The Semiotics of Animal Representations 9789042038271, 9789401210720

Table of contents :
THE SEMIOTICS OF ANIMAL REPRESENTATIONS
Table of contents
The semiotics of animal representations Introduction
PART I FROM SHEPHERDING TO COLONISATION
The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs
Avian aesthetics: The representation of bird song from music to science
Speaking marmots, deaf hunters: Animal−human semiotic breakdown as the imagined cause of the Manchurian pneumonic plague of 1910-11
PART II FROM ILLUSTRATION TO SHOW
Entomological rhetoric and the fabrication of the insect world
" Back on the menu": Humans, insectoid aliens, and the creation of ecophobia in science fiction
Attenborough's natural history films: The evolutionar epic
PART III FROM LIFE WRITING TO NATURE WRITING
Communicating with the cow: Human−animal interaction in written narratives
The representation of sheep in modern Japanese literature from Natsume Sōseki to Murakami Haruki
Animal representation in the Harry Poter series
Like a fish out of water: Literary representations of fish
PART IV FROM MIND TO VALUE
Thought without concepts in Angels and Insects: A.S. Byatt as srypto-biosemiotician
A Peircean semiotic model for describing the anti-Oedipal structure of "humanimal" selves
The (proto-)ethical significance of semiosis: When and how does one become somebody who matters?
List of contributors
Index

Citation preview

The Semiotics of Animal Representations

Nature, Culture and Literature 10

General Editors: Hubert van den Berg (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) Axel Goodbody (University of Bath) Marcel Wissenburg (Radboud University Nijmegen)

Advisory Board: Jonathan Bate (University of Warwick) Hartmut Böhme (Humboldt University, Berlin) Heinrich Detering (University of Göttingen) Andrew Dobson (Keele University) Marius de Geus (Leiden University) Terry Gifford (Bath Spa University and University of Alicante) Demetri Kantarelis (Assumption College, Worcester MA) Richard Kerridge (Bath Spa University College) Michiel Korthals (Wageningen University) Svend Erik Larsen (University of Aarhus) Patrick Murphy (University of Central Florida) Kate Rigby (Monash University) Avner de-Shalit (Hebrew University Jerusalem) Piers Stephens (University of Georgia) Nina Witoszek (University of Oslo)

The Semiotics of Animal Representations

Edited by

Kadri Tüür and Morten Tønnessen

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2014

Cover photo: Winter counterpoint (2011) by Remo Savisaar / www.moment.ee The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3827-1 E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-1072-0 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2014 Printed in the Netherlands

Table of contents

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür ± The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

7

PART I: FROM SHEPHERDING TO COLONISATION Louise Westling ± The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

33

David Rothenberg ± Avian aesthetics: The representation of bird song from music to science

53

Christos Lynteris ± Speaking marmots, deaf hunters: Animal±human semiotic breakdown as the imagined cause of the Manchurian pneumonic plague of 1910±11

75

PART II: FROM ILLUSTRATION TO SHOW Adam Dodd ± Entomological rhetoric and the fabrication of the insect world

97

Larissa Budde ± ³%DFNRQWKHPHQX´Humans, insectoid aliens and the creation of ecophobia in science fiction

125

Graham Huggan ± AttenboURXJK¶VQDWXUDOKLVWRU\ films: The evolutionary epic

159

6

PART III: FROM LIFE WRITING TO NATURE WRITING Taija Kaarlenkaski ± Communicating with the cow: Human±animal interaction in written narratives

191

Maki Eguchi ± The representation of sheep in modern -DSDQHVHOLWHUDWXUHIURP1DWVXPH6ǀVHNLWR Murakami Haruki

217

Sandra Mänty ± Animal representation in the Harry Potter series

239

Kadri Tüür ± Like a fish out of water: Literary representations of fish

263

PART IV: FROM MIND TO VALUE Wendy Wheeler ± Thought without concepts in Angels and Insects: A.S. Byatt as crypto-biosemiotician

291

W. John Coletta ± A Peircean semiotic model for describing the anti-2HGLSDOVWUXFWXUHRI³KXPDQLPDO´ selves

313

Ralph R. Acampora ± The (proto-)ethical significance of semiosis: When and how does one become somebody who matters?

