My aim in this paper is to take a closer look at an influential argument that purports to prove that the existence of cultural prohibitions could never be explained by biological inhibitions. The argument is two-pronged. The first prong reduces to the claim: inhibitions cannot cause prohibitions simply because inhibitions undermine the raison dêtre of prohibitions. The second strategy consists in arguing that inhibitions cannot cause prohibitions because the two differ importantly in their contents. I try to show that both (...) claims fail. (shrink)

he landscape of every career contains a few crevasses, and usually a more extensive valley or two—for every Ruth's bat a Buckner's legs; for every lopsided victory at Agincourt, a bloodbath at Antietam. Darwin's Origin of Species contains some wonderful insights and magnificent lines, but this masterpiece also includes a few notable clunkers. Darwin experienced most embarrassment from the following passage, curtailed and largely expunged from later editions of his book: In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne (...) swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale. Why did Darwin become so chagrined about this passage? His hypothetical tale may be pure speculation and conjecture, but the scenario is not entirely absurd. Darwin's discomfort arose, I think, from his failure to follow a scientific norm of a more sociocultural nature. Scientific conclusions supposedly rest upon facts and information. Speculation is not entirely taboo, and may sometimes be necessary faute de mieux. But when scientists propose truly novel and comprehensive theories—as Darwin tried to do in advancing natural selection as the primary mechanism of evolution—they need particularly good support, and invented hypothetical cases just don't supply sufficient confidence for crucial conclusions. (shrink)

In this paper I draw attention to a shortcoming in Miranda Fricker's 2007 account of hermeneutical injustice: that the only hermeneutical resource she acknowledges is a shared conceptual framework. Consequently, Fricker creates the impression that hermeneutical injustice manifests itself almost exclusively in the form of a conceptual lacuna. Considering the negative hermeneutical impact of certain societal taboos, however, suggests that there can be cases of hermeneutical injustice even when an agent's conceptual repertoire is perfectly adequate. I argue that this (...) observation highlights the need to expand Fricker's account to accommodate a wider range of hermeneutical resources and, in turn, a broader taxonomy of hermeneutical injustice. Specifically, my central case of a societal taboo presses the need to recognize as a valuable hermeneutical resource an expressively free environment, in which individuals can put their conceptual-interpretative resources to good hermeneutical effect. (shrink)

Much insect sounding is beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. This sonic separation is exacerbated by a socialized narrative of fear and avoidance of insects in many western societies. With the use of audio technologies to expand our senses, we can embrace opportunities to get to know sensory and communicative insect sound-worlds beyond our own. Ecological sound art – sound art that has an environmentalist intent – is a tangible and accessible means of listening to these (...) sounds. In the series Built Hidden Soundscapes, the primary author (Schonberg) composes imagined soundscapes existing solely of sounds that are beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. In this article we introduce two compositions in this series, Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke and Pipeline Road. These compositions offer a temporary expansion of our aural senses that can increase listeners’ awareness of cryptic insect existences/ecologies. We suggest that this listening practice might prompt future auralization (sounding or hearing in the mind) of insect sound for the listener. (shrink)

The work "Taboos on the teaching vocation" was read by the German social philosopher and representative of critical theory Theodor Adorno as a report on May 21, 1965 at the Berlin Institute for Educational Research. In this report, Adorno considered the socio-psychological and socio-cultural reasons that in the context of Western European culture have historically led to the social emergence of many psychological taboos on the pedagogical work of the school teacher. The philosopher theoretically deduced the dialectical connection (...) between human hostility and disgust for the work of the teacher from the cultural tradition of German society, which historically developed as late bourgeois. A characteristic feature of the attitude of the overly materialistic socio-cultural system was aversion to the work of the teacher as a "hungry job", that is, to a poorly paid profession. Another factor of public disgust for the work of teachers, the philosopher called the socio-cultural tradition of society, which as a closed society willingly practiced physical violence as a means of social coercion. According to this tradition, through the use of violence, the teacher must subordinate students to his authority, subordinate to social and school ideology. The historical result of such dialectics was the socio-cultural distortion of the image of the teacher, the castration of his image in social psychology, his self-alienation from the professional vocation and the ideological elimination of the power of his spirit. As an ideological alternative, Adorno suggested that society, if it consciously seeks democratic change, first of all take into account such young teachers who demonstrate the impulse of their individual spirit in the performance of their profession. According to the philosopher, only the spiritual freedom of such a young educator, a man who is capable of self-understanding, conscious of himself and his vocation, who reflects and is socially active, can democratize schools, devalue society and destroy dehumanized social traditions. First of all – in order to overcome the barbaric tradition of violence. (shrink)

Corporations today have been engineered by CEOs and other business advocates to look increasingly green and responsible. However, alarming cases such as Enron, Parmalat and Worldcom bear witness that a belief in corporate goodness is still nothing other than naïve. Although many scholars seemingly recognize this, they still avoid touching on the most sensitive and problematic issues, the taboos. As a consequence, discussion of important though problematic topics is often stifled. The article identifies three ‘grand’ taboos of CSR (...) discourse and explicitly raises them for discussion. They are the taboos of amoral business, continuous economic growth, and the political nature of CSR. It is suggested that CSR can only be as advanced as its taboos. The critical potential of the field remains underdeveloped as a consequence of the taboos, and in many cases the CSR discourse merely produces alluring but empty rhetoric about sustainability and responsible business. (shrink)

Among one of the main inspirations for the research behind this Special Issue is Jussi Parikka’s 2010 book Insect Media: An Archeology of Animals and Technology. In this interview, the guest editors, Nina Mangalanayagam and Louise Wolthers, ask Professor Parikka to revisit some of the book’s core issues in relation to digital photography and the current media landscape in general. The conversation also revolves around artificial intelligence (AI), bugs, mimicry, contemporary art as well as scale and operational images, which (...) reflect Parikka’s recent research. (shrink)

Recent trends in agriculturalresearch and development emphasize the need forfarmer participation. Participation not onlymeans farmers' physical presence but also theuse of their knowledge and expertise.Understanding potentials and drawbacks of theirlocal knowledge system is a prerequisite forconstructive collaboration between farmers,scientists, and extension services.An ethnoentomological study, conducted in aTharu village in Nepal, documents farmers'qualitative and quantitative knowledge as wellas perceptions of insects and pest management,insect nomenclature and classification, andissues related to insect recognition and localbeliefs. The study offers a basis to (...) improvepest management programs in terms of efficacyand acceptance. It demonstrates, for instance,that a concept of pests and beneficials isvirtually missing in traditional farmingcommunities and that the Tharu folkclassification profoundly differs from thescientific classification, but is not radicallydifferent from other folk entomologicalsystems. Insects belong to the taxa calledkiraa consisting of arthropods andnon-arthropods that interact with humans. Theyare classified in several overlappinghierarchies where locomotion and human impactplay major roles while morphological criteriaare almost irrelevant. Recognition ofkiraa, however, is dominated by agriculturalaspects followed by physiological-behavioral,ecological, and human-directed features.Morphological criteria play a minor role. Innomenclature, however, the insects' physicalappearance is more important than otherfeatures. The study further shows that male andfemale farmers have different perceptions ofkiraa.The insect-related knowledge system of theTharu has prevented farmers from using modernpesticides in the past. In the course ofmodernization, however, some aspects of theirknowledge system could become obsolete andprove disadvantageous to their livelihood andagro-ecosystems. (shrink)

Video games are currently available which permit the virtual murder of children. No such games are presently available which permit virtual paedophilia. Does this disparity reflect a morally justifiable position? Focusing solely on different player motivations, I contrast two version of a fictitious game—one permitting the virtual murder of children, the other virtual paedophilia—in order to establish whether the selective prohibition of one activity over the other can be morally justified based on player motivation alone. I conclude that it cannot, (...) for reasons discussed. (shrink)

While seeking novel food sources to feed the increasing population of the globe, several alternatives have been discussed, including algae, fungi or in vitro meat. The increasingly propagated usage of farmed insects for human nutrition raises issues regarding food safety, consumer information and animal protection. In line with law, insects like any other animals must not be reared or manipulated in a way that inflicts unnecessary pain, distress or harm on them. Currently, there is a great need for research in (...) the area of insect welfare, especially regarding species-specific needs, health, farming systems and humane methods of killing. Recent results from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral sciences prompt caution when denying consciousness and therefore the likelihood of presence of pain and suffering or something closely related to it to insects. From an animal protection point of view, these issues should be satisfyingly solved before propagating and establishing intensive husbandry systems for insects as a new type of mini-livestock factory farming. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea that many “simple minded” invertebrates are “natural zombies” in that they utilize their senses in intelligent ways, but without phenomenal awareness. The discussion considers how “first-order” representationalist theories of consciousness meet the explanatory challenge posed by blindsight. It would be an advantage of first-order representationalism, over higher-order versions, if it does not rule out consciousness in most non-human animals. However, it is argued that a first-order representationalism which adequately accounts for blindsight also implies that most (...) non-mammals are not conscious. The example of the honey bee is used to illuminate these claims. Although there is some reason to think that bees have simple beliefs and desires, nevertheless, their visually-mediated cognizing is comparable to that of an animal with blindsight. There is also reason to think that the study of blindsight can also help determine how consciousness is distributed in the animal world. (shrink)

Buddhist texts generally prohibit the killing of all sentient beings. This is certainly the case in vinaya texts, which contain strict guidelines on the preservation of all human and animal life. When these vinaya texts were translated into Chinese, they formed the core of Buddhist behavioural codes, influencing both monastic and lay followers. Chinese vinaya masters, such as Daoxuan?? and Yijing??, wrote extensive commentaries and accounts, introducing Indian concepts into the Chinese environment. In this paper, we focus on an often (...) neglected aspect of inflicting harm on sentient beings: namely, the injury that may be caused to some of the world’s smallest animals — insects. Some insects produce economically valuable products, such as silk and honey; others, such as mosquitoes and bedbugs, are annoying or dangerous; and still others are innocent victims of essential human activities, such as earthworms that are killed when farmland is tilled. Yet, all of these are sentient beings that — according to Buddhist principles — should not be harmed or killed. What this implies for Chinese vinaya masters, and especially the highly influential Daoxuan, is the core question of this paper. As we will see, their responses are mixed, but they always attempt to remain true to the basic principles of Buddhism. (shrink)

This article examines, analyses and compares the cinematic representation of three female protagonists (on three respective films) within their portrayed incestuous relationships. It also attempts to draw significant conclusions about their dynamic as female participating subjects in these affairs in a more inclusive way, one that takes into consideration their racial, gender, social and family characteristics. As incest itself is one of the strongest human taboos, various questions regarding the female portrait and position in such relationships arise: as incest (...) constitutes the strongest social taboo of human civilization, is it similarly portrayed in cinema? Can incest be a female’s act of choice or is it just a male’s one? Are there any differences between male and female depictions of incestuous desire and sexual act? In which ways do potential differences, such as social status, class origin, racial and gender stereotypes, influence the protagonists of incestuous relationships? Which female motivations are involved in incestuous relationships? (shrink)

Moral principles or the rules of conduct are based in the society. If the purpose of ethics in research is to take into consideration the needs and the rights of the experimental subject, his social milieu must then largely determine the ethical considerations of a projected study. The inability to comprehend such rights may often be due to ignorance, disease and his societal values. Blood letting, biopsy and post-mortem examinations may so conflict with local beliefs that so called 'consent' to (...) these is much more than a surrender of the rights of the individual. It is difficult to conform with the highest principles of ethics in research in any uniform society. It is more so when the many variables are further complicated by cultural demands and social taboos. The best custodians of ethical standards must relate intimately with the norms of the local population. (shrink)

This essay considers insects’ place-making powers in history of science topics. Insects have co-shaped the geographies of knowledge production throughout history in three primary dimensions: through their size, density, and multiplane existence. Insects’ miniature worlds have helped humans to create trans-scale analogies. Their spatial transgression and swarming capacity have overwhelmed people, including field researchers, contributing to the making of the places where science is produced. Finally, insects’ “ontologically alien” ways of engaging with environments (e.g., flying and living underground) have offered (...) valuable material for humans’ imaginings of their own realities. By prioritizing insects’ own spatial characteristics, this tripartite typology of human/insect entanglements intends to spur new ways of writing histories of science that engage with space and place. (shrink)

This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion.

The world of insects is at once beneath our feet and unfathomably alien. Small and innumerable, insects surround and disrupt us even as we scarcely pay them any mind. Insects confront us with the limits of what is imaginable, while at the same time being essential to the everyday functioning of all terrestrial ecosystems. In this book, the philosopher and historian of science Jean-Marc Drouin contends that insects pose a fundamental challenge to philosophy. Exploring the questions of what insects are (...) and what scientific, aesthetic, ethical, and historical relationships they have with humanity, he argues that they force us to reconsider our ideas of the animal and the social. He traces the role that insects have played in language, mythology, literature, entomology, sociobiology, and taxonomy over the centuries. Drouin emphasizes the links between humanistic and scientific approaches—how we have projected human roles onto insects and seen ourselves in insect form. Caught between the animal and plant kingdoms, insects force us to confront and reevaluate our notions of gender, family, society, struggle, the division of labor, social organization, and individual and collective intelligence. A remarkably original and thought-provoking work, A Philosophy of the Insect is an important book for animal studies, environmental ethics, and the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Insects factored as ‘symbols of instinct’, necessary as a rhetorical device in the boundary work of early social psychology. They were symbolically used to draw a dividing line between humans and animals, clarifying views on instinct and consciousness. These debates were also waged to determine if social psychology was a subfield of sociology or psychology. The exchange between psychologist James Mark Baldwin and sociologist Charles Abram Ellwood exemplifies this particular aspect of boundary work. After providing a general background of the (...) debates, I turn specifically to the writings of Baldwin and Ellwood between 1890 and 1936, tracing the use of insects as ‘symbols of instinct’. (shrink)

Taboo, as a space where the prohibited resides, delimits the form of the thinkable in a society. Freud, in Totem and Taboo, attempted to trace an explanation beyond the ‘categorical imperative’ of morality and custom. A century later the YouTuber PrankInvasion (Chris Monroe) seems to continue Freud’s account to his advantage. Through ‘Kissing my actual sister prank’, one of his most controversial videos, he challenged his own followers to fulfil an especially controversial challenge: kiss his own stepsister. It is through (...) these contacts with the limits of the moral, of the acceptable, that capitalism expands the colonized territory, absorbing the profane under its new exposure value. The unthinkable, the purported profanation of dogma (in this case, taboo of incest), disappears under the standardization of all rites as standardized consumable objects. But as Agamben warns about the nature of desecration it can not be related, in its new use, with the consumption realm. And that is not the case with PrankInvasion. Through the apparent absence of ordinary moral limits, Chris Monroe expresses his heartfelt attachment to the most extraordinary limit of capitalism: economic growth. (shrink)

Among the most enduring taboos, those related to the human body are the most enduring, throughout history. Be it its re/presentation of exploration, it constituted for most cultures and epochs a very sensitive subject, ever evolving and changing, but perennially raw and open to debate and discussion. With the advent of new technologies sustaining and infiltrating society, the body is seen, explored and represented in new ways that can be, simultaneously, interpreted either as transgressive or respectful of taboos, (...) depending on the point of view or the current social norms. The question is: are we able to transcend transgression of taboos through our work or are we still far from achieving it? Our tools are computer-generated simulations based on patient-collected data. Building our arguments on Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic (1973) analysis, we approach the evolution of our own research as a ‘case study’. In the age of the life-support, stem-cell therapy and 3D organ printing, is computer simulation mimicking or mirroring organic life and phenomena, or is it creating a debatable simulacrum? From reducing the human body to a series of equations that lead to depersonalization and loss of self, to tailored modelling based on patient-collected biological data, the computer simulations took a variety of guises. At each point of the way, confronting the taboos, conventions and through controlled transgressions of established rules, we strived to transcend all historic limitations and update, adjust and fine-tune the technology and its uses to better suit the clinicians’ pursuits. (shrink)

This paper considers questions that small animals and AI systems raise for utilitarianism. Specifically, if these beings have more welfare than humans and other large animals, then utilitarianism implies that we should prioritize them, all else equal. This could lead to a ‘rebugnant conclusion’, according to which we should, say, create large populations of small animals rather than small populations of large animals. It could also lead to a ‘Pascal’s bugging’, according to which we should, say, prioritize large populations of (...) small animals even if they have a low chance of being sentient. I suggest that utilitarians should accept these implications in theory but might be able to avoid some of them in practice. (shrink)

In response to a bacterial infection, insects launch an array of countermeasures. Among these are the antibacterial proteins, which effectively lyse bacteria or are bacteriostatic. These proteins were generally assumed to be restricted to insects, yet recent information has shown some homologous counterparts in verte brates, including humans. Recent data have revealed that at least some of these proteins can also act against eukaryotic cells, including human infectious Parasites The latter activities have opened up new possibilities for disease control.

Publication date: 26 January 2017 Source: Author: Mihaela Mocanu The instrument of knowledge and communication of religious essence, the religious language is based upon the recognition of a world of sacredness, which is defined by reference to the religious dimension of the human being. From the semantic perspective, the religious language is rooted in a preexisting extra-linguistic referent, which eludes historic space-time categories, in an attempt to build a world of transcendental essence and establish a relationship between man and the (...) sacred. In this view, the word is invested with magical powers, playing the role of a mediator between the human being living in the world of the profane and the sacred world of the Divinity. Since the word embraces the essence of the named element with the power to shape reality, the religious man pays special attention to the verbal expression not only from the desire to adapt to reality, but especially out of the care not to cause adverse changes amidst it. We propose in this paper to review the main religious taboos specific to the religious language and the description of the pragmatic valences that the euphemistic expression manifests in the religious communication. (shrink)

Social insects show us very little about the evolution of complex human society. As more relevant literature demonstrates, ultrasociality is a cause rather than an effect of human social evolution.

Study of the multiplicity of interactions between invertebrate hosts and their parasites helps to define the aspects of the host immune systems that have ecological and evolutionary significance. Such study, however, reveals how much is yet unknown. For instance, the costs of mounting an immune response, the nature of the long-lasting protection sometimes attained, and the high degree of specificity observed in certain hosts are phenomena that still await full explanation. An additional puzzle is the high degree of specificity achieved (...) in light of the apparent low degree of specificity in the recognition and effector mechanisms of insect immune systems. Furthermore, while protective immunity is typically associated with vertebrate adaptive immune systems, invertebrates may have analogous capacities, whose nature is still largely unknown. This review will illustrate how the traditional host-centred view of immune defence can be usefully extended by taking account of parasite immune evasion strategies and the variation that such strategies create in the observed outcomes of infection. BioEssays 27:1026–1034, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Peiodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Drawing on a scene in J.M.G. Le Clézio's novel Terra Amata, which tells the story of the instincts of a small boy, the minute sensoria of some bugs and a cosmic catastrophe, this essay demonstrates the ambivalence around insects in animal studies, their contingent location in psychoanalysis and the conundrums they place in ethical philosophy. By reading Le Clézio's tale through Uexküll, Freud, Dodds and Stengers we argue for more nuanced, imbricated and critical connections between ethology, psychoanalysis and ethics. These (...) connections become imperatives in the face of the current environmental crisis, where we urgently need to attend to co-affecting relations that are too distant or proximate, tiny or vast to register as familiar sentient states or ethical feelings. In the process we demonstrate the performative dimensions of what we call the entomological imagination – present in the strange proximity of child and bugs, the powerful unthinking god, the indifference of the insects to human commands, and the infinitesimal catastrophe in Le Clézio's story – that facilitates an epistemic fluidity required for a contemporary understanding of ecologies. (shrink)

Proponents of entomophagy have argued that the farming of insects offers many advantages when contrasted with more traditional farming practices. This article explores the place of insect farming within a wider Christian food ethic and argues that insect farming has much to recommend it. However, through exploring the role of animal agriculture within the ideological structures of anthropocentrism, a more ambiguous picture of the ethics of insect farming emerges. This belies a simple endorsement or denunciation of (...) class='Hi'>insect farming as an ethical alternative to the farming of larger animals. Moreover, the example of insect farming reveals that Christian food ethics needs to radically reimagine the entire food provisioning system if it is to inculcate substantive change in human relationships with nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Several groups of large DNA viruses successfully utilise the rich resource provided by insect hosts. Defining the mechanisms that enable these pathogens to optimise their relationships with their hosts is of considerable scientific and practical importance, but our understanding of the processes involved is, as yet, rudimentary. Here we describe an informatics-based approach that uses comparison of viral genomic sequences to identify candidate genes likely to be specifically involved in this process. We hypothesise that such genes should satisfy two (...) essential criteria, namely, that they should be (i) present in those members of a virus family that infect insects, but absent from those that infect other hosts, and (ii) found in at least two unrelated taxa of insect viruses. These criteria currently identify six groups of viral genes, including one that encodes the fusolin/gp37 proteins. Demonstration that the fusolin/gp37 proteins can enhance oral infectivity of insect viruses provides a primary validation of this approach to the examination of insectvirus relationships. BioEssays 23:184–193, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

1. Insect sampling for the purpose of measuring biodiversity – as well as entomological research more generally – largely assumes that insects lack consciousness. Here, we briefly present some arguments that insects are conscious and encourage entomologists to revisit their ethical codes in light of them. 2. Specifically, we adapt the Three Rs, guidelines proposed in 1959 by WMS Russell and RL Burch that have become the dominant way of thinking about the ethics of using animals in research. 3. (...) The Three Rs specify the need to replace, reduce, and refine the use of animals in research, yet have received little attention in entomological circles, which is perhaps unsurprising given that Russell and Burch explicitly excluded invertebrates from their purview. 4. As a specific case, we consider issues of suffering and bycatch in the use of Malaise traps for insect sampling. 5. While we do not claim that entomologists have an obligation to adopt the Three Rs framework wholesale, we do suggest that there is reason to adopt it in a modified form to mitigate moral risk especially in the context of conservation. (shrink)

Comparing food taboos across 78 cultures, this paper demonstrates that meat, though a prized food, is also the principal target of proscriptions. Reviewing existing explanations of taboos, we find that both functionalist and symbolic approaches fail to account for meat's cross-cultural centrality and do not reflect experience-near aspects of food taboos, principal among which is disgust. Adopting an evolutionary approach to the mind, this paper presents an alternative to existing explanations of food taboos. Consistent with the (...) attendant risk of pathogen transmission, meat has special salience as a stimulus for humans, as animal products are stronger elicitors of disgust and aversion than plant products. We identify three psychosocial processes, socially-mediated ingestive conditioning, egocentric empathy, and normative moralization, each of which likely plays a role in transforming individual disgust responses and conditioned food aversions into institutionalized food taboos. (shrink)

This article outlines the rationale for a molecular genetic study of social behavior, and explains why social insects are good models. Summaries of research on brain and behavior in two species, honey bees and fire ants, are presented to illustrate the richness of the behavioral phenomena that can be addressed with social insects and to show how they are beginning to be used to study genes that influence social behavior. We conclude by considering the problems and potential of this emerging (...) field. (shrink)

The binary categories of harm and benefit have often shaped how historians frame discussions of insects. Scientists also leverage the binary framing of insects as tools and targets to carry out their work, especially in the development of biological technologies for pest control. This essay emphasizes how binaries function in scientific practice. Two case studies spanning from the twentieth century to the recent past illustrate the shift away from chemicals in pest management and, in doing so, show the instability of (...) binary categories over the longue durée. Noticing “ambivalent insects” affords a way to widen narrative options and identify new opportunities for investigating insect histories. (shrink)

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in interest in the extent to which morphological evolution depends on changes in regulatory pathways. Insects provide a fertile ground for study because of their diversity and our high level of understanding of the genetic regulation of development in Drosophila melanogaster. However, comparable genetic approaches are presently possible in only a small number of non‐Drosophilid insects. In a recent paper, Hughes and Kaufman(1) have used a new methodology, RNA interference, in the milkweed (...) bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus, to phenocopy the effects of mutations in Hox genes. RNA interference involves the injection of double‐stranded RNA of the same sequence as the relevant mRNA resulting in a depletion of that transcript.(2) Hughes and Kaufman focused on the gnathal segments, which elaborate specialized appendages important to feeding. Their results indicate that gnathal adaptations in this bug are correlated with changes in Hox gene functions and interactions. BioEssays 23:379–382, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer justifications and strategies for teaching taboo, unpopular, or rarely contested views in undergraduate ethics courses. Teaching taboo topics, while challenging, forcefully demonstrates the commitment that few topics in ethics have obvious answers, and that the study of ethics is more than just debating right and wrong. Drawing from my experience teaching on the topic of bestiality, I articulate the importance of motivating topics that may appear remote and irrelevant to students. Inspired by Kathy Rudy’s queer (...) theory approach to the question of bestiality, I propose that we broaden and reframe taboo issues when teaching undergraduates. Instead of introducing these issues with the typical “Is it right or wrong to do X,” I recommend that we examine the essential political, metaphysical, and epistemological presumptions that inform and shape our moral judgments. (shrink)

Among the many obscure sects of sexual fetishism, few remain as perplexing as that of the “crush freaks,” who are aroused by the sight of an insect exploded beneath a human foot. Moving beyond the glib discussions of those entomologists and sexologists who classify this fetish as a subset of foot worship and/or macrophilia, I propose an analysis of the crush freaks through the writings of French thinker Georges Bataille. Employing Bataille’s notions of sacrificial eroticism and mysticism to approach (...) the religio-sexual dimensions of crush freakism, I argue that these practices are best understood as ambivalent manifestations of technophilia . More specifically, crush freakism, I submit, devolves on a violent literalization of the analogies between insects and machines. (shrink)

Among the many obscure sects of sexual fetishism, few remain as perplexing as that of the “crush freaks,” who are aroused by the sight of an insect exploded beneath a human foot. Moving beyond the glib discussions of those entomologists and sexologists who classify this fetish as a subset of foot worship and/or macrophilia, I propose an analysis of the crush freaks through the writings of French thinker Georges Bataille. Employing Bataille’s notions of sacrificial eroticism and mysticism to approach (...) the religio-sexual dimensions of crush freakism, I argue that these practices are best understood as ambivalent manifestations of technophilia (sexual arousal associated with machinery). More specifically, crush freakism, I submit, devolves on a violent literalization of the analogies between insects and machines. (shrink)

This article elaborates on Wolfgang Schulze’s keynote speech of the same title at the 26th LIPP Symposium in Munich in 2019. It is based on the slides from his talk and various teaching materials, of which some figures have been translated from German to English before their inclusion in this article. While this article’s foundation rests on Schulze’s theories and research, we have done our best to build upon his work; direct quotes and key concepts of his will be cited (...) throughout the text. Schulze intended to write this article himself, but after his unexpected passing in early 2020, we decided to offer this contribution on his behalf.Research on taboo is widely spread across diverse academic disciplines that each attribute slightly, yet noticeably, different meanings to the concept. This article proposes an all-encompassing definition applicable to all socio-cultural contexts. To arrive at this comprehensive understanding, we first briefly survey the history oftabooand its linguistic study. Then, we present a formal and functional typology of circumnavigating taboos, taking into account the concepts ofmanaandnoaas proposed by Schulze (2019: 13, 15, 16). While the specific social restrictions resulting from tabooed relations vary from community to community, the purpose of taboo remains the same: social stability, protection and sustainability. Linguistic taboos contribute to these social functions by restricting the use of certain linguistic signs in certain situations. Such constraints necessitate strategies for avoiding taboo, including articulation shift, lexical substitution and the emergence of special languages, detailed here. (shrink)

In The Insect-Populated Mind, author David Spooner proposes a close connection between aspects of insect evolution and the human intellect.