Thoughts on Language and Species in Zoopoetics – a Background Sketch Amelie Björck Zoopoetic stud... more Thoughts on Language and Species in Zoopoetics – a Background Sketch Amelie Björck Zoopoetic studies investigate “texts that are, in one way or another, predicated upon an engagement with animals and animality (human and nonhuman),” to quote Kári Driscoll and Eva Hoffman. A central question in this field concerns the relation between language and species. This article suggests that two basic views can be discerned: one that conceptualizes language as a human-specific capacity, and another that frames language as a broader phenomenon that humans and most other species have in common. These two starting points – the first accentuating differences, the second emphasizing similarities – give rise to two different approaches to zoopoetry. In the first case, zoopoetry is associated with the deconstruction of human semantics and, thus, of human power. In the second case, zoopoetry is seen as an experiment in which the attentive human poet comes together with animals in a natural act of mut...
By tradition the humanities have been anthropocentrically focused on the lives of human beings in... more By tradition the humanities have been anthropocentrically focused on the lives of human beings in arts and literature. The limited analysis of what other species do in literature – and of the different relations between humans and animals that are represented – has sustained the notion of a hierachical divide between humans and other species, thereby reducing the ethical potential of literature to resist that dualism. The growing field of human–animal studies proposes that we return to our artefacts and epistemologies, with new attention to human–animal relations. Inspired by this movement, forefronted by scholars such as Cary Wolfe and Sara McHugh, this article offers a comparative reading of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) and Sara Stridsberg’s Darling River (2010). In Lolita Nabokov makes frequent use of animal and especially monkey metaphors, and carries out an ongoing animalization of his characters. In Stridsberg’s novel, which is written as a kind of hypertext of Lolita, Nab...
Essan tar avstamp i en installation med uppstoppade hastar av konstnaren Javier Balmaseda, visad ... more Essan tar avstamp i en installation med uppstoppade hastar av konstnaren Javier Balmaseda, visad pa konstbiennalen i Venedig 2013. Diskussionen ror de etiska dimensionerna vid anvandning av djurkroppar i konsten, med referens aven till Robert Rauschenbergs getinstallation "Monogram" pa Moderna museet, samt till Steve Bakers forskning om djur i konsten, inklusive den nyutgivna boken Artist Animal.
Essay/Understreckare about carnivorism and Melanie Joys new book Varfor vi alskar hundar, ater gr... more Essay/Understreckare about carnivorism and Melanie Joys new book Varfor vi alskar hundar, ater grisar och klar oss i kor.
The modernisation of human civilisation demands sacrifices of other species for work, food, cloth... more The modernisation of human civilisation demands sacrifices of other species for work, food, clothing, medical research, space exploration – and human self affirmation. To enable the asymmetrical relations, a hierarchical dualism between Man and Animal has been constructed and is maintained by a mechanism of continual differentiation. My aim in this article is to consider how literary fiction may take part in the denaturalisation of this mechanism, named by Giorgio Agamben as the ”anthropological machine”. For this purpose I highlight five different meetings between apes and humans, as narrated in Swedish novels from the last decades, and analyse them from an ethical and animal discourse point of view. My readings demonstrate how literature can call acute attention to the recurrent human blockage of the face of the animal other, and to the emotional unsettlement evoked by this act. Hereby, I argue, the human/animal divide is put into question as a relevant basis of ethical decision.
Artikeln undersoker hur berattelser om manniskor och apor, fran scala natuae, via evolutionsberat... more Artikeln undersoker hur berattelser om manniskor och apor, fran scala natuae, via evolutionsberattelsen till moderna romaner forhallit sig till konstruktionen av tid och temporalitet - hur exempelvis bilden av tavling mellan manniska och apa - dar manniskan tar sig upp och fram, medan apan hamnar pa efterkalken, bidragit till iden om progressiv, kronologisk tid, medan andra mer hybridiska berattelser oppnar mojligheter for andra satt att tanka tid. Artikeln anknyter teoretiskt bl a till Julia Kristevas tidstankar, tolkade av Fanny Soderback i termer av "revolutionar tid".
Animals' omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and ye tremarkably distant fr... more Animals' omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and ye tremarkably distant from humans. Human and animal lives have always been entangled, but the way we see and practice the relationships between humans and animals - as close, intertwined, or clearly separate - varies from time to time and between cultures, societies, and even situations. By putting these complex relationships in focus, this anthology investigates the ways in which human society deals with its...
[Recension av] Margareth Hagen, Randi Koppen och Margery Vibe Skagen (red.): The Human and its li... more [Recension av] Margareth Hagen, Randi Koppen och Margery Vibe Skagen (red.): The Human and its limits : explorations in science, literature and the visual arts
Artikeln bygger pa en jamforande analys av Hemingways Och solen har sin gang och Mihel R Roskams ... more Artikeln bygger pa en jamforande analys av Hemingways Och solen har sin gang och Mihel R Roskams film Bullhead. Enligt argumentationen anvander bada dessa verk notkreaturet - tjuren - for att problematisera manlig sexualitet, men ocksa for att utvinna mansklig dramatik genom att visa upp djurs lidande och dod. Djuren blir pa detta satt medel for att tala om manskliga problem, medan narrativet lamnar deras eget ode darhan. Artikeln gor gallande att denna tendens hanger samman med det maktschema mellan varelser av olika arter och kon som Jacques Derrida kallat "carnofallogocentrism".
Essan undersoker kanslornas plats och materialisering i Sonja Akessons poetiska sprak och hur kan... more Essan undersoker kanslornas plats och materialisering i Sonja Akessons poetiska sprak och hur kanslokommunikationen i hennes dikt samexisterar en grundlaggande misstro mot sprakets funktionalitet.
Thoughts on Language and Species in Zoopoetics – a Background Sketch Amelie Björck Zoopoetic stud... more Thoughts on Language and Species in Zoopoetics – a Background Sketch Amelie Björck Zoopoetic studies investigate “texts that are, in one way or another, predicated upon an engagement with animals and animality (human and nonhuman),” to quote Kári Driscoll and Eva Hoffman. A central question in this field concerns the relation between language and species. This article suggests that two basic views can be discerned: one that conceptualizes language as a human-specific capacity, and another that frames language as a broader phenomenon that humans and most other species have in common. These two starting points – the first accentuating differences, the second emphasizing similarities – give rise to two different approaches to zoopoetry. In the first case, zoopoetry is associated with the deconstruction of human semantics and, thus, of human power. In the second case, zoopoetry is seen as an experiment in which the attentive human poet comes together with animals in a natural act of mut...
By tradition the humanities have been anthropocentrically focused on the lives of human beings in... more By tradition the humanities have been anthropocentrically focused on the lives of human beings in arts and literature. The limited analysis of what other species do in literature – and of the different relations between humans and animals that are represented – has sustained the notion of a hierachical divide between humans and other species, thereby reducing the ethical potential of literature to resist that dualism. The growing field of human–animal studies proposes that we return to our artefacts and epistemologies, with new attention to human–animal relations. Inspired by this movement, forefronted by scholars such as Cary Wolfe and Sara McHugh, this article offers a comparative reading of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) and Sara Stridsberg’s Darling River (2010). In Lolita Nabokov makes frequent use of animal and especially monkey metaphors, and carries out an ongoing animalization of his characters. In Stridsberg’s novel, which is written as a kind of hypertext of Lolita, Nab...
Essan tar avstamp i en installation med uppstoppade hastar av konstnaren Javier Balmaseda, visad ... more Essan tar avstamp i en installation med uppstoppade hastar av konstnaren Javier Balmaseda, visad pa konstbiennalen i Venedig 2013. Diskussionen ror de etiska dimensionerna vid anvandning av djurkroppar i konsten, med referens aven till Robert Rauschenbergs getinstallation "Monogram" pa Moderna museet, samt till Steve Bakers forskning om djur i konsten, inklusive den nyutgivna boken Artist Animal.
Essay/Understreckare about carnivorism and Melanie Joys new book Varfor vi alskar hundar, ater gr... more Essay/Understreckare about carnivorism and Melanie Joys new book Varfor vi alskar hundar, ater grisar och klar oss i kor.
The modernisation of human civilisation demands sacrifices of other species for work, food, cloth... more The modernisation of human civilisation demands sacrifices of other species for work, food, clothing, medical research, space exploration – and human self affirmation. To enable the asymmetrical relations, a hierarchical dualism between Man and Animal has been constructed and is maintained by a mechanism of continual differentiation. My aim in this article is to consider how literary fiction may take part in the denaturalisation of this mechanism, named by Giorgio Agamben as the ”anthropological machine”. For this purpose I highlight five different meetings between apes and humans, as narrated in Swedish novels from the last decades, and analyse them from an ethical and animal discourse point of view. My readings demonstrate how literature can call acute attention to the recurrent human blockage of the face of the animal other, and to the emotional unsettlement evoked by this act. Hereby, I argue, the human/animal divide is put into question as a relevant basis of ethical decision.
Artikeln undersoker hur berattelser om manniskor och apor, fran scala natuae, via evolutionsberat... more Artikeln undersoker hur berattelser om manniskor och apor, fran scala natuae, via evolutionsberattelsen till moderna romaner forhallit sig till konstruktionen av tid och temporalitet - hur exempelvis bilden av tavling mellan manniska och apa - dar manniskan tar sig upp och fram, medan apan hamnar pa efterkalken, bidragit till iden om progressiv, kronologisk tid, medan andra mer hybridiska berattelser oppnar mojligheter for andra satt att tanka tid. Artikeln anknyter teoretiskt bl a till Julia Kristevas tidstankar, tolkade av Fanny Soderback i termer av "revolutionar tid".
Animals' omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and ye tremarkably distant fr... more Animals' omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and ye tremarkably distant from humans. Human and animal lives have always been entangled, but the way we see and practice the relationships between humans and animals - as close, intertwined, or clearly separate - varies from time to time and between cultures, societies, and even situations. By putting these complex relationships in focus, this anthology investigates the ways in which human society deals with its...
[Recension av] Margareth Hagen, Randi Koppen och Margery Vibe Skagen (red.): The Human and its li... more [Recension av] Margareth Hagen, Randi Koppen och Margery Vibe Skagen (red.): The Human and its limits : explorations in science, literature and the visual arts
Artikeln bygger pa en jamforande analys av Hemingways Och solen har sin gang och Mihel R Roskams ... more Artikeln bygger pa en jamforande analys av Hemingways Och solen har sin gang och Mihel R Roskams film Bullhead. Enligt argumentationen anvander bada dessa verk notkreaturet - tjuren - for att problematisera manlig sexualitet, men ocksa for att utvinna mansklig dramatik genom att visa upp djurs lidande och dod. Djuren blir pa detta satt medel for att tala om manskliga problem, medan narrativet lamnar deras eget ode darhan. Artikeln gor gallande att denna tendens hanger samman med det maktschema mellan varelser av olika arter och kon som Jacques Derrida kallat "carnofallogocentrism".
Essan undersoker kanslornas plats och materialisering i Sonja Akessons poetiska sprak och hur kan... more Essan undersoker kanslornas plats och materialisering i Sonja Akessons poetiska sprak och hur kanslokommunikationen i hennes dikt samexisterar en grundlaggande misstro mot sprakets funktionalitet.
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