongolian custom of ensuring the safe and rapid movement of information, armies, and merchants, the Ottomans paid continuous attention to maintaining their menzils on their road networks.  Broadly speaking, menzils were stations of various kinds between which courier messengers on horseback, imperial troops, diplomatic missions, Hajj caravans, and merchants travelled, and where they rested and resupplied before departing for the next station. As successive nodes lined up along travel routes crossing the empire, many were permanently situated in or close to human settlements—cities, towns, villages, piers, and fortifications.
This article aims to visualise the menzils within the Ottoman Empire and the travel time between them in saats (hours).  The maps presented are preliminary versions and may have some inaccuracies. But the work still seeks to contribute to the history of Ottoman transportation and communication and to share with researchers from different fields the opportunities digital and geospatial tools offer for obtaining a broader sense of spatial distances in the early nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire.
The primary source used to draw the maps is the last four folios of a manuscript from the library of Hüsrev Paşa (d. 1855),  the renowned commander-in-chief of the reformed, European-style Ottoman army of the 1820s and 1830s. The body of the manuscript, catalogued as Redîf Askeri için Ta‘limnâme (henceforth Talimname), comprises directives, regulations, and tables about the creation, organization, and mobilization of reserve battalions (redif taburları) in the provinces.
I used Tableau as my main digital tool to create the following maps. The first step was to identify and then geolocate about 400 unique menzils listed in Talimname. Concurrently, the distances from the capital and between the menzils in hours were carefully recorded in Excel sheets, which could be fed into Tableau to work with. The database included more than 95 percent of the menzils as well as major and minor routes listed in Talimname. The routes, menzils, and distances in hours are visualized through different layers in the maps.
Theoretically, the reader would see how many hours each well-rested courier with a fresh horse would need to travel between most menzils. Given the varying nature of the menzil system, changing weather and seasons, and numerous other unknowns of early nineteenth-century Ottoman lands, I refrain from arguing for absolute figures and ratios. But if the “hours” on the map are divided by four, the reader may see how many days an infantry formation would need to march from the capital to those menzils. The next set of maps attempts to visualize the “isochronic” zones from the imperial capital, illustrating the distances from Istanbul in terms of nonstop travel time."

Two of the world’s greatest boxers—Muhammad Ali of Louisville, KY and George Foreman of Houston, TX—met for the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1974. With concerts by the African American “Godfather of Soul” James Brown and South African singer-songwriter Miriam Makeba, nicknamed “Mama Africa,” the entwining tones of the U.S. civil rights era and anti-Apartheid movement augmented a cultural moment that displayed Pan-African, Black nationalist, and anti-imperial connections. However, the appearance of an insidious symbol from each aforementioned era is what decidedly swayed the local population against Foreman and for Ali.1

Our research aims to examine how Bucharest municipality manages the transition from regulation of food production and trade centred on food security for all (both as quantity and as price) towards a regulation constructed mainly around sanitary and hygienic issues. We have focused our analysis on how the rules (regulations, ordinances and directives) were developed and applied in the second half of the 19th century.

he dominance of human beings over nature has caused irreversible damage to nature itself. Despite recent considerable attention being given to the exclusion of nonhuman elements in society, the emphasis on animals and nature has been diluted by the influence of anthropocentricism. Working from the perspective of the environmental humanities, animal sentience, and environmental history, this paper deconstructs the patriarchal, anthropocentric masculinity represented by the adult elephant hunters in the metafictional African story within The Garden of Eden. The associations between Hemingway, Africa, and anthropocentric masculinity can be traced back to his pursuit of masculinity and his environmental concern in Green Hills of Africa. In "How the Weather Was, " Lisa Tyler offers this insight about Green Hills: "The remarkably ecofeminist implication of the book is that men-especially Western men-pursue masculinity to the point of destroying their own environment-that the restless, unending pursuit of masculinity is not just self-destructive but environmentally catastrophic" (44). Tyler notes that Hemingway foresees that Western imperialism and "industrial modernization" in Africa will lead to an "ecocatastrophe" (37), a realization that urges him to criticize the role of humans play in causing environmental degradation (37). Indeed, through his encounter with Africa, Hemingway becomes conscious of the link between the exploiters of both America and Africa: "[o]ur people went to America…. It had been a good country and we had made a bloody mess of it" (GHOA 194); "[a] continent ages quickly once we come. The native [Africans] live in harmony with it. But the foreigner destroys, cuts down the trees, drains the water.... The earth gets tired of being exploited" (GHOA 193). However, Lloyd Willis claims that Hemingway appears to have no problem with this situation: "Hemingway admits that he is aware of environmental destruction, that he understands environmental destruction as a symptom of Western imperialism, and that he has no fundamental problem with any of it" (131). Tyler, however, points to Hemingway's moral perception. Accounting for both positions, Hemingway's work is both moral and immoral

Second volet d'une étude consacrée au thème du loup, des relations entre les sociétés humaines et les loups au fil du temps. Le premier volet donnait un aperçu général du sujet alors que le second volet examine, approfondit ou développe des aspects de la question comme les croyances populaires, les attaques lupines contre les humains, le loup dans la presse, etc...

In our times, phenomena such as industrial animal agriculture, increased meat consumption, and the loss of species necessitate an urgent shift in human attitudes towards animals. Within the Orthodox Church, there seems to exist some discrepancy concerning different approaches to animals. On the one hand, the ideals and praxis of monastic saints demonstrates a harmonious relationship with animals, supported by the idea of a return to the original paradisiacal state. On the other hand, this seems to have minimal impact on the broader Church, or its teachings.

The patristic, hymnographic, and even modern Orthodox discourses are inherently linked with the concept of animals as αλόγα, beings lacking the faculty of reason. Historically, this notion has frequently been used to justify human entitlement to treat animals as objects of consumption and mistreatment. The validity of this argument was debated already in antiquity, and its integration into patristic theology created some tensions with the paradisiacal ideals. The notion of animals as αλόγα is problematic in several ways related to its semantic ambiguity, inconsistent applications, and practical realities. Therefore, the argument requires reinterpretation in the light of contemporary concerns and modern scientific discoveries regarding animal cognition. This paper seeks to trace and examine the principal uses, applications, and problematic aspects of the idea of animals as αλόγα, focusing on patristic sources with some reference to Greek antiquity, in addition to some insights of modern natural science.

Drug development depends on preclinical experimentation in animal models. To make the public aware of the vital role of these studies, pharmaceutical companies should be legally obliged to make note of this on their products that came to fruition through animal research.

This article examines the formation and develop¬ment of the discipline of ʿIlm-i Ḥayvānāt-ı Ṭıbbī (medical zoolo¬gy) within the scientific and educational context of the Ottoman Empire. By analyzing textbooks used in applied sciences such as medicine, veterinary science, and pharmacy from the mid–19th century to the early 20th century, the study reveals the process of institutionalizing of zoology (ʿilm–i ḥayvānāt) as a newly introduced subject in Ottoman curricula. It particularly focuses on the works of Macarlı Abdullah Bey (d. 1874), Hüseyin Remzi (d. 1896), Hulūsi ibn Rāşid (d. 1936), and İsmāil Hakkı Bey (d. 1939) to identify the main distinctions between general zoology books and medical zoology texts. The article offers a comparative analysis of these works in terms of content structure, classification methods, and their treatment of practical medical issues, such as parasitology. This study demonstrates how the Ottoman authors closely followed European scientific developments, especially the French Zoologie Médicale tradition, and adapted this knowledge to meet local pedagogical needs. These texts are not merely translations, but original scholarly contributions that reflect the integration of scientific knowledge into formal institutional education.

The later Middle Ages bore witness to the development of a group of occupational horse-carers whose ideas and practices overlapped with whilst remaining distinct from contemporary human medicine. Although by no means isolated from other forms of medicine, these practitioners nevertheless occupied a unique and somewhat understudied position in the landscape of medieval healing and healers. Their skills and expertise were highly valued and they often undertook difficult and dangerous procedures on patients that had significant economic and social value, including military horses and the vaunted ‘destrier’.
This paper will explore a largely unstudied element of medieval horse-care: the treatment of wounds, particularly those gained on the battlefield. It will explore the relationships between wound-care in horses and humans through a wide study of late-medieval horse-medicine and surgical texts, such as the work of Teodorico Borgognoni (d. 1296/8) who wrote treatises on both horse and human medicine, as well as aristocratic and royal stable records relating to warhorses. This paper will consider how an experienced horse-carer was equipped through praxis and knowledge to heal devastating battlefield wounds. It will argue that a significant part of a horse-carer’s preparation for such wounds came in the form of the catalogue of surgical procedures and intentional woundings that they were called on to perform during peacetime and that in essence by learning to wound, horse doctors learned to heal.

This article examines the formation and development of the discipline of ʿIlm-i Ḥayvānāt-ı Ṭıbbī (medical zoology) within the scientific and educational context of the Ottoman Empire. By analyzing textbooks used in applied sciences such as medicine, veterinary science, and pharmacy from the mid–19th century to the early 20th century, the study reveals the process of institutionalizing of zoology (ʿilm–i ḥayvānāt) as a newly introduced subject in Ottoman curricula. It particularly focuses on the works of Macarlı Abdullah Bey (d. 1874), Hüseyin Remzi (d. 1896), Hulūsi ibn Rāşid (d. 1936), and İsmāil Hakkı Bey (d. 1939) to identify the main distinctions between general zoology books and medical zoology texts. The article offers a comparative analysis of these works in terms of content structure, classification methods, and their treatment of practical medical issues, such as parasitology. This study demonstrates how the Ottoman authors closely followed European scientific developments, especially the French Zoologie Médicale tradition, and adapted this knowledge to meet local pedagogical needs. These texts are not merely translations, but original scholarly contributions that reflect the integration of scientific knowledge into formal institutional education.

Margul bu makalede, Hint alt kıtasında kadim dönemlerden beri varlığını sürdüren inek kültü hakkında teolojik ve sosyolojik bilgiler vermektedir. Öncelikle, Hindistan'daki inek kültünün sadece "zebu" adı verilen hörgüçlü boğaya has olduğunu belirtir ve bu kültün Hinduizm'deki yerini açıklar. Ardından Hinduların tıpkı anneleri gibi tazim gösterdiği bu inek türünün mağduriyetine ilişkin belgeler ortaya koyar. Margul son olarak, Hint hükümetinin sığırlar hakkında aldığı kararları ve Hinduların bu kararlara yönelik tepkilerini yorumlar.

For many people around the world the pandemic underscored just how important pet dogs have become to their human owners. This month historian Neil Humphrey shows us that dogs only became our best friends during the 19th century in England and that they occupied this position because of profound changes to society during the Victorian age.

Last year, Sheep Pig Goat – a project by the UK-based company Fevered Sleep, was commissioned by the Wellcome Collection as part of their year-long Making Nature program which explored the relationship between perception and knowledge in human-animal relationships, along with all the attendant issues of mastery, anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism inevitably raised by the human production of knowledge about animals. Described by the company as a ‘creative research studio’, Sheep Pig Goat involved a week-long public presentation of ‘a series of improvised encounters between human performers and animal spectators’: specifically, some sheep, pigs and goats. Originally, the idea was to make a performance for an animal audience staged in the galleries at the Wellcome. But gradually the company moved away from this towards plans for a project which would offer human visitors what director, David Harradine describes as a space in which to “properly, respectfully and carefully observe ani...

Ce dossier des Cahiers François Viète fait suite à une table ronde intitulée
« Jacques Roger et l’histoire de la pensée scientifique » organisée le 10 mai 2022 à l’occasion du Congrès annuel de la Société de philosophie du Québec (SPQ). Le présent volume se propose d’interroger la méthode de travail et la diversité des objets d’études de Jacques Roger (1920-1990). Ce faisant, il contribue à combler une lacune majeure dans la littérature secondaire, en proposant une première étude d’ensemble consacrée à l’œuvre et au legs du dix-huitièmiste. Développant quelques propositions formulées par des chercheurs proches de Roger, ce numéro ouvre de nouveaux chemins d’enquête et contribue ce faisant à la reconstitution du panorama intellectuel
de l’histoire et de la philosophie des sciences en France dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle.

This paper presents lists of books about pets and pet care, a list of pet theme ideas, an anticipation guide, and a list of community and professional resources. The 23-item list of books about pets and pet care (published between 1940 and 1994) is divided into sections on teacher's choices, nonfiction, recent books, and teacher resources. The 21-item list of pet theme ideas offers suggestions for class activities. The paper then presents a description of the purpose and procedures of the "anticipation guide," which creates a mismatch between what students may know and what is presented in the text. The paper also presents an anticipation guide about cats. The paper concludes with a list of information available from six local-level and four national-level community and professional resources. (RS)

In 2025, marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Republic of the Philippines and the Kingdom of Morocco, established in 1975, this study seeks to reexamine and explore the historical and cultural connections between the two nations. While comparative studies of international relations typically center on political, geopolitical, and economic dimensions—emphasizing state visits, bilateral or multilateral treaties, and formal agreements—the deeper, often overlooked, historical and cultural aspects, which directly affect the lives of ordinary citizens, warrant further investigation. These dimensions transcend the confines of state-to-state or nation-to-nation relations, which are frequently the product of political negotiations. This study aims to transcend the simplistic framing of “1975” as the commencement of official ties, recognizing that the enduring relationship between the Philippines and Morocco spans centuries, predating the establishment of diplomatic formalities. This study seeks to address the following research questions: What historical and cultural connections between the Philippines and Morocco can be identified through a multiperspectival research approach? How have these historical and cultural relationships influenced the contemporary dynamics between the Philippines and Morocco?

Two of the world's greatest boxers-Muhammad Ali of Louisville, KY and George Foreman of Houston, TX-met for the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasa in 1974. With concerts by the African American "Godfather of Soul" James Brown and South African singer-songwriter Miriam Makeba, nicknamed "Mama Africa," entwined tones of the U.S. civil rights era and anti-Apartheid movement. However, when George Foreman arrived, he was accompanied by his very large German shepherd. This and similar breeds of dog were once deployed against the local population by Belgian forces the recent imperial era, leading to scrutiny across the country for traveling with this symbol of the recent and violent Belgian past. Ali, who had already gained support for embracing his African heritage, cemented his own popularity after Foreman's faux pas.

As early as the 1510s, the Spanish intervened in the ecology of the Jamaican interior. As explorers extracted less wealth in gold from the Caribbean than they initially expected and desired, the Spanish instead found the island of Jamaica ideal for cattle and cultivation to sustain colonisation. 1 After well over a century of imperial design and later disregard by Spain, the English traveller Thomas Gage found vast herds of feral cattle across the neighbouring then-Spanish colonies of Jamaica and Hispaniola during the 1640s. Gage, a former Catholic priest turned anti-Spanish Puritan, advocated to Oliver Cromwell for a 'Western Design' to purify the Americas of papist influences, an expedition in which the importance of cattle supplies became important and in which Gage would later perish. 2 By the 1650s, cattle in particular held indubitable consequence for and correlation to strategies for a massive English expedition that failed in many of its ambitious aims, although it succeeded in capturing Jamaica. As this article reveals, the agency of cattle and interspecies interactions exerted an underrated influence upon many critical junctures in the rise of empires, enslavement and economies across the Americas. The case of Jamaica was only one among many. Invitingly to English audiences, Gage had specifically reported that Caribbean islands were 'so replenished with ... Cattell, that they become wild among the woods and Mountaines, so that the ships that saile by this Island, and want provision, goe here a shore where it is little inhabited and kill of Cattell ... till they have made up a plentifull provision'. 3 For observers across empires, copious cattle signified more than Spanish negligence. The discourses on animal preferences and reactions from these imperial witnesses demonstrate how actions by cattle varyingly enticed, exasperated and enabled colonisation of the Caribbean. Commercial manacles also fastened cattle together in correlation with emergent human enslavement as chattels, as this research shows.

Los animales aparecen de manera cada vez más frecuente en los estudios sobre historia latinoamericana y caribeña. Este artículo distingue tres caminos que han permitido reconocer su relevancia histórica: (1) abordar temas -como la ganadería-en los que estos son aparentemente ineludibles, (2) reconocer su participación al tratar otros temas -como la colonización-en los que suelen estar presentes de una manera u otra y (3) realizar investigaciones en las que los animales se convierten en el principal objeto de pesquisa. Al presentar un panorama general de esta tendencia, el artículo reflexiona sobre por qué los animales han sido ignorados y explica que tomarlos realmente en serio implica escudriñar cómo se transforman al entremezclarse con realidades humanas, así como reconocer las formas en las que han contribuido a hacer historia. Este estado del arte concluye identificando los aportes de esta forma de hacer historia y sugiriendo caminos para el futuro.

This article addresses the topos of bees and
ants in Roman literature as paradigms of collectivity.
Guided by a broadly structuralist methodology, my
discussion proceeds in two steps. First, challenging the
traditional assimilation of bees and ants reveals unique
ant traits moralized by ancient authors. Then scrutinizing
ant narratives from Vergil to Apuleius shows that ant
behaviors are imbued with imperial concerns. The ants’
combination of literary anthropomorphism and zoological
naturalism raises the issue of the unscrupulous sides of
Rome’s success and the socio-cultural norms affected by
that dominion.

Mongolia's nomadic pastoral economy, sustaining ~30% of the population and ~15% of GDP, inspires nomadic economics as a heterodox discipline. We frame Zud-severe winter disasters-as a defining pattern, driven by Arctic variability and potentially periodic solar cycles. Analyzing data from 1944-2024, we document 21.1 million livestock losses (1990-2020, ~$318 million USD) and ~6 million in 2024, with small herders (≤10 livestock) facing 20.9% mortality. Zud's alignments with solar minima are "clues" to periodicity, as Agatha Christie noted: "Any coincidence is worth noticing… two coincidences are a clue, three coincidences are a proof" (Christie, n.d.), echoed by similar patterns in China (Liu et al., 2022). We propose mobile infrastructure, solar cycle forecasting, and global recognition of nomadic economics.

Les sept articles qui composent ce premier numero des Cahiers du CRHQ sont le fruit d'une journee d'etudes tenue le 7 octobre 2007 a l'Universite de Caen Basse-Normandie, organisee en collaboration entre un programme de l'Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (le programme conflipol), et deux UMR du CNRS : le CRHQ de Caen (UMR 6583), et le CERHIO des universites de Rennes 2, du Maine, d’Angers et de Lorient (UMR 6258). Cette collaboration entre un programme de recherches sur les conflits politiques et les questions d'histoire urbaine debouche sur la publication electronique de ce premier numero, au croisement de ces deux themes. Lieu de concentration des pouvoirs, la ville reunit dans un espace limite, souvent clos par des murs, des puissances de diverses origines, tout a la fois complementaires et rivales par leurs fonctions politique, economique, religieuse ou feodale. L'expression de ces pouvoirs se traduit dans l'administration urbaine (fiscalite, ravita...

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Christianity and the environment have a tense relationship. Although in recent years an eco-theology of stewardship has taken flight, according to theologians as well as philosophers the historical track record of Christians with regard to nature in general and animals in particular leaves much to be desired. However, this view has never been empirically tested. In this article three early modern accounts of Protestant missionaries who lived in Greenland, New Netherland (North America) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) are analysed in order to uncover attitudes towards animals. The accounts describe local fauna, reflect upon the way in which animals are treated and discuss 'pagan' attitudes towards animals. The concepts of tropicality and arcticality are used to help to frame the missionaries' views on animals in terms of othering non-European fauna. The article concludes that the critique of Christianity's track record is essentially justified, but also that it was more nuanced and complex than has hitherto been thought. As such, the early modern missionary accounts' focus on wildlife may well serve as a source of inspiration for present-day missionary organizations.

nos recherches nous ont amené à consulter un ensemble de lettres, conservées au sein du siège politique ayant appartenu aux Montmorency jusqu'en 1632 1 . Cet ensemble est le dernier d'une longue série d'archives consacrées au domaine forestier et était intitulé « bornage de 1571 » 2 . La forêt est un atout indéniable de la seigneurie de Chantilly, elle procure richesse et pouvoir. Elle s'intègre dans un ensemble plus vaste de possessions de la famille en arc de cercle allant de la forêt de Montmorency jusqu'au domaine de Fère-en-Tardenois 3 . Peut-être plus que les autres possessions de la famille, le domaine forestier sis autour de Chantilly fait l'objet d'une politique systématique d'agrandissement et de mise en coupe réglée au détriment des seigneurs voisins des Montmorency depuis que Guillaume de Montmorency a hérité de la seigneurie en 1484 4 . Ces agrandissements mais aussi la position de seigneur gruyer pour le domaine de Chantilly ainsi que la richesse de cet espace tant en terme de gibierla chasse étant un des symboles de la nature particulière du noble sur le vilque de qualité des bois plantés en fait un lieu sous tension, objet des soins du personnel ducal et de la Connétable 5 . Globalement, ces papiers ducaux conservent le souvenir de tous les actes administratifs touchant la forêt et la gruerie de Chantilly, des différentes reconnaissances de dettes entre la Connétable et ses officiers forestiers aux actes de nomination des nouveaux officiers ou aux problèmes de bornage. La forêt est le fruit d'enjeux forts sous l'Ancien Régime 6 . C'est un espace flou, lieu de nombreuses transgressions (Muchembled, 1988, Cabantous, 2009), les contes populaires, tels ceux de Perrault, ne nous racontent pas autre chose (Perrault, 1697) 7 . Mais au quotidien, c'est surtout un espace recherché, convoité, que chacun désire utiliser, ponctionner, posséder (Devèze, 1961, Corvol, 1987). Indubitablement lucratif, il est au coeur d'âpres luttes de pouvoir, rendant ces opérations de bornage toujours tendues, voire périlleuses. 1 Bibliothèque et Archives du Château de Chantilly [désormais BACC) : 1-B-024. Il s'agit d'un ensemble de 13 pièces rédigées au cours de l'année 1571 et rassemblées en liasse. Nous avons conservé leur ordre de conservation au sein du carton pour les numéroter de 1 à 13 sous le nom d'archives.

Face aux crises socio-environnementales et aux accusations formulées à l’encontre des Lumières, nous montrons qu’il reste souhaitable de rejoindre le rang de celles et ceux qui encouragent à concevoir de nouvelles Lumières. Notre contribution se distingue en ce que nous suggérons une approche interdisciplinaire attentive à la notion de puissance. Nous rappelons dans un premier temps que la course à la puissance a un fondement dans le monde physique et pas seulement dans le monde biologique ou social. Nous montrons ensuite que les premières Lumières ont bien promu une redistribution - parfois démocratique - des puissances mais qu’elles l’ont fait en valorisant une efficacité éparse promouvant tantôt une cohérence fragile tantôt une incohérence robuste, adaptable, mais finalement aussi à courte vue et, pour cela, destructrice. Nous poursuivons en suggérant que les premières Lumières étaient parfois animées d’une bonne intention mais que la plupart de leurs conséquences désastreuses étaient non seulement dues à une mauvaise foi, une duplicité ou une rationalité limitée, mais aussi à une ignorance de certaines propriétés du monde physique, biologique et humain. Il nous apparaît ainsi que plusieurs développements récents en cosmologie, physique, paléontologie, anthropologie, neurosciences et histoire peuvent être des ressources clés pour fonder, avec plus de lucidité, de nouvelles Lumières. Ces analyses scientifiques peuvent nous aider à accéder d’abord à une meilleure connaissance de nous-même, comme espèce et comme individu. Elles permettent aussi de mieux circonscrire l’étendue exacte de nos marges de manœuvre - notre libre-arbitre - si nous souhaitons freiner et infléchir, en connaissance de cause, la course destructrice à la puissance en nous et hors de nous.

Communication d'André-Pierre Nouvion (docteur en droit de l'Université Paris-Assas) au sujet de l'action des agents de l'Hopital sanatorium Joffre (Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Paris) pendant les années d'occupation. Cette communication a faite dans le cadre de l'exposition organisée en mai 2025 par la direction des Archives de l'Assistance Publique-Hopitaux de Paris (AP-HP) sur l'AP-HP pendant les années d'Occupations.

This is a version of the introduction to a book in progress tentatively entitled Zhuan Zhoi and the Butterfly: Metamorphoses, Entomological and Human by Boria Sax. It includes reminiscences by the author of the founding of Animal Studies and its various offshoots in the early 1980s. It goes on to explain how "Man," the mythical hero of progress, is more a poetic construction than a social one, to which animals, including insects, have greatly contributed.

El libro analiza la concepción tradicional de la excepcionalidad humana en la filosofía y las ciencias sociales, cuestionando la idea de que los humanos poseen cualidades únicas que los distinguen de otras especies. Basado en la teoría de la evolución biológica y los más recientes descubrimientos en otras disciplinas, argumenta en contra de la visión dualista que separa a los humanos del resto de la naturaleza, abogando por una perspectiva más integradora que reconozca la continuidad entre todas las formas de vida. Critica especialmente el cartesianismo y propone entender al ser humano como un ser biológico y social, en lugar de separarlo de la naturaleza. Destaca la importancia de los estudios interdisciplinarios y la necesidad de replantear las relaciones entre humanos y otras especies en un contexto más ecológico y comprensivo.

Animal Studies as a New Research Territory in Polish Media Studies. Images of Animals in the Media Coverage of Natural Disasters The purpose of this article is to identify and describe an important research area, which has still not been developed in Polish media studies, namely animal studies. Many researchers discuss problems that are covered by cultural animal studies, a research area developed dynamically in the West, and still not very advanced in Poland. A critical analysis of literature made it possible to introduce the works of foreign authors and identify gaps in the knowledge, as regards Polish literature in the area of Critical Animal and Media Studies. The list of research areas, as well as the methods that can be used in media studies, closes with an overview of animal narratives in media coverage of disasters. The multidimensionality of animal narratives will be discussed through the prism of stories told by journalists covering the aftermath of floods, mudslides, fires, earthquakes and hurricanes in the last two decades. Those stories were filled with metaphors based on the persuasively powerful images of domestic and wild animals.

Участники: Сергей Николаевич Абашин, Андрей Станиславович Адельфинский, Михаил Дмитриевич Алексеевский, Сергей Сергеевич Алымов, Ольга Юрьевна Артемова, Дмитрий Александрович Баранов, Варвара Юрьевна Бахолдина, Юрий Евгеньевич Березкин, Дмитрий Михайлович Бондаренко, Габриэла Варгас-Цетина, Алексей Голубев, Тим Ингольд, Николай Николаевич Крадин, Игорь Валерьевич Кузнецов, Павел Сергеевич Куприянов, Екатерина Александровна Мельникова, Филипп Пестей, Сергей Валерьевич Соколовский, Андрей Владимирович Туторский, Сергей Ушакин, Дмитрий Анатольевич Функ, Ольга Борисовна Христофорова, Алексей Сергеевич Щавелев, Татьяна Борисовна Щепанская

В этом «Форуме» речь идет об отношении к теориям и теоретическому знанию среди этнологов и антропологов. Отвечая на вопросы организаторов «Форума», его участники обсуждают необходимость общей «большой теории», которая бы объединяла все антропологическое сообщество, напряженные отношения между теорией и описанием, причины, проявления и эффекты усталости от теории и потребности в ней, ее недостатка и перепроизводства. В репликах отмечаются наиболее перспективные теоретические концепции (в частности, приводятся разные мнения о постантропоцентристском векторе в гуманитарных исследованиях). Авторы рассуждают о том, в какой степени «живучесть» теорий зависит от внешних и внутренних факторов, делятся личным опытом и стратегиями обращения с теориями: их отбора, комбинации, трансформации и самостоятельного производства. Реплики участников свидетельствуют о значительных различиях в подходах к пониманию сущности и функций теории в антропологии. Отчасти эти различия связаны с разным пониманием участниками предмета антропологии (как истории возникновения культуры и социума или их функционирования). Важным вопросом становится (не)возможность теории стать пространством общего разговора в антропологии. Надежды на реализацию этой возможности связываются с преодолением субъектно-объектной парадигмы, а препятствием для нее оказывается генеративная модель теоретизирования, предписывающая не работу с имеющимися концепциями, а порождение новых.

This short communication proposes that natural history museums should consider expanding their mission by intensively collecting and curating domesticated, hemerophilic, and genetically engineered animals, plants, and fungi to improve the study of evolutionary biology and anthropology, as well as mitigate against future climatic and economic challenges.

A surge in dog popularity in the 21 st century parallels a similar trajectory that has seen cuteness emerge as a dominant aesthetic in recent decades. Uniting both is a growing tendency for patriotism to be expressed in a register which yokes together the nation, cuteness and the canine, a trend evident across a swathe of cultural artifacts. While scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of cuteness studies is now well established, we suggest that in light of its maturity and coalescence, this literature now benefits from national particularization. To that end, this article offers four national case studies to interrogate patriotic canine cuteness, examining: The US, the UK, Ireland, and Germany. Through these case studies we establish that patriotic canine cuteness comprises a significant means of engaging national publics. As a mutable, nimble form of soft power, cuteness manifests myriad functions and among these are a range of notable nationally specific political/ideological applications. It is used in bids to detoxify degraded modes of patriotic display, to resecure the social justification for policing in a nation still scarred by horrific historical misuse of military and police power, and to sentimentalize the moral authority of a respected president. Once sacrosanct cultural signifiers such as the US national flag, and annual rituals such as the remembrance of war dead are now the territory of cute-inflected patriotism. Further, we identify the emergence of animal cuteness as a political media strategy, in a context in which the political is now commonly seen as a site of fractiousness and disappointment.