Introduction: Ten Statements about Empathy and Animal Studies

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Danielle Sands
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Cognitive Responses ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
New Model ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Sentient Beings

The introduction examines the role played by empathy in contemporary Animal Studies within the broader context of the affective turn. Outlining key features of Animal Studies, it contends that over-emphasis on empathy is problematic because it restricts engagement with animal life to sentient beings who share qualities with humans. In order to respond to the current environmental crisis, it argues that we need affective and cognitive responses which acknowledge the ethical value of all living beings, and a new model of cross-species storytelling.

OOK DE VIS MOET DUUR BETALEN

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-247
Author(s):  
Lucie Sedláčková
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
Animal Agency

THE FISH HAVE TO PAY DEARLY AS WELL The representations of animals and vegetarianism in the works of Herman Heijermans and other socially engaged writers of the fin de siècle At the end of the nineteenth century, the perception of animals changed significantly due to the theory of evolution and other new ideas, which also affected a number of Dutch socialist-leaning writers. Utilizing the framework of literary animal studies, this article investigates how animals were represented in their works. Most of the examined writers present animals as sentient beings, which is also ref lected by their speaking out in favour of vegetarianism. Herman Heijermans takes a more ambivalent position: some of his writings show the possibility of animal agency, whereas in others, animals are subordinate to people’s needs and are objectified.

scholarly journals [Review] Peter Godfrey-Smith. Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 336 pp.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 290-297
Author(s):  
David Herman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
The Mind

Animal Studies Journal 2021 10(1): [Review] Peter Godfrey-Smith. Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 336 pp.

A new model accounting for seasonal cessation of growth in fishes

1992 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 1151 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Pauly ◽  
M Soriano-Bartz ◽  
J Moreau ◽  
A Jarre-Teichmann
Keyword(s):  
Salmo Salar ◽  
Growth Function ◽  
Sine Wave ◽  
Smooth Transition ◽  
Von Bertalanffy ◽  
New Model ◽  
Von Bertalanffy Growth Function ◽  
Zero Growth ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Summer Growth

A modified version of the von Bertalanffy growth function (VBGF) is proposed in which a sine wave modifies a standard version of the VBGF, enabling a smooth transition between rapid summer growth and a variable period of zero growth (in length) during winter or during the dry season for aestivating fishes. The key features of a nonlinear routine for fitting this new model are also presented, with emphasis on the estimation of the period of zero growth. Application examples, to Salmo salar and Trisopterus esmarkii, are presented.

Animal Writing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Sands
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Ethical Status

Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical distancing from the sometimes claustrophobic proximity of empathy – currently the prevailing mode in Animal Studies – this book interrogates the claims made of empathy without exchanging it for the kind of abstract, disembodied reason which has long disavowed the ethical status of nonhuman life. This book is particularly interested in the stories that we tell, and are told, by beings at the edges of animal life, insects, and the possibility that the indifference, even disgust, that these creatures evoke might form the basis for an ethics which is not bounded by empathy. Across five interdisciplinary chapters, it asks: is it possible to read, write and think non-anthropocentrically? How might we develop approaches to nonhuman life which are affectively and critically informed? It contends that reframing the human in relation to the elements of itself which it denounces as inhuman can inform a renewed attentiveness to nonhuman life.

Conscious Animals and the Value of Experience

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Gruen
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
Moral Attention ◽  
Conscious Animals

Consciousness, understood as an awareness of what is going on that helps shape one’s experiences, is one of the ways that scholars have distinguished animal life from the rest of the natural world. Beings that have interests in having good experiences and avoiding bad ones deserve our moral attention, and this quality is an important feature of ethical engagement with other sentient beings, both human and nonhuman. What interests matter and why they matter is a subject of disagreement that has affected what we judge to be permissible or impermissible treatment of other animals. Empathy toward and respect for other animals takes us beyond attention to their suffering and has us focus on what counts as well-being for others, by their own lights.

2. What causes dementia?

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-50
Author(s):  
Kathleen Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Amyloid Plaques ◽  
Tau Proteins ◽  
Amyloid Beta Protein ◽  
Cascade Theory ◽  
Brain Scans ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Amyloid Cascade ◽  
The Brain

‘What causes dementia?’ looks at the mechanisms underlying dementia. Dr Aloysius Alzheimer identified two key features in the brain. These were a build-up of plaques dominated by the amyloid-beta protein and tangled or misfolded tau proteins. How do we research the causes of dementia? Options include animal studies, human samples including stem cells and organoids, and improved neuroscience technologies such as brain scans and MRIs. Some scientists argue that smaller soluble oligomers are as dangerous as amyloid plaques, some continue to support the amyloid cascade theory, and others look elsewhere for advances and a possible cure. Theories beyond the amyloid hypothesis are receiving more funding, changing the focus of research.

scholarly journals The Hebrew Bible and the ‘Animal Turn’

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-63
Author(s):  
Phillip Sherman
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Critical Aspects

Animal Studies refers to a set of questions which take seriously the reality of animal lives, past and present, and the ways in which human societies have conceived of those lives, related to them, and utilized them in the production of human cultures. Scholars of the Hebrew Bible are increasingly engaging animals in their interpretive work. Such engagement is often implicit or partial, but increasingly drawing directly on the more critical aspects of Animal Studies. This article proceeds as a tour through the menagerie of the biblical canon by exploring key texts in order to describe and analyze what Animal Studies has brought to the field of Biblical Studies. Biblical texts are grouped into the following categories: animals in the narrative accounts of the Torah, legal and ritual texts concerning animals, animal metaphors in the prophets, and wisdom literature and animal life. The emergence and application of zooarchaeological research and a number of studies focusing on specific animal species will be discussed. Sustained attention will be given to two recent works which have brought Animal Studies into the fractured fold of biblical scholarship more directly. Finally, I will suggest some future directions for the study of the Hebrew Bible in light of Animal Studies.

scholarly journals Exploring the Characteristics of an Aroma-Blending Mixture by Investigating the Network of Shared Odors and the Molecular Features of Their Related Odorants

Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (13) ◽  
pp. 3032
Author(s):  
Anne Tromelin ◽  
Florian Koensgen ◽  
Karine Audouze ◽  
Elisabeth Guichard ◽  
Thierry Thomas-Danguin
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Binary Mixture ◽  
Olfactory System ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Structural Diversity ◽  
Molecular Features ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Peripheral Olfactory System ◽  
The Individual

The perception of aroma mixtures is based on interactions beginning at the peripheral olfactory system, but the process remains poorly understood. The perception of a mixture of ethyl isobutyrate (Et-iB, strawberry-like odor) and ethyl maltol (Et-M, caramel-like odor) was investigated previously in both human and animal studies. In those studies, the binary mixture of Et-iB and Et-M was found to be configurally processed. In humans, the mixture was judged as more typical of a pineapple odor, similar to allyl hexanoate (Al-H, pineapple-like odor), than the odors of the individual components. To explore the key features of this aroma blend, we developed an in silico approach based on molecules having at least one of the odors—strawberry, caramel or pineapple. A dataset of 293 molecules and their related odors was built. We applied the notion of a “social network” to describe the network of the odors. Additionally, we explored the structural properties of the molecules in this dataset. The network of the odors revealed peculiar links between odors, while the structural study emphasized key characteristics of the molecules. The association between “strawberry” and “caramel” notes, as well as the structural diversity of the “strawberry” molecules, were notable. Such elements would be key to identifying potential odors/odorants to form aroma blends.

Philosophy and Animal Studies: Calarco, Castricano, and Diamond

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Aaltola
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Review Paper ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Cora Diamond

AbstractRecently, animal studies has started to gain popularity. This interdisciplinary field investigates the human-animal relationship from different perspectives, including philosophy, cultural studies, and biology. In 2008, at least three books explored themes related to animal studies: Matthew Calarco, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal; Jodey Castricano (Ed.), Animal Subjects: An Ethics Reader in a Posthuman World; and Cora Diamond, Cary Wolfe, et al. (Eds.) Philosophy and Animal Life. Each volume approaches animal studies from a different viewpoint (Continental philosophy, interdisciplinary, and Wittgensteinian), but they also share many themes. This review paper discusses the differences and similarities between the volumes and highlights the directions in which animal studies is developing. It is argued that an emphasis on "direct" perception or experience of animality and heterogeneity, and an exploration of otherness, are elements that all these books share, and that are relevant to animal studies.

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