343

List of contributors

363

Index

367

The semiotics of animal representations Introduction Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür 1. Re-presenting animals In a cultural context, the manner in which we represent animals says a lot about who we are, or who we strive to be, and what we are conflicted about. Whether the animal is constructed as the radical other or someone with whom we can relate and feel kinship, describing animals in popular culture is often ± if not always ± a way to indirectly describe ourselves. Our identity as humans is intimately tied to that of the animals, whether these two are identified or defined LQ RSSRVLWLRQ :KHWKHU µPDQ¶ LH RXU VXEVSHFLHV Homo sapiens sapiens) represents itself as animal or non-animal, über-DQLPDORU³RXW RI WKLV ZRUOG´ DQ LPPDQHQW FUHDWXUH ZKLFK LV SDUW RI QDWXUH RU D transcendent being incomparable to the rest of the living, reflection on animal representations is, in the context of human understanding, ultimately self-reflection. With contributions from seven countries on three continents, we believe that this collection of essays comprises an eloquent and reasonably representative portrayal of current and modern analysis of animal representations. The chapters are elaborated by scholars brought together by the first international conference ever devoted explicitly to zoosemiotics, Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations, arranged in Tartu, Estonia, April 4±8, 2011. Methodologies applied include philosophical, ecocritical, autobiographical, postcolonial, historical, and phenomenological research. All these approaches are tied together by a common understanding of semiotics as an analytical tool enabling us to conceptualise the meaning of animals, as well as the meaning in animals and in animal lives. Some subjects of inquiry

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Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

recur in different chapters. The protagonists and antagonists treated ± besides humans ± include insects and birds, sheep and dogs, fish and marmots ± just a small selection of our fellow species, for whom our mutual understanding may often prove to be a matter of life and death. With the following chapters we hope to demonstrate that the explanatory power of zoosemiotics, combined with the array of the aforementioned approaches in the study of animal representations, may offer some new and exciting perspectives in our still long way to mutual understanding with animals. While applying a range of different theories and methodologies, this book is grounded in a rich semiotic approach to the study of animal representations. The semiotic toolbox provides scholars from various backgrounds with means to analyse phenomena that can be approached from both sides of the traditional nature/culture divide ± not least due to the emerging academic fields of biosemiotics and ecosemiotics. In these, plus zoosemiotics ± originally framed as the semiotics of animal communication1 ± the study constituted by semiotics of animal representations has a firm scientific outlook (if still in development) at its base. To put it simply, this outlook is essentially equivalent with the idea that animals and other biological organisms, and ecosystems, can usefully be studied from the perspective of communication, signification, and representation ± in short, from the perspective of meaning generation. Zoosemiotic theory finds its basis in the works of Jakob von Uexküll (1864±1944), Thomas Sebeok (1920±2001), and others (see Uexküll 1909, 1928, 1956, 2010; Sebeok 1972, 1990; and Maran et al. HGV  8H[NOO¶VQRWLRQRIUmwelt, the experiential world of an organism, helps us to conceptualise the world as known or modelled by an individual organism, and the relations an organism has in an ecosystem. Considered in the proposed framework, studies of popular

1

0DUWLQHOOL ZULWHVWKDW³>L@QYLHZRIQHZGHYHORSPHQWLQWKLVILHOGRILQTXLU\ zoosemiotics can be defined today as the study of semiosis within and across animal VSHFLHV´7KDWLVIDLUO\H[DFWEXWQRWTXLWHDVLWDSSHDUVWROHDYHRXWDOOVLJQH[FKDQJH LQYROYLQJ DQLPDOV¶ FRPPXQLRQ ZLWK QRQ-DQLPDOV LQFOXGLQJ DQLPDOV¶ SHUFHSWLRQ RI vegetation). Alternatively, for the specific purpose of this volume, we could define zoosemiotics as the study of all semiosis involving animals one way or another (whether as subjects of semiosis or as objects of semiosis).

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

9

culture, literary studies, and related fields can be regarded as life sciences in a more-than-human sense. 2 ³7KH UDGLFDO HVVHQFH RI WKH ELRVHPLRWLFV RI WKH 8H[NOOV´ VD\V semiotician Eero Tarasti (Nöth et al. 2008: 529±530) with reference to Jakob von Uexküll and his son Thure von Uexküll (1908± ³KDV EHHQ WKDW PDQ¶V V\PEROLF VLJQLI\LQJ DFWLYLWLHV DUH QRW UHGXFLEOH WR biology ± as [they have] been in sociobiology ± but that, quite the reverse, all biological and organic processes are processes of VHPLRVLV´ &XOWXUDO WKHRULVW :HQG\ :KHHOHU ZKR FRQWULEXWHV WR WKLV YROXPH VWDWHV WKDW ³>Z@KDW ZH OHDUQ IURP FRPSOH[LW\ WKHRU\ DQG VFLHQFH>«@LVWKDWKXPDQcreatures simply cannot be properly understood as the isolated, rationally choosing, self-maximisers so beloved of liberal politics and poOLWLFDO HFRQRP\´ :KHHOHU  34). With WKH GHYHORSPHQW RI ELRVHPLRWLFV VKH KROGV   ³ZH DUH LQ D position to think again about the biological and semiotic life of human beings in non-UHGXFWLYH ZD\V´ %LRVHPLRWLFV WKXV SURYLGHV D ZRUOG view potentially critical vis-à-vis a more modern, excessively rationalistic world view in which a human monopoly is assumed with regard to any kind of agency worthy of our attention. Seen against this theoretical background, the study of animal representations is truly the study of the anima VRXO  ³DV $ULVWRWOH RULJLQDOO\ XVHG the term meaning the animating principle of what we would, these days, call living self-RUJDQL]DWLRQRUDXWRSRLHVLV ´)DYDUHDX  The book is divided into four sections that cover different aspects of the diverse array of human±animal relations and representations. The sequence of the chapters of this collection is determined by the specific approach and methodology used in each particular case, by the themes treated (including the choice of study animals), and by abductive (associative) reasoning. Links between the chapters stem from the material itself as well as from the methods used. The FRQWULEXWRUV¶DQDO\VLVDQGDUJXPHQWDWLRQ-building varies considerably, 2

For a recent account of literary animal representations, see McHugh 2011, which argues (5, cf. 211±  IRU D µQDUUDWLYH HWKRORJ\¶ WKDW ³VXJJHVWV DQ LUUHGXFLEO\ relational ethics, a way of valuing social and aesthetic forms together as sustaining FRQGLWLRQV RI DQG IRU PL[HG FRPPXQLWLHV´ 0F+XJK DOVR ZULWHV    WKDW KHU ³RYHUDOODLPLVto show how certain engagements with narrative configure people and animals as working together to do things that do not add up to a sum of individual HIIRUWVDQGVRLQYLWHPRUHSUHFLVHFRQVLGHUDWLRQVRIDJHQF\DQGQDUUDWLYHIRUP´

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Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

given that they come from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds. But the common interest in questions concerning how nonhuman creatures appear in the midst of human culture connects the research of the present volume. 7KH ERRN RSHQV ZLWK WKH VHFWLRQ ³)URP VKHSKHUGLQJ WR coloniVDWLRQ´ ZKLFK presents three accessible chapters that introduce the reader to some of our key themes, with a bearing on the nature of animals and of human±animal interaction and conviviality, as well as on the character of our human perceptions of animals. The articles focus on real animals and their role in human cultural practices, including husbandry, aesthetic appreciation, and political struggles. 7KH VHFRQG VHFWLRQ ³)URP LOOXVWUDWLRQ WR VKRZ´ LV GHYRWHG WR manners of representation and to the cultural implications of particular representation practices in illustrated books, science fiction movies, and nature documentaries. 2XU WKLUG VHFWLRQ ³)URP OLIH ZULWLQJ WR QDWXUH ZULWLQJ´ H[SORUHV animal representations in various forms of literature: in autobiographical writing, in modern fiction and fantasy, and in nature writing. Insights into the human±animal relations in this section are based on textual analysis rather than on direct observation of the lifeworld. Meta-level reflections continue in the fourth and final part of the book, ³)URPPLQGWRYDOXH´ZKLFK HQYHORSV³hard-core WKHRU\´7KLV part of the collection emphasises the potential of the semiotic approach in the study of animals. The contributions here stand out by not treating case studies, but engaging in theory development that is necessary for advancing our understanding of how we as humans (re)present animals and animality. They advance critical and enlightening perspectives on what animals are and how we do or should treat them, echoing in each their way eco-phenomenologist 'DYLG $EUDP¶V DVVHUWLRQ  L[  WKDW ³ZH DUH KXPDQ RQO\ LQ contact, and conviviality, with what is not human´. Acampora, like Westling in the first section of the volume, provokes us to rethink our immediate, habitual representations of animals, not by addressing animal representations as such, but by portraying animals as responsive beings and reminding us that we as human beings are ± or should be ± responsible beings, too. We hope this book will open new and exciting perspectives in zoosemiotics and related fields of

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

11

academic research and serve as a link of considerable importance in the expanding body of semiotically informed study of animal representations. 2. Key notions: semiotics, representation, animal Scholarly communication across different fields can be efficient only if the terms used are clearly defined, to help making links and thinking DORQJ7KHWHUP µUHSUHVHQWDWLRQ¶FDQEHUHJDUGHGDVDJHQHUDO QRWLRQ as well as a semiotic term. In the following, we proceed along the lines of semiotic thought. The scholarly field of semiotics is a fitting overall perspective for the study of animal representations because it deals with the world in terms of meaning and significance. In semiotic terminology, µUHSUHVenWDWLRQV¶ FRQVWLWXWH D FODVs of meaning-relations which is SDUDOOHOHGE\WKH FODVVHVRI µVLJQLILFDWLRQ¶DQGµFRPPXQLFDWLRQ¶7KH phenomenon of representation is different from communication in that it does not involve mutual sign exchange, and it differs from signification in that it is typically symbolic, i.e. conventional (arbitrary). That said, the way we represent reality tends to influence the way we perceive reality (we only see what we are looking for), DQG LQ WKLV VHQVH UHSUHVHQWDWLRQV DUH QR OHVV UHODWHG WR ³KDUGFRUH reality´WKDQLVVLJQLILFDWLRQ,QKXPDQOLIHWKHUHLVQRVXFKWKLQJDVD neutral or uncultured flow of signification. Thus, the representations we rely on do to a large extent shape our respective human Umwelten, i.e. our species- and individual-specific models of the world as perceived and as an arena for action. In a fundamental sense, any Umwelt LVVRPHSDUWLFXODUOLYLQJEHLQJ¶VUHSUHVHQWDWLRQRIWKDWDVSHFW of its surroundings which it experiences as being relevant to its current agenda (this idea is introduced in Uexküll 1909, elaborately described in Uexküll 1928, and portrayed in a more popular form in Uexküll 1956 [1934/1940], recently published in English as Uexküll 2010). Animal Umwelten in general can typically be associated first and foremost with signification and further with communication as signified, but the human Umwelt stands out as a lifeworld that is perhaps just as much constituted by representations in a strict sense. At no point in history has this been truer than in our modern-day age of media.

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The three categories of communication, signification, and representation correspond to those applied by Martinelli (2010, part 1.1) in his overview of zoosemiotics and of semiotic phenomena in general. While semiosis is understood in terms of senders and receivers of signs, communication can be understood as sign exchange between a sender and a receiver, signification as semiosis in the absence of a true sender (rather, this is semiosis of the receiver only), and representation as semiosis absent of a true receiver (rather, this is semiosis of the sender only). )RUDQH[DPSOHFRQVLGHUZROYHV¶KDELWRIVFHQW-marking territories and land beyond that by way of urination. In the world of wolves, these odour signs are very central, and telling of the presence, whereabouts, and circumstances of conspecifics known and unknown. For an excellent classical introduction to scent-marking in wolves, see 3HWHUV DQG 0HFK  $V WKH\ KLJKOLJKW    ³WKH FKDUDFteristics of a [Raised-Leg Urination] mark imply that its major function is the production of a prominent, long-lasting olfactory and YLVXDOVLJQDO´,QVRIDUDVWKLVPDUNLVPDGHZLWKWKDWLQWHQWWKHVLJQ exchange involved is an act of communication, because it is intended as sign exchange between two or more individuals. Further, when such a mark is being perceived by any competent wolf, man, or other creature, the sign exchange involved at this point constitutes signification, because at this juncture the semiosis has been induced by some other agent (namely that wolf), but now happens in the mind of someone else. And finally, when a scent mark is in effect being construed by a wolf as a sign of its presence (think of the act of raising its leg etc.), the sign exchange involved constitutes representation, namely of its presence at this exact point of time at this exact location. In a cultural context, human representations of animals, i.e. animal representations as treated in this volume, are of course both construed DVLIE\DµVHQGHU¶ DQGRIWHQ, if not always, perceived and interpreted DV LI E\ D µUHFHLYHU¶  7KH UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ of some animal, by some human(s), is conducted in the process, which taken as a whole might involve both representation and signification (the latter in the cases where the animal representation construed is being perceived and interpreted), in some cases even communication (whenever animal representations are subjected to intra- or interspecific communication). :KHWKHU WKHUH LV DOZD\V D µIXUU\¶ YHU\ PXFK UHDO DQLPDO WKDW

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

13

corresponds to a given animal representation, is an open question, insofar as animal representations may also involve fantasy creatures with vaguer or fuzzier ancestors in real life terms. Meaning, basically, is created through interaction between the VLJQLI\LQJREMHFWLWVVLJQDQGLWVLQWHUSUHWDQWLH³DUHVSRQVHWRWKH sign that the sign elicits and in which that sign is taken to be a sign of DQ REMHFW´ ± Short 2007: 18). It is the interrelations of these three components that result in the sign processes (or semiosis ± the action of signs) through which the world is accessible to us as living beings. In terms of perception the meaningful world may be described in WHUPVRI8H[NOO¶V Umwelt. The Umwelt of a particular creature ± be it an individual organism, a population, a species, or a differently categorised life form ± is its subjective world, informed by sensation and its processing, as perceived by the creature itself. 3 As such it appears on the level of the individual, i.e. of the organism, rather than on sub- or super-organismic levels (which constitute lower and higher levels of biological organisation respectively). As Uexküll was well aware, nature is further perfused with more minute signs which we may categorise en masse as bodily semiosis (or somatic semiosis, suborganismic or as we may also say, intraorganismic semiosis). 3HUFHSWLRQ TXD VHPLRVLV LV FRQVWLWXWHG E\ DQ DQLPDO PLQG¶V persistently agenda-driven selection and further processing of such bodily semiosis. At yet higher levels of biological organisation we find what we could categorise as ecological semiosis, namely super-

As Dario Martinelli (2009: 20±  REVHUYHV ´>W@KH Umwelt theory constitutes the RYHUFRPLQJRIROGDQGLQDGHTXDWHZD\VWRDSSURDFKWKHQRQKXPDQ>«@VHPLRVLVLH gradualism and discontinuity. To start with, to adopt the Umwelt theory means to defend the thesis of a pluraliVWLF LQWHUSUHWDWLRQ RI 1DWXUH³ $V 8H[NOO KLPVHOI repeatedly underlined, there is a plurality of Umwelten, and each particular form of life must be understood in light of its own Umwelt, its own perceptual and behavioural realm. The rejection of gradualism ± an idea that Martinelli associates with a Darwinian-style evolutionary continuum, and of discontinuity ± the idea that the human kind is simply incomparable to other living beings ± does not imply any belittling of either Darwin (or evolutionary theory as such) or of unique human qualities, or indeed human dignity. Instead, it involves a positive emphasis on pluralism as a fitting frame for a biologically informed worldview. The pluralistic interpretation of nature and the life processes is therefore a sound foundation for (a biosemiotic) ontology as well as for (a biosemiotic) ethics.

3

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organismic semiosis (which may of course include a measure of interorganismic semiosis, be it intraspecific or interspecific). We may thus conceive of the semiosphere (introduced by Lotman

Figure 1. Typology of biosemiosis (concerning sign exchange in the realm of the living) according to three classes of meaning-relations and three main levels of biological organisation. Partly based on Tønnessen 2011: 21. 2005 [1984], reconceptualised as a biosemiotic term in Hoffmeyer 1996) that is nature in terms of three types of semiosis (or classes of meaning-UHODWLRQV WKHVLJQ¶VWKUHHDVSHFWVDQGWKUHHEDVLFOHYHOV RI biological organisation. This understanding of semiotics, which is Peircean rather than Saussurean (though not following Peirce in detail), is fairly if not altogether representative for current biosemiotic

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

15

thinking. Of these nine categories, six can constructively be combined to form a methodological table.4 As we see here, the phenomena of signification, communication, and representation can be said to occur at all three main levels of biological organisation.5 Communication, for instance, can take place in between individual organisms, but also within an organism, and at higher levels of biological organisation such as ecosystems (e.g. in mass settings). Similarly, signification and representation are both widely associated first and foremost with individual animal or human minds, but such sign exchange occurs at the bodily and at the ecological level as well. The first assertion is true because if e.g. cells communicate ± and they do ± then implicitly they are also subjects of signification, and are in effect able to construe representations. Our second assertion must be true because the mental and other processes underlying signification and representation are to some extent distributed among individuals (see Cowley et al. 2010). And if they are, it arguably means that how we experience signification and construe representations is somewhat distributed, e.g. ecological, as well ± in other words, we are not cognitively self-sufficient. Our constructs and our interpretations are co-made with others. To return to our example involving scent-marking in wolves, we quite plainly see that this phenomenon can in all three aspects (qua communication with others, signification of some implied message, and representation of intended message) be approached at a bodily, individual/organismic, and ecological level respectively. 4

It makes less sense in this foundational context to isolate the three main aspects of the sign, since these only do their semiotic work in concert. 5 It should be noted that the division of the realm of the living into three main levels of biological organisation is contextual in that this categorisation is perspectivedependent. In consequence, a particular sign exchange may e.g. be organismic (perceptual) from the point of view of bacteria within the human body, but suborganismic (bodily) from the point of view of the human subject. In a similar vein ZKDWFRXQWVDVµHFRORJLFDOVHPLRVLV¶GHSends on the perspective taken. In fact, we can concisely summarise how these categories of biosemiosis relate to any given perspective with regard to the sub-, super- DQG RUJDQLVPLF OHYHO :KLOH µERGLO\ VHPLRVLV¶DSSOLHVWRDQ\VLJQH[FKDQJHRFFXUULQJDWORZHUOHYHOVWKDQWKHSHUVSHFWLYH FKRVHQDQGµSHUFHSWXDOVHPLRVLV¶WRDQ\VLJQH[FKDQJHRFFXUULQJDWWKHVDPHOHYHODV WKHSHUVSHFWLYHFKRVHQµHFRORJLFDOVHPLRVLV¶DSSOLHVWRDQ\VLJQH[FKDQJHRFFXUULQJ at higher levels than the perspective chosen.

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The central topic of this book, animal representations, is of course located within the larger category of representational semiosis, but even this is too wide a designation, since animal representations do not directly involve any sub-organismic semiosis. Our topic is thus dominated by two of the nine categories of biosemiosis just sketched ± marked in Figure 1 as Rep(Org)Semio (i.e., representational organismic semiosis, such as the perception of sheep in a certain culture) and Rep(OrgSup)Semio (i.e., representational super-organismic semiosis, such as hunter-marmot interaction) respectively. Animal representations can, thus understood, be taken to constitute either perceptual semiosis (i.e., semiosis at the level of the organism as a whole) or ecological semiosis (i.e., semiosis at levels exceeding that of the individual organism). Of these, perceptual semiosis may at first sight appear to be the most relevant category, since human representations of animals are typically construed by some human individuals and subsequently perceived by others. In general, the semiosis involved in the making and understanding of animal representations is perceptual insofar as the emphasis is on their reception (or indeed perception). Conversely, the semiosis involved in animal representations is ecological insofar as the emphasis in the study of them is on their more-than-individual (e.g. mass, distributed) origin. The latter stress is justified whenever one aims at describing something akin to the collective psyche of a particular group. As we plainly see, the distinction between perceptual and ecological biosemiosis is in the human case as fuzzy as is the real-life border between easily identifiable origins of ideas etc. and more diffuse origins jumbled together under a catchphrase such as µcultural influence¶. Drawing a sharper distinction would amount to improving our (collective) self-understanding. The typology in Figure 1 presupposes that all organismic semiosis ± i.e., all sign exchange occurring at the level of the organism (as a whole) ± is perceptual. In other words, we propose that all organismic semiosis may be considered as perception. This stance may be said to be Uexküllian, and it implies that what we usually conceive of as animals are not the only living beings capable of perception (or indeed constituted by perceiving). In line with Uexküllian thinking, even unicellular organisms qualify, qua VXEMHFWV FDSDEOH RI µSHUFHLYLQJ¶ signs, as living beings capable of perception. This notion of perception

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

17

is much wider than the commonplace notion. Since perception can, thus conceptualised, be conceived of as either significational, communicational, or representational, it furthermore involves impressions and experiences which by far exceed direct encounters with other living beings ± for instance, memories and fantasies can also be regarded as instances of perception (cf. Tønnessen 2011: 81± 82).6 What, now, of the animal? In the light of semiotics of nature ± an umbrella term for zoosemiotics, ecosemiotics, and biosemiotics ± an animal is, importantly, a creature with (or rather in) an Umwelt, i.e. a subjective experiential world. For Uexküll, the Umwelt concept GHYHORSHGIURPEHLQJWKHVXEMHFWLYHZRUOGRUµZRUOGRIDSSHDUDQFHV¶ (German Erscheinungswelt), of a living creature (Uexküll 1909), to being the subjective world of an animal (Uexküll 1928, 1956 [1934, 1940]). In his last volume of significant theoretical interest, Bedeutungslehre  >@ FI ³7KHRU\ RI PHDQLQJ´ 8H[NOO 2010), the Umwelt of an animal is placed alongside the Wohnhülle >µ'ZHOOLQJ-VKHOO¶± see 2010: 146±150; cf. Uexküll 1956 [1940]: 110± 113] of a plant. This changes the claim as to how extensively the notion of Umwelt applies, and places the animal Umwelt under the more general category of phenomenal worlds of living creatures. Whereas initially Uexküll held that all living beings have, or dwell in, Umwelten, he eventually held that all living beings have, or dwell in, phenomenal worlds (lifeworlds), some of which are Umwelten. A difference between an Umwelt and a Wohnhülle appears to be that the former is much more organised and centralised, whereas the latter is much more diffuse, at least from our human perspective. Now, in 8H[NOO¶VWLPHWKHDQLPDONLQJGRPZDVW\SLFDOO\FRQFHLYHGRIDVRQH out of two kingdoms of life (alongside the plant kingdom), whereas 6

*LYHQWKDWLQWKLVYROXPHµDQLPDOUHSUHVHQWDWLRQV¶PHDQVKXPDQUHSUHVHQWDWLRQVRI DQLPDOVRXUFXUUHQWWRSLFLVQRWLGHQWLFDOZLWKµDQLPDOUHSUHVHQWDWLRQV¶XQGHUVWRRGLQ DZLGHUVHQVH&RQVLGHUIRULQVWDQFHWKHSURVSHFWLYHWRSLFRIDQLPDOV¶UHSUHVHQWDWLRQV RIKXPDQVLHµKXPDQUHSUHVHQWDWLRQV¶IURP the point of view of some animal), thus encapsulating the ways in which we humans are collectively or individually represented by certain figures in the Umwelten of various animals. These perceptions, WRRDUHLQDVHQVHDQWKURSRJHQLF0DQ\RIWKHVHµKXPDQUHSUHVHQWDWLRQV¶DUHDUJXDEO\ ³VLJQV RI GDQJHU´ ± at least in the case of many wild animals. Friendly, responsive KXPDQ UHSUHVHQWDWLRQV KHOG E\ DQLPDOV PXVW DV D UXOH EH FRQWLQJHQW RQ DQLPDOV¶ experience with comparably friendly human behaviour in encounters with the human kind.

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Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

nowadays notions of five or six kingdoms of life are commonplace. His various examples, several of which feature unicellular creatures, nevertheless make it clear that in his understanding the term and the model of the Umwelt applied to more life forms than those that we regard as animals in a modern sense of the word (which would have excluded the Prokaryota kingdom of Monera and the Eukaryota kingdom of Protista, in addition to the clearly non-animal kingdoms of Plantae and Fungi). Contemporary biosemioticians disagree as to whether or not µUmwelt¶ VKRXOG EH DSSOLHG DV D XQLYHUVDO WHUP 6RPH LQFOXGLQJ DV prominent a biosemiotician as Jesper Hoffmeyer (2004), think that it refers first of all if not only to animals with a nervous system. Uexküll (see particularly Uexküll 1928) for his part was clear in underlining the difference between the subjective worlds of animals with a nervous system, and those without such perceptual infrastructure ± but never stated that animals bereft of a nervous system were bereft of an Umwelt. Again, what is an animal? Apparently this question is just as tricky as the eternal question of what a human being amounts to. It is no coincidence that these two questions are forever debated, as we largely define our own, human kind in opposition to the animal. The human animal can thus be defined as the animal that does not want to be an animal. The ambiguous status not onl\ RI DQLPDOV ³LQ WKH ZURQJ SODFH´± as we frequently perceive them to be ± but even of the term µDQLPDO¶ LWVHOI LV WHOOLQJ RI RXU GRXEWV vis-à-vis ourselves. What science has to say about the matter has already been alluded to (and from this it should be clear that there are scientific animal representations as well, i.e. that scientific notions of animals as well go beyond mere appearances, or in other words unmediated signification). The contributions of this volume furthermore constitute proof that our cultural images of various animals are in continuous development. What does the animal represent? And what is it that represents animals?

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

19

3. A benevolent triangle of semiotic theory: zoosemiotics, biosemiotics, and ecosemiotics Biosemiotics is the study of living systems as sign systems, or the semiotic study of topics of biology. In broader terms the various brands of semiotics of nature include zoosemiotics (semiotic zoology) and ecosemiotics (semiotic ecology and/or semiotic human ecology) in addition to biosemiotics (semiotic biology). A basic idea of semiotics of nature is that the sign in its various manifestations constitutes a real-world entity (or process) in the realm of the living. Signs are thus not as such merely human phantom entities, nor merely animal phantom entities for that matter (though the wide-reaching realm of signs ± the semiosphere at large ± admittedly counts a multitude of ghostlike phenomena among its members as well). The reality of signs, and of Umwelten, implies that living beings are enmeshed in worlds of meaningful, significant phenomena and occurrences at several levels of biological organisation (cf. Figure 1). From a philosophical point of view the biosemiotic perspective has intriguing though debated implications for ontology, for epistemology and philosophy of science, and for ethics. What is at stake is the QDWXUH RI NH\ SKHQRPHQD LQFOXGLQJ µVXEMHFWLYLW\¶ µDJHQF\¶ µPLQG¶, DQGLQGHHGµUHDOLW\¶ TKH WHUP µ]RRVHPLRWLFV¶ ZDV FRLQHG E\ 7KRPDV 6HEeok in 1963 6HEHRN   µ%LRVHPLRWLFV¶ for its part was coincidentally coined the year before (Rothschild 1962), but this latter coinage was for a long time unknown to both biologists and semioticians. According to Rothschild (1962: 777), a psychiatrist, the biosemiotic approach ³SUHVXSSRVