Ene-Reet Soovik-MA, tõlkija ja Tartu Ülikooli semiootika osakonna publitseeritava teadusajakirja ... more Ene-Reet Soovik-MA, tõlkija ja Tartu Ülikooli semiootika osakonna publitseeritava teadusajakirja Sign Systems Studies toimetaja. Kirjandusteaduslike huvide seas on tänapäeva eesti luule, ökokriitika, linnakirjandus ning ruumi ja kirjanduse suhted. E-post: ene-reet.soovik[at]ut.ee Kadri Tüür-PhD, Tallinna ülikooli teadur Eesti Teadusfondi uurimisprojektis PRG908 "Eesti keskkonnaliikumine 20. sajandil: ideoloogia, diskursid, praktikad" ja Tartu Ülikooli Viljandi Kultuuriakadeemia pärandtehnoloogia-uuringute alase ajakirja Studia Vernacula peatoimetaja. Aastatel 2018-2021 oli ta Eesti Keskkonnaajaloo Keskuse KAJAK juhataja. Tema doktoritöö rakendas semiootilist metoodikat kirjalike loodusrepresentatsioonide analüüsimisel, peamised uurimisvaldkonnad praegu on ökokriitika, ökofeminism, nn sinine keskkonnahumanitaaria ja loomade kujutamine.
      Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania often tend to be... more       Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania often tend to be grouped together under the label of ’the Baltic countries’, yet they constitute a region characterised by a diversity which also manifests itself in the field of academic research. Still, it may be possible to detect some common elements in the ecocriticism-related activities that have been taking place in these states during the past couple of decades. The article maps the salient tendencies in the environmental humanities (including ecocriticism) of the region that recently gained an institutionalised platform in the form of the Baltic Conferences on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS) that were started in 2018. A survey is given of the three countries’ most significant events and publications that have boasted an ecocritical component, ecocriticism’s institutional representation and inclusion of ecocritical issues in university syllabuses and theory textbooks, as well as some pertinent topics and sub-fields on which the scholars in these countries are currently working. Among these, various aspects of the connections of literature and the ecosystems of the forest (trees) and the mire can be noticed; while also animal studies, literary urban studies, bio- and ecosemiotics and environmental history appear to have entered a fruitful dialogue with ecocritical scholarship currently conducted in the Baltics.      Existe la tendencia de agrupar a Estonia, Letonia y Lituania bajo la etiqueta “países Bálticos”, aunque constituyen una región caracterizada por una diversidad que se manifiesta también en el campo de las investigaciones académicas. Sin embargo, se pueden percibir algunos elementos comunes entre las actividades conectadas a la ecocrítica que se han presentado en los tres países durante las últimas dos décadas. El artículo esquematiza las tendencias más destacadas en el campo de las humanidades ambientales de la región (incluyendo la ecocrítica) que recientemente consiguieron una plataforma institucionalizada en las Conferencias bálticas sobre humanidades ambientales y ciencias sociales (BALTEHUMS), iniciadas en 2018. Se presenta una visión general de los eventos y publicaciones más significativos de los tres países que han demostrado un componente ecocrítico, la representación institucional de la ecocrítica y la inclusión de cuestiones ecocríticas en los programas universitarios y los libros de teoría, así como algunos temas y subcampos pertinentes en los que los académicos de estos países están trabajando en el momento. Entre éstos es posible encontrar diversos aspectos relativos a las conexiones entre literatura y los ecosistemas forestales (árboles) y pantanosos, así como también ejemplos de estudios de animales, estudios urbanos de la literatura, bio- y ecosemiótica,  e historia medioambiental, los cuales han generado una dialéctica productiva con los estudios ecocríticos que se están conduciendo en los países Bálticos en la actualidad
Töö eesmärgiks on avada uusi perspektiive looduskirjanduse uurimisel, kombineerides selleks semio... more Töö eesmärgiks on avada uusi perspektiive looduskirjanduse uurimisel, kombineerides selleks semiootika ja ökokriitika vahendeid. Tartu-Moskva koolkonna semiootikutelt pärinevad primaarsete ja sekundaarsete modelleerivate süsteemide mõisted. Primaarseks modelleerivaks süsteemiks on nende käsitluses keel kui vahendatud inimsuhtluse põhiline vahend. Sekundaarsed modelleerivad süsteemid nagu kirjandus, film ning paljud teised kunstilise väljenduse liigid põhinevad keelel kui märgisüsteemil, tegeledes meid ümbritseva maailma kunstilise modelleerimisega. Ameerika semiootik Thomas A. Sebeok osutas, et neile, puhtalt inimliigile omastele modelleerivatele süsteemidele, eelneb nii inimeste kui teiste loomade puhul zoosemiootilise modelleerimise tasand, mis põhineb meie tajudel ja kehalisel kogemusel maailmaga suhestumisel. Jakob von Uexkülli mõistet kasutades põhineb zoosemiootiline modelleerimine omailmal (Umwelt) ehk liigispetsiifiliste taju- ja mõjuorganite koostoimel loodaval arusaamal om...
