Recently two developments have had a major impact on the field of ancient DNA (aDNA). First, new advances in DNA sequencing, in combination with improved capture/enrichment methods, have resulted in the recovery of orders of magnitude more DNA sequence data from ancient animals. Second, there has been an increase in the range of tissue types employed in aDNA. Hair in particular has proven to be very successful as a source of DNA because of its low levels of (...) contamination and high level of ancient endogenous DNA. These developments have resulted in significant advances in our understanding of recently extinct animals: namely their evolutionary relationships, physiology, and even behaviour. Hair has been used to recover the first complete ancient nuclear genome, that of the extinct woolly mammoth, which then facilitated the expression and functional analysis of haemoglobins. Finally, we speculate on the consequences of these developments for the possibility of recreating extinct animals. (shrink)

"We face three epoch-defining environmental problems: climate, extinction and pestilence. Our climate is changing in ways that will have serious consequences for humans, and may even profoundly affect the ability of the planet to support life. All around us, other species are disappearing at a rate between several hundred and several thousand times the normal background rate of extinction. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has wreaked social and economic havoc, is merely the latest model off a blossoming production line of newly (...) emerging infectious diseases, many of which have the potential to be far worse. At the heart of these problems lies an ancient habit: eating animals. This habit is the most significant driver of species extinction and of newly emerging infectious diseases, and one of the most important drivers of climate change. This is a habit we can no longer afford to indulge. Breaking it will substantially reduce climate emissions. It will stem our insatiable hunger for land that is at the heart of both the problems of extinction and pestilence. Most importantly, breaking this habit will make available vast areas of land suitable for afforestation: the return of forests to where they once grew. Afforestation will significantly mitigate all three problems. But only if we stop eating animals will we have enough land for this strategy to work"--. (shrink)

The horse was essential to past human societies but became a recreational animal during the twentieth century as the world became increasingly mechanized. As the author reviews here, recent studies of ancient genomes have revisited the understanding of horse domestication, from the very early stages to the most modern developments. They have uncovered several extinct lineages roaming the far ends of Eurasia some 4000 years ago. They have shown that the domestic horse has been significantly reshaped during the (...) last millennium and experienced a sharp decline in genetic diversity within the last two centuries. At a time when no truly wild horses exist any longer, this calls for enhanced conservation in all endangered populations. These include the Przewalski's horse native to Mongolia, and the many local breeds side‐lined by the modern agenda, but yet representing the living heritage of over five millennia of horse breeding. (shrink)

The defining principle of evolutionary biology is that all species, extant and extinct, evolved from ancient prokaryotic cells. Their initial appearance and adaptive evolution are proposed to have been accompanied by a cellular sentience, by feelings, subjectivity or, in a word, 'consciousness'. Prokaryotic cells, such as archaea and bacteria, have natural unitary, valence-marked 'mental' representations. They process and evaluate sensory information in a context-dependent manner. They learn, establish memories, and communicate using biophysical fields acting on excitable membranes. Symbiotic (...) eukaryotic cells, which evolved much later, initiated a compound cellular subjectivity utilizing 'senomic' and 'ephaptic' principles that evolved into the varieties of consciousness seen in multicellular species. This Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC) model provides a novel framework within which to approach fundamental issues such as the origins of life and the emergence of mind. (shrink)

Greco-Roman philosophers and historians frequently attempted to define the human being vis-á-vis other animals by isolating capacities, intellectual, physical, and emotional, judged unique to humans. The Stoic claim that only humans have a sense of shame because only humans are rational and therefore capable of emotions, which entail reasoning, was contradicted by other philosophers and naturalists who argued that some animal behaviors were analogous to behavior in humans that indicate shame. Ancient debates on both sides of the issue (...) of animal emotions are paralleled in current philosophy and cognitive ethology employing anecdotal and anthropomorphizing arguments that mirror classical examples. (shrink)

The emergence of de‐extinction is a study in technological optimism. What has already been accomplished in recovering ancient genomes, recreating them, and reproducing animals with engineered genomes is amazing but also has a long ways to go to achieve “de‐extinction” as most people would understand that term. Still, with some caveats in place, creating a functional replacement for an extinct species may sometimes be doable, and given the right goals, might sometimes make sense. The International Union for (...) Conservation of Nature guidelines for de‐extinction do a reasonable job of keeping the caveats in place and clarifying the goals. In fact, given the right caveats about what de‐extinction can accomplish, we should pay a lot of attention to the technology and should think carefully about the goals. Not only has the technology been advancing, but our environmental standards have been getting looser and more flexible, providing less guidance for implementing the technology. The guiding ideals for conservation are often explained as a choice between John Muir, founder of The Sierra Club, and Gifford Pinchot, who helped create the U.S. Forest Service. Muir argued for preserving some places in the world in their natural state because of their great value and beauty. Pinchot, by contrast, was bluntly utilitarian. He argued for trying to keep some natural places more or less undamaged so that we could use them later. There has long been dissatisfaction with this choice, and in the last couple of decades, a number of prominent voices have proposed a “gardening ethic” as a new standard that combines elements of Muir and Pinchot. A gardening ethic is supposed to both celebrate the land and declare that it must now be managed. But what would good gardening mean when it comes to de‐extinction? (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to the topic of the human evaluation and interpretation of animals in ancient and medieval cultures. From a transcultural perspective contributions from Assyriology, Byzantine Studies, Classical Archaeology, Egyptology, German Medieval Studies and Jewish History look into the processes and mechanisms behind the transfer by people of certain values to animals, and the functions these animal-signs have within written, pictorial and performative forms of expression.

The Panoply Vase Animation Project has created a new animation from the decoration on an ancient Greek hydria. The vase depicts the poet Sappho with a lyre. The animation enables her to move, touch the strings, and play the instrument. It also features the words from Fragment 44 of her poetry and geometric figures acting out the poem. The music accompanying the animation was scored from the original poem and therefore offers the melody that the poem would have been (...) sung to. This article discusses the decision-making process that informed the creation of the animation and suggests ways in which the animation and its vase can be used in the classroom or lecture-hall as a flexible learning resource. (shrink)

This article examines the attitude toward animals in the Pentateuch and ancient Near Eastern legal codes. Employing a comparative approach, it analyzes criminal and tort law in relation to animals and their carers—stealing and finding animals used in factory farms, the responsibility of watchmen and renters, and that of the legal “owners” of animals who cause damage. Demonstrating how animals form part of the biblical ethical system, in which ethical demands become binding statutes, it (...) looks at why this process only occurred in the Hebrew Bible and not in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. (shrink)

We propose that the onset and progressive destructive action of cancer within an individual bears a profound and striking similarity to the onset and progressive human-engendered destruction of global ecosystems and the extinction of entire species. Cancer in the human body and our human role in planetary, especially biotic, degradation are uncannily similar systems. For starters, they are the only two known complex systems where a discrete component changes its normal ecological role and function—turning on and potentially killing its host, (...) and in so doing, itself. Both are “hostile takeovers.” Clearly, humans are integral to both systems. With cancer we are the host and victims of the rogue behavior of what starts out as a normal, healthy, and functionally important part of our bodies. With the biodiversity crisis, we are the part of the system that has changed, expanded, and proven so destructive to the system in which we live. We argue that given that these threats to our bodies and Earth are both essentially ecological diseases, understanding the critical role of ecological interdependencies for avoiding both cancer’s and humankind’s destruction of their respective homes should hopefully promote better stewardship of both by the only animal capable of recognizing the problems—us. (shrink)

With a novel approach to Aristotle's zoology, this study looks at animals as creatures of nature and reveals a scientific discourse that, in response to his predecessors, exiles logos as reason and pursues the logos intrinsic to animals' bodies empowering them to sense the world and live. The volume explores Aristotle's conception of animals through a discussion of his ad hoc methodology to study them, including the pertinence of the soul to such a study, and the rise (...) of zoology as a branch of natural philosophy. For Aristotle, animal life stems from the body in the space of existence and revolves around sensation, which is entwined with pleasure, pain, and desire. Lack of human reason is irrelevant to an understanding of the richness of animal life and cognition. In sum, the reader will acquire knowledge of the animal as such, which lay at the core of Aristotle's agenda and required a study of its own, separate from plants and the elements. This book is intended for students of history of science, ancient biology and philosophy and all those who, from different fields, are interested in animal studies and the human/animal relation. (shrink)

The scene of philosophical interest in nonhuman animal life seems to have always been lacking in robust theoretical resources. The philosophical canon from ancient Greece onward contains only a few rare exceptions, and even in the past century, when research on nonhuman animals seems to have gained new momentum, this interest has remained confined primarily to conversations having to do with the moral status of animal life, with these discussions roughly divided into two major camps: animal rights discourse (...) and a utilitarian critique (à la Peter Singer) of that rights discourse. Against this historical backdrop, Jacques Derrida's The Animal That…. (shrink)

Religion is often criticized for failing to uphold animal concerns, yet Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion that underlies the Abrahamic traditions as well as Eastern religions, offers some strikingly contemporary concerns regarding the kinship of human and nonhuman animals. Human and nonhuman animals alike have souls, free will, and life after death. In the middle of the second millennium BCE, Zoroaster called attention to the treatment of animals as necessary to the divine order and righteousness that has (...) been disturbed by evil and sin. How humans treat animals also affects their own well-being in this world and the next. (shrink)

De-extinction is the process through which extinct species can be brought back into existence. Although these projects have the potential to cause great harm to animal welfare, discussion on issues surrounding de-extinction have focussed primarily on other issues. In this paper, I examine the potential types of welfare harm that can arise through de-extinction programs, including problems with cloning, captive rearing and re-introduction. I argue that welfare harm should be an important consideration when making decisions on de-extinction projects. Though (...) most of the proposed benefits of these projects are insufficient to outweigh the current potential welfare harm, these problems may be overcome with further development of the technology and careful selection of appropriate species as de-extinction candidates. (shrink)

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental disorders. Present treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacological treatments show only moderate success, which emphasizes the importance for the development of new treatment protocols. Non-invasive brain stimulation methods such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation have been probed as therapeutic option for anxiety disorders in recent years. Mechanistic information about their mode of action, and most efficient protocols is however limited. Here the fear extinction model can (...) serve as a model of exposure therapies for studying therapeutic mechanisms, and development of appropriate intervention protocols. We systematically reviewed 30 research articles that investigated the impact of rTMS and tDCS on fear memory and extinction in animal models and humans, in clinical and healthy populations. The results of these studies suggest that tDCS and rTMS can be efficient methods to modulate fear memory and extinction. Furthermore, excitability-enhancing stimulation applied over the vmPFC showed the strongest potential to enhance fear extinction. We further discuss factors that determine the efficacy of rTMS and tDCS in the context of the fear extinction model and provide future directions to optimize parameters and protocols of stimulation for research and treatment. (shrink)

The three social practices – democracy, philosophy and sport – are more similar than we might initially suspect. They can be described as ‘essentially agonistic social practices’, that is, they are manifestations of ‘agon’ (contest). The possibility to participate in agonistic social practices derives from the human condition, i.e. from the necessity to care for one’s existence, which requires ongoing attention and decision-making, and which sometimes means going against others. We call this character of human existence by the ancient (...) Greek term ‘polemos’ (struggle), which can be manifested through various types of agon. If society cherishes agonistic social practices, it enables its citizens to compete to prove themselves and achieve goals (e.g. to push through a persuasive argument, or to win in sport) in a respectful, peaceful and productive way. Believed to have played a significant role in ancient Greece, agon presents itself in both intellectual and physical forms – in philosophy, democratic politics and sport – suggesting that the relationship between these practices is deep-rooted and significant. This paper explores the idea that developing our understanding of polemos and agon can enhance our experience of agonistic social practices and enable our existence to proceed in a more free, pro-social and enriching way. (shrink)

The three social practices – democracy, philosophy and sport – are more similar than we might initially suspect. They can be described as ‘essentially agonistic social practices’, that is, they are manifestations of ‘agon’ (contest). The possibility to participate in agonistic social practices derives from the human condition, i.e. from the necessity to care for one’s existence, which requires ongoing attention and decision-making, and which sometimes means going against others. We call this character of human existence by the ancient (...) Greek term ‘polemos’ (struggle), which can be manifested through various types of agon. If society cherishes agonistic social practices, it enables its citizens to compete to prove themselves and achieve goals (e.g. to push through a persuasive argument, or to win in sport) in a respectful, peaceful and productive way. Believed to have played a significant role in ancient Greece, agon presents itself in both intellectual and physical forms – in philosophy, democratic politics and sport – suggesting that the relationship between these practices is deep-rooted and significant. This paper explores the idea that developing our understanding of polemos and agon can enhance our experience of agonistic social practices and enable our existence to proceed in a more free, pro-social and enriching way. (shrink)

Finding Time for the Old Stone Age explores a century of colourful debate over the age of our earliest ancestors. In the mid nineteenth century curious stone implements were found alongside the bones of extinct animals. Humans were evidently more ancient than had been supposed - but just how old were they? There were several clocks for Stone-Age time, and it would prove difficult to synchronize them. Conflicting timescales were drawn from the fields of geology, palaeontology, anthropology, (...) and archaeology. Anne O'Connor draws on a wealth of lively, personal correspondence to explain the nature of these arguments. The trail leads from Britain to Continental Europe, Africa, and Asia, and extends beyond the world of professors, museum keepers, and officers of the Geological Survey: wine sellers, diamond merchants, papermakers, and clerks also proposed timescales for the Palaeolithic. This book brings their stories to light for the first time - stories that offer an intriguing insight into how knowledge was built up about the ancient British past. (shrink)

This book is about the philosophy of de-extinction. -/- CHAPTER 1 introduces the two main philosophical questions that are raised by the prospect of extinct species being brought back from the dead—namely, the ‘Authenticity Question’ and the ‘Ethical Question’. It distinguishes the many different types and methods of de-extinction. Finally, it examines the aims of wildlife conservation with a view to whether they are compatible with de-extinction, or not. -/- CHAPTER 2 examines three prime candidates for de-extinction—namely, the aurochs, (...) the woolly mammoth, and the passenger pigeon. It is about what these animals were like, why people want to resurrect them, and the methods by which their resurrections could be accomplished. -/- CHAPTER 3 is about the authenticity of de-extinct animals. Critics of de-extinction have offered many reasons for thinking that the products of de-extinction will be inauthentic. The bulk of the chapter is taken up with surveying their arguments. We attempt to show that none are convincing, and end the chapter by offering and defending two arguments in favour of the view that authentic de-extinctions are possible. -/- CHAPTER 4 surveys and critically evaluates all the main arguments both for and against de-extinction. It presents a qualified defence of the claim that conservationists should embrace de-extinction. It ends with a list of do’s and don’ts for conservationist de-extinction projects. (shrink)

A much-maligned feature of ancient and medieval political thought is its tendency to appeal to nature to establish norms for human communities. From Aristotle's claim that humans are "political animals" to Aquinas' invocation of "natural law," it may seem that pre-modern philosophers were all too ready to assume that whatever is natural is good, and that just political arrangements must somehow be natural. The papers in this collection show that this assumption is, at best, too crude. From very (...) early, for instance in the ancient sophists' contrast between nomos and physis, there was recognition that political arrangements may be precisely artificial, not natural, and it may be questioned whether even such supposed naturalists as Aristotle in fact adopt the quick inference from "natural" to "good." The papers in this volume trace the complex interrelations between nature and such concepts as law, legitimacy, and justice, covering a wide historical range stretching from Plato and the Sophists to Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, Cicero, the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, ancient Christian thinkers, and philosophers of both the Islamic and Christian Middle Ages. (shrink)

Finding Time for the Old Stone Age explores a century of colourful debate over the age of our earliest ancestors. In the mid nineteenth century curious stone implements were found alongside the bones of extinct animals. Humans were evidently more ancient than had been supposed - but just how old were they? There were several clocks for Stone-Age time, and it would prove difficult to synchronize them. Conflicting timescales were drawn from the fields of geology, palaeontology, anthropology, (...) and archaeology. Anne O'Connor draws on a wealth of lively, personal correspondence to explain the nature of these arguments. The trail leads from Britain to Continental Europe, Africa, and Asia, and extends beyond the world of professors, museum keepers, and officers of the Geological Survey: wine sellers, diamond merchants, papermakers, and clerks also proposed timescales for the Palaeolithic. This book brings their stories to light for the first time - stories that offer an intriguing insight into how knowledge was built up about the ancient British past. (shrink)

A leading figure in the emerging field of extinction studies, Thom van Dooren puts philosophy into conversation with the natural sciences and his ethnographic encounters to vivify the cultural and ethical significance of modern-day extinctions. Unlike other meditations on the subject, _Flight Ways_ incorporates the particularities of real animals and their worlds, drawing philosophers, natural scientists, and general readers into the experience of living among and losing biodiversity. Each chapter of _Flight Ways_ focuses on a different species or group (...) of birds: North Pacific albatrosses, Indian vultures, an endangered colony of penguins in Australia, Hawaiian crows, and the iconic whooping cranes of North America. Written in eloquent and moving prose, the book takes stock of what is lost when a life form disappears from the world--the wide-ranging ramifications that ripple out to implicate a number of human and more-than-human others. Van Dooren intimately explores what life is like for those who must live on the edge of extinction, balanced between life and oblivion, taking care of their young and grieving their dead. He bolsters his studies with real-life accounts from scientists and local communities at the forefront of these developments. No longer abstract entities with Latin names, these species become fully realized characters enmeshed in complex and precarious ways of life, sparking our sense of curiosity, concern, and accountability toward others in a rapidly changing world. (shrink)

Drawing on ancient writers, from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and working farmer, Mark Usher compiles in this book an anthology of Greco-Roman passages illustrating how they thought about animals and illuminating they might help us to rethink our relationships with them. Not many contemporary readers will know, for example, the compelling arguments the second century AD Greek philosopher Porphyry makes for vegetarianism, long before a plant-based diet began to garner headlines. Plutarch's serio-comic exposition of the rationality and inherent (...) dignity of non-human creatures-put on the lips of one of Circe's pigs-is so fresh that it sounds like it was formulated just yesterday. The knowledge the poet Theognis derived from Greek sponge divers about the behavior of octopods rivals our contemporary fascination with the octopus. Aristotle's introduction to the scientific study of animal morphology and behavior remains unparalleled for its elegance and insight, and it represents one of the first forays into natural history writing. Seneca, employing an ingenious etymological pun on the word animal, endeavors to show that we humans are morally inferior to our animal cousins, who instinctively know and are satisfied with their place in Nature. The Greeks and Romans, amidst all their magnificent cultural achievements and reckless, destructive behavior, lived closer than most of us to the perils and prospects of their environments. This afforded them a sensitivity to their environments and, in particular, to their fellow creatures that can perhaps help to disabuse us of our disconnectedness from animal life. This small volume demonstrates how astoundingly relevant the ancients still are in this regard. (shrink)

The historical figure of the cow as a symbol is treasured and ancient, yet simultaneously this animal in many societies exists de facto for people’s plates. The cow, like other animals, exists in parts: as treasured symbol, and as commodity. Looking at collections by contemporary Anglophone poets, Ariana Reines, and Selima Hill, I will consider how each writer’s self-reflexive critique of animal representation reorients the material subjects of their poems, intersecting these innovative poetries with contemporary thinkers on animal (...) studies, to realize the limits of a poetic perspective on animal bodies. Both writers work either against or deliberately within a lyric mode critiqued for its objectifying address in order to interrogate modes of rendering that position the animal’s existence as a resource. From Reines’s scatological slaughterhouse to Hill’s surreal landscapes I will explore how the symbolic and literal exploitation of an animal’s “flesh” in their poems is counteracted. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the following four alternative ways of understanding the outcomes of resurrection biology. Implications of each of the ways are discussed with respect to concepts of species and extinction. Replication: animals created by resurrection biology do not belong to the original species but are copies of it. The view is compatible with finality of extinction as well as with certain biological and ecological species concepts. Re-creation: animals created are members of the original species but, (...) despite their existence, the species remains extinct. The view is incompatible with all species concepts presented. Non-extinction: animals produced belong to the original species which actually never went extinct. The view may be consistent with phenetic and phylogenetic species concepts as well as with finality of extinction. According to literal resurrection, resurrection biology is successful in reversing extinction through the creation of new members of species that once went extinct. This view presupposes non-finality of extinction and it is compatible with phenetic species concepts. It is notable that no species or extinction concept is consistent with all possible views of resurrection biology nor is any view of resurrection biology consistent with all species or extinction concepts. Thus, one’s views regarding species and extinction determine which views one can adopt regarding resurrection biology and vice versa. (shrink)

This article, drawing on selected feminist magazines of the 1980s, particularly Feminist Arts News (FAN) and GEN, offers a textual ‘braiding’ of narratives to re-present a history of Black British feminism. I attempt to chart a history of Black British feminist inheritance while proposing the politics of (other)mothering as a politics of potential, pluralistic and democratic community building, where Black thought and everyday living carry a primary and participant role. The personal—mothering our children—is the political, affording a nurturing of alterity (...) through a politics of care that is fundamentally antiracist and antisexist. I attempt to show how Black feminist thought can significantly contribute to democracy in the present and how Black British history and thought, as fundamentally antiracist and anticolonial, can generate a reinvention much needed in the present of a shared British history. I argue for feminist intervention premised upon a politics of care, addressing through activist mothering the urgency of Black absence from prestigious institutions. Such debilitating absence in Britain inhibits the development of scholarship, distorts feminist history and seriously concerns potential Black feminists. From diverse texts, I develop a genealogical narrative supplemented through memory work. This ‘gathering and re-using’ privileges Black women's theorising as a crucial component of the methodological metissage, which includes auto-theorising to develop ideas of resemblance in relation to Black British feminism and feminist kinship. The resultant ‘braiding’, I suggest after Lionnet, questions the absence of intersubjective spaces for reflection on Black British feminist praxis, indicating a direction for British feminists of all complexions. Attentive to the 1980s as historical context while invoking the maternal, I consider what is required to engage generationally, counterwrite the academy and pursue a dynamic process of transformation within a transnational feminism that challenges Black British absence from academic knowledge production, while nurturing its presence. (shrink)

This review essay considers five recent books that address the ethical dimensions of human–animal relations. The books are David Favre, Respecting Animals: A Balanced Approach to our Relationship with Pets, Food, and Wildlife; T. J. Kasperbauer, Subhuman: The Moral Psychology of Human Attitudes to Animals; Ben Minteer, The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De-Extinction, and the Ethics of Conservation; Heather Swanson, Marianne Lien, and Gro Ween, eds., Domestication Gone Wild: Politics and Practices of Multispecies Relations; and Thom van (...) Dooren, The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds. (shrink)

Animals, the beautiful creatures of God in the Stoic and especially in Porphyry’s sense, need to be treated as rational. We know that the Stoics ask for justice for all rational beings, but I think there is no significant proclamation from their side that directly talks in favour of animal justice. They claim the rationality of animals but do not confer any right to human beings. The later Neo-Platonist philosopher Porphyry magnificently deciphers this idea in his writing On (...) Abstinence from Animal Food. Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus thinks that both animals and humans are made up of the same tissues, and like humans, animals have the same perception, reasoning, and appetites. In this paper, I will attempt to show another empathetic ground that considers rational animals as friends or reincarnated relatives of human beings, as Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Theophrastus occasionally put forth in their writings. My next effort would be to decipher how Porphyry illustrates Theophratus’ perspective, not in the way (the technical theory of justice) the Stoics argued. Porphyry’s stance seems more humanistic, looking for the pertinent reasons for treating animal rights from the contention of justice that Aristotle defied since the animals can deal with reasons in his early writings. The paper highlights how much we could make justificatory demand the empathetic concern for animals from the outlook of the mentioned Greek thinkers and modern animal rights thinkers as quasi-right animals, even if my own position undertakes the empathetic ground for animals as an undeserving humanitarian way. (shrink)

T. J. Kasperbauer presents an analysis of the ethics of de-extinction that is fairly distinctive in its focus on the welfare of individual animals. But while he is right to express concerns about individual animal well-being, individualism may not be the most important lens through which to view this issue. If one examines more closely what is at issue in de-extinction technologies in relation to species, additional problems appear that cast doubt both on the legitimacy of de-extinction projects, and (...) on the limited defense of them that Kasperbauer offers. (shrink)

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals: Image, Monument, and Landscape in Ancient North Asia. By Esther Jacobson-Tepfer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xxxiii + 413. $85.

The thylacine was a shy and elusive nonhuman animal who survived in small numbers on the island of Tasmania, Australia, when European settlers arrived in 1803. After a deliberate campaign of eradication, the species disappeared 130 years later. Visual and verbal constructions in the nineteenth century labeled the thylacine a ferocious predator, but photographs of individuals in British and American zoos that were used to illustrate early twentieth-century zoological works presented a very different impression of the animal. The publication of (...) these photographs, however, had little effect on the relentless progress of extermination. This essay focuses on the relationship between photographs of thylacines and the process of extinction, between images and words, and between pictures of dead animals and live ones. The procedures, claims, and limitations of photography are crucial to the messages generated by these images and to the role they played in the representation of the species. This essay explains why the medium of photography and pleas for preservation could not save the thylacine. (shrink)

This article explores the role and modes of operation of metaphorical framing in ancient Greek and modern European and American political discourse. It looks at how concepts such as citizenship, ownership, family, morality, finance, sport, war, domination, human life, and animals are used to reframe political issues in ways promoted by the speaker, and how they may continue to be reshaped in the ongoing political discourse. The analysis of examples of ancient Athenian public rhetoric and of modern (...) European and American political debates reveals the differences and some striking similarities in the ways political and civic values were expressed and reframed in antiquity and how they are used today. This essay also discusses the potential effects of such framing in antiquity and in more recent times. (shrink)

Going beyond the creolisation theories of Brathwaite and Glissant, I attempt to develop ideas concerning the gendering of creolisation, and a historicising of affects within it. Addressing affects as ‘physiological things’ contextualised in the history of the Caribbean slave plantation, I seek, importantly, to delineate a trajectory and development of a specific Creole history in relation to affects. Brathwaite's proposition that ‘the most significant (and lasting) inter-cultural creolisation took place’ within the ‘intimate’ space of ‘sexual relations’ is key to my (...) argument. In the light of this, I consider how Creole cultural knowledge about affect—as the primary motivational system inclusive of fear, anger, outrage and so on — might be identified, and what constitutes such Creole knowledge within which affect might be embedded. How might Glissant's relationality and Creole literary texts add to this knowledge? I focus primarily on three texts: Clarke's The Polished Hoe, Collins’ The Colour of Forgetting and Morejón's ‘Amo a mi amo’/‘l Love My Master’. Each text on which I draw is selected for its intersectional representation of gender relations, ‘knowledge about sexual difference’ and its representation of Creole subjectivities within the context problematised here as the ‘demonic ground’. Moreover, as auto-theorising texts, they represent both narrative and meta-narrative of a creolising of affects in and against the economy of the slave plantation. Each represents also a stage or aspect of the development of subjectivities and an affective community that inform this intervention concerned with theorising against consolidated, universalising and Eurocentric conceptualisations of affect. In the process, I attempt to offer a differentiated cartography and literary archaeology of affect. (shrink)

Evolution is littered with polyphyletic parallelism: many roads lead to functional Romes. We propose consciousness embodies one such example, and represent it here with an equivalence class structure that factors the broad realm of necessary conditions information theoretic realizations of Baars’ global workspace model. The construction suggests many different physiological systems can support rapidly shifting, highly tunable, and even simultaneous temporary assemblages of interacting unconscious cognitive modules. The discovery implies various animal taxa exhibiting behaviors we broadly recognize as conscious are, (...) in fact, expressing different forms of the same underlying phenomenon. The variety of possibilities suggests minds today may be only a small surviving fraction of ancient evolutionary radiations – bush phylogenies of consciousness pruned by selection and chance extinction. Although few traces of the radiations may be found in the fossil record, exaptations and vestiges are scattered across the living mind. (shrink)