The article provides an overview of the practices and perspectives related to craft research and ... more The article provides an overview of the practices and perspectives related to craft research and traditional technologies as studied and taught in the Estonian Native Crafts Department in University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. Academic craft research is discussed in the context of neighbouring disciplines in the humanities, such as ethnology, semiotics, archaeology, art history, and conservation, amongst others. Against this background, the distinctive traits of craft research are foregrounded. The article also aims to position Estonian craft research amongst its peer disciplines. We hope that it sparks constructive discussion and further cooperation with interested partners in order to advance craft studies in general. Within the framework of an academic institution, craft research inevitably involves difficulties that need to be overcome as academic knowledge is traditionally considered to be abstract, and not skill-related. Traditional craft skills are part of intangible c...
This article offers a brief survey of international scholarly journals on craft research and rela... more This article offers a brief survey of international scholarly journals on craft research and related fields (heritage protection and management, vernacular architecture, textile heritage, etc.). In Estonian language, studies of material culture are chiefly published in the yearbooks of memory institutions, such as museums. Internationally, special publications focused on craft research were only established in the 21st century. In the Scandinavian countries, the notion of ‘sloyd’ is central to this type of research. In the European context, craft research is often categorised under ‘design history’, whereas in America it can be found under the label ‘material culture’. If one wishes to find studies on traditional wooden architecture, the keyword ‘vernacular’ comes in handy. One important search term is ‘practice-led’ research, as it is the closest one to the approach employed in the teaching and research activities of the Native craft department in University of Tartu Viljandi Cultu...
Literary representations of fish have not enjoyed much critical attention until recently. In the ... more Literary representations of fish have not enjoyed much critical attention until recently. In the present chapter, the literary depiction of human–fish interaction in angling situations is analysed from a zoosemiotic perspective. Two models are applied to enable a detailed discussion of the different sign types and of the different aspects of communication that occur in interspecies communication involving humans and fish. A brief overview is given of the relevant semiotic and ecocritical literature. Also reviewed are the basic elements of fish biology that are crucial in the fish Umwelt when it encounters a human Umwelt.
The object of study in the present article is birds, more precisely the sounds of birds as they a... more The object of study in the present article is birds, more precisely the sounds of birds as they are represented in Estonian nature writing. The evolutionary and structural parallels of bird song with human language are reviewed. Human interpretation of bird sounds raises the question, whether it is possible to transmit or "translate" signals between the Umwelts of different species. The intentions of the sender of the signal may remain unknown, but the signification process within human Umwelt can still be traced and analysed. By approaching the excerpts of nature writing using semiotic methodology, I attempt to demonstrate how bird sounds can function as different types of signs, as outlined by Thomas A. Sebeok. It is argued that the zoosemiotic treatment of nature writing opens up a number of interesting perspectives that would otherwise remain beyond the scope of traditional literary analysis.
Animals are. A multitude of diff erent species surrounds us in our everyday doings, and infl uenc... more Animals are. A multitude of diff erent species surrounds us in our everyday doings, and infl uences our behaviour and culture. Dogs and cats develop delicate and personal relationships with the families they belong to. Swans and geese are waiting to be fed by passers-by. Th e wing-strokes of doves and jackdaws give a subtle ephemeral atmosphere to our cities. Spiders, snails and snakes are met with surprise or disgust. Beavers are blamed for reshaping the landscapes, and wolves for killing livestock. People and animals engage and interact in a number of ways: from hunting and fi shing to bird-watching, from the help provided by assistance dogs to family holidays in zoological gardens and animal parks. Children's fi rst encounters with the written word oft en take place through animal stories. And many fi ctional animal characters are known and internationally celebrated by name: Lassie, Moby Dick, Bambi, King Kong, etc. None of these interactions would be possible without semiotic processes: perception, communication and interpretation occurring between humans and animals. Sign relations or mediated relations that connect humans with other animal species are the very subject of this collective monograph. We make an inquiry into the semiotic character of diff erent species, study the ways in which humans endow animals with meaning, and analyse how animal sign exchange and communication has coped with environmental change. In this research, our core disciplinary framework is zoosemiotics, the semiotic study of animals-the paradigm that was proposed by the eminent American-Hungarian semiotician Th omas A. Sebeok in the 1960s and that recently had its fi ft ieth anniversary. Our approach is essentially semiotic and biosemiotic. At the same time, we engage in dialogues with ecocriticism, Actor-Network Th eory, posthumanism and other contemporary schools of the humanities, as well as with more practically oriented research topics in visitor studies, animal welfare studies and humananimal studies, not to forget ethology and conservation biology. Th is book is a collective eff ort. Its authors belong to the research group in zoosemiotics and human-animal relations based in the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and at the University of Stavanger in Norway. Th e two opening chapters are written and edited collectively and present a framework of philosophical, historical, epistemological and methodological matters of zoosemiotic research. Th ese initial considerations are followed by specifi c case studies that have been conducted by individual authors. Th e specifi c chapters, however, have been cross-edited and commented on by other TIMO MARAN ET AL
E ks iilk ir j a n d u s e p i n g evä l j a d e s t t e ks t id e j a kon t e ks t i d e k au d ... more E ks iilk ir j a n d u s e p i n g evä l j a d e s t t e ks t id e j a kon t e ks t i d e k au d u 1 K ad r i Tüü r, Ma r i n L a a k Üks meie 20. sajandi teise poole olulisemaid kirjandusuurijaid Maie Kalda on avaldanud
We present an ecocritical analysis of Haide-Ene Rebassoo's book of nature writing Botaanilisi kil... more We present an ecocritical analysis of Haide-Ene Rebassoo's book of nature writing Botaanilisi kilde 17 Hiiumaa suvest [Botanical Fragments from 17 Summers in Hiiumaa]. The dynamic tripartite model of nature writing is applied on the source material for advancing ecocritical theory, as well as for demonstrating the relevance of ecocriticism in the study of previously underconceptualized texts often considered popular science. On the basis of the analysis, it is concluded that our source text features scientific, belletristic, and pragmatic dimensions of nature writing, with the main emphasis on botanical scientific knowledge.
Kogumik Eesti looduskultuur tutvustab erinevate kultuurivaldkondade ja kohaliku looduskeskkonna... more Kogumik Eesti looduskultuur tutvustab erinevate kultuurivaldkondade ja kohaliku looduskeskkonna suhteid laiale lugejaskonnale mõistetavas vormis. Autorid üldistavad oma ainevaldades tehtut, ühendades kirjutistes Eesti kultuuriloo ja rahvusvahelise teaduse seisukohad. ...
Ene-Reet Soovik-MA, tõlkija ja Tartu Ülikooli semiootika osakonna publitseeritava teadusajakirja ... more Ene-Reet Soovik-MA, tõlkija ja Tartu Ülikooli semiootika osakonna publitseeritava teadusajakirja Sign Systems Studies toimetaja. Kirjandusteaduslike huvide seas on tänapäeva eesti luule, ökokriitika, linnakirjandus ning ruumi ja kirjanduse suhted. E-post: ene-reet.soovik[at]ut.ee Kadri Tüür-PhD, Tallinna ülikooli teadur Eesti Teadusfondi uurimisprojektis PRG908 "Eesti keskkonnaliikumine 20. sajandil: ideoloogia, diskursid, praktikad" ja Tartu Ülikooli Viljandi Kultuuriakadeemia pärandtehnoloogia-uuringute alase ajakirja Studia Vernacula peatoimetaja. Aastatel 2018-2021 oli ta Eesti Keskkonnaajaloo Keskuse KAJAK juhataja. Tema doktoritöö rakendas semiootilist metoodikat kirjalike loodusrepresentatsioonide analüüsimisel, peamised uurimisvaldkonnad praegu on ökokriitika, ökofeminism, nn sinine keskkonnahumanitaaria ja loomade kujutamine.
      Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania often tend to be... more       Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania often tend to be grouped together under the label of ’the Baltic countries’, yet they constitute a region characterised by a diversity which also manifests itself in the field of academic research. Still, it may be possible to detect some common elements in the ecocriticism-related activities that have been taking place in these states during the past couple of decades. The article maps the salient tendencies in the environmental humanities (including ecocriticism) of the region that recently gained an institutionalised platform in the form of the Baltic Conferences on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS) that were started in 2018. A survey is given of the three countries’ most significant events and publications that have boasted an ecocritical component, ecocriticism’s institutional representation and inclusion of ecocritical issues in university syllabuses and theory textbooks, as well as some pertinent topics and sub-fields on which the scholars in these countries are currently working. Among these, various aspects of the connections of literature and the ecosystems of the forest (trees) and the mire can be noticed; while also animal studies, literary urban studies, bio- and ecosemiotics and environmental history appear to have entered a fruitful dialogue with ecocritical scholarship currently conducted in the Baltics.      Existe la tendencia de agrupar a Estonia, Letonia y Lituania bajo la etiqueta “países Bálticos”, aunque constituyen una región caracterizada por una diversidad que se manifiesta también en el campo de las investigaciones académicas. Sin embargo, se pueden percibir algunos elementos comunes entre las actividades conectadas a la ecocrítica que se han presentado en los tres países durante las últimas dos décadas. El artículo esquematiza las tendencias más destacadas en el campo de las humanidades ambientales de la región (incluyendo la ecocrítica) que recientemente consiguieron una plataforma institucionalizada en las Conferencias bálticas sobre humanidades ambientales y ciencias sociales (BALTEHUMS), iniciadas en 2018. Se presenta una visión general de los eventos y publicaciones más significativos de los tres países que han demostrado un componente ecocrítico, la representación institucional de la ecocrítica y la inclusión de cuestiones ecocríticas en los programas universitarios y los libros de teoría, así como algunos temas y subcampos pertinentes en los que los académicos de estos países están trabajando en el momento. Entre éstos es posible encontrar diversos aspectos relativos a las conexiones entre literatura y los ecosistemas forestales (árboles) y pantanosos, así como también ejemplos de estudios de animales, estudios urbanos de la literatura, bio- y ecosemiótica,  e historia medioambiental, los cuales han generado una dialéctica productiva con los estudios ecocríticos que se están conduciendo en los países Bálticos en la actualidad
Töö eesmärgiks on avada uusi perspektiive looduskirjanduse uurimisel, kombineerides selleks semio... more Töö eesmärgiks on avada uusi perspektiive looduskirjanduse uurimisel, kombineerides selleks semiootika ja ökokriitika vahendeid. Tartu-Moskva koolkonna semiootikutelt pärinevad primaarsete ja sekundaarsete modelleerivate süsteemide mõisted. Primaarseks modelleerivaks süsteemiks on nende käsitluses keel kui vahendatud inimsuhtluse põhiline vahend. Sekundaarsed modelleerivad süsteemid nagu kirjandus, film ning paljud teised kunstilise väljenduse liigid põhinevad keelel kui märgisüsteemil, tegeledes meid ümbritseva maailma kunstilise modelleerimisega. Ameerika semiootik Thomas A. Sebeok osutas, et neile, puhtalt inimliigile omastele modelleerivatele süsteemidele, eelneb nii inimeste kui teiste loomade puhul zoosemiootilise modelleerimise tasand, mis põhineb meie tajudel ja kehalisel kogemusel maailmaga suhestumisel. Jakob von Uexkülli mõistet kasutades põhineb zoosemiootiline modelleerimine omailmal (Umwelt) ehk liigispetsiifiliste taju- ja mõjuorganite koostoimel loodaval arusaamal om...
The article provides an overview of the practices and perspectives related to craft research and ... more The article provides an overview of the practices and perspectives related to craft research and traditional technologies as studied and taught in the Estonian Native Crafts Department in University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. Academic craft research is discussed in the context of neighbouring disciplines in the humanities, such as ethnology, semiotics, archaeology, art history, and conservation, amongst others. Against this background, the distinctive traits of craft research are foregrounded. The article also aims to position Estonian craft research amongst its peer disciplines. We hope that it sparks constructive discussion and further cooperation with interested partners in order to advance craft studies in general. Within the framework of an academic institution, craft research inevitably involves difficulties that need to be overcome as academic knowledge is traditionally considered to be abstract, and not skill-related. Traditional craft skills are part of intangible c...
This article offers a brief survey of international scholarly journals on craft research and rela... more This article offers a brief survey of international scholarly journals on craft research and related fields (heritage protection and management, vernacular architecture, textile heritage, etc.). In Estonian language, studies of material culture are chiefly published in the yearbooks of memory institutions, such as museums. Internationally, special publications focused on craft research were only established in the 21st century. In the Scandinavian countries, the notion of ‘sloyd’ is central to this type of research. In the European context, craft research is often categorised under ‘design history’, whereas in America it can be found under the label ‘material culture’. If one wishes to find studies on traditional wooden architecture, the keyword ‘vernacular’ comes in handy. One important search term is ‘practice-led’ research, as it is the closest one to the approach employed in the teaching and research activities of the Native craft department in University of Tartu Viljandi Cultu...
Literary representations of fish have not enjoyed much critical attention until recently. In the ... more Literary representations of fish have not enjoyed much critical attention until recently. In the present chapter, the literary depiction of human–fish interaction in angling situations is analysed from a zoosemiotic perspective. Two models are applied to enable a detailed discussion of the different sign types and of the different aspects of communication that occur in interspecies communication involving humans and fish. A brief overview is given of the relevant semiotic and ecocritical literature. Also reviewed are the basic elements of fish biology that are crucial in the fish Umwelt when it encounters a human Umwelt.
The object of study in the present article is birds, more precisely the sounds of birds as they a... more The object of study in the present article is birds, more precisely the sounds of birds as they are represented in Estonian nature writing. The evolutionary and structural parallels of bird song with human language are reviewed. Human interpretation of bird sounds raises the question, whether it is possible to transmit or "translate" signals between the Umwelts of different species. The intentions of the sender of the signal may remain unknown, but the signification process within human Umwelt can still be traced and analysed. By approaching the excerpts of nature writing using semiotic methodology, I attempt to demonstrate how bird sounds can function as different types of signs, as outlined by Thomas A. Sebeok. It is argued that the zoosemiotic treatment of nature writing opens up a number of interesting perspectives that would otherwise remain beyond the scope of traditional literary analysis.
Animals are. A multitude of diff erent species surrounds us in our everyday doings, and infl uenc... more Animals are. A multitude of diff erent species surrounds us in our everyday doings, and infl uences our behaviour and culture. Dogs and cats develop delicate and personal relationships with the families they belong to. Swans and geese are waiting to be fed by passers-by. Th e wing-strokes of doves and jackdaws give a subtle ephemeral atmosphere to our cities. Spiders, snails and snakes are met with surprise or disgust. Beavers are blamed for reshaping the landscapes, and wolves for killing livestock. People and animals engage and interact in a number of ways: from hunting and fi shing to bird-watching, from the help provided by assistance dogs to family holidays in zoological gardens and animal parks. Children's fi rst encounters with the written word oft en take place through animal stories. And many fi ctional animal characters are known and internationally celebrated by name: Lassie, Moby Dick, Bambi, King Kong, etc. None of these interactions would be possible without semiotic processes: perception, communication and interpretation occurring between humans and animals. Sign relations or mediated relations that connect humans with other animal species are the very subject of this collective monograph. We make an inquiry into the semiotic character of diff erent species, study the ways in which humans endow animals with meaning, and analyse how animal sign exchange and communication has coped with environmental change. In this research, our core disciplinary framework is zoosemiotics, the semiotic study of animals-the paradigm that was proposed by the eminent American-Hungarian semiotician Th omas A. Sebeok in the 1960s and that recently had its fi ft ieth anniversary. Our approach is essentially semiotic and biosemiotic. At the same time, we engage in dialogues with ecocriticism, Actor-Network Th eory, posthumanism and other contemporary schools of the humanities, as well as with more practically oriented research topics in visitor studies, animal welfare studies and humananimal studies, not to forget ethology and conservation biology. Th is book is a collective eff ort. Its authors belong to the research group in zoosemiotics and human-animal relations based in the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and at the University of Stavanger in Norway. Th e two opening chapters are written and edited collectively and present a framework of philosophical, historical, epistemological and methodological matters of zoosemiotic research. Th ese initial considerations are followed by specifi c case studies that have been conducted by individual authors. Th e specifi c chapters, however, have been cross-edited and commented on by other TIMO MARAN ET AL
E ks iilk ir j a n d u s e p i n g evä l j a d e s t t e ks t id e j a kon t e ks t i d e k au d ... more E ks iilk ir j a n d u s e p i n g evä l j a d e s t t e ks t id e j a kon t e ks t i d e k au d u 1 K ad r i Tüü r, Ma r i n L a a k Üks meie 20. sajandi teise poole olulisemaid kirjandusuurijaid Maie Kalda on avaldanud
We present an ecocritical analysis of Haide-Ene Rebassoo's book of nature writing Botaanilisi kil... more We present an ecocritical analysis of Haide-Ene Rebassoo's book of nature writing Botaanilisi kilde 17 Hiiumaa suvest [Botanical Fragments from 17 Summers in Hiiumaa]. The dynamic tripartite model of nature writing is applied on the source material for advancing ecocritical theory, as well as for demonstrating the relevance of ecocriticism in the study of previously underconceptualized texts often considered popular science. On the basis of the analysis, it is concluded that our source text features scientific, belletristic, and pragmatic dimensions of nature writing, with the main emphasis on botanical scientific knowledge.
Kogumik Eesti looduskultuur tutvustab erinevate kultuurivaldkondade ja kohaliku looduskeskkonna... more Kogumik Eesti looduskultuur tutvustab erinevate kultuurivaldkondade ja kohaliku looduskeskkonna suhteid laiale lugejaskonnale mõistetavas vormis. Autorid üldistavad oma ainevaldades tehtut, ühendades kirjutistes Eesti kultuuriloo ja rahvusvahelise teaduse seisukohad. ...
“Animal Umwelten in a Changing World. Zoosemiotic Perspectives” raises semiotic questions of huma... more “Animal Umwelten in a Changing World. Zoosemiotic Perspectives” raises semiotic questions of human-animal relations: what is the semiotic character of different species, how humans endow animals with meaning, and how animal sign exchange and communication has coped with environmental change. The book takes a zoosemiotic approach and considers different species as being integrated with the environment via their specific umwelt or subjective perceptual world. The authors elaborate J. v. Uexküll’s concept of umwelt to make it applicable for analyzing complex and dynamical interactions between animals, humans, environment and culture. The opening chapters of the book present a framework for philosophical, historical, epistemological and methodological aspects of zoosemiotic research. These initial considerations are followed by specific case studies: on human–animal interactions in zoological gardens, communication in the teams of visually disabled persons and guiding dogs, semiotics of the animal condition in philosophy, historical changes in the role of animals in human households, the semiotics of predation, cultural perception of novel species, and other topics. The authors belong to the research group in zoosemiotics and human–animal relations based in the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and in the University of Stavanger in Norway.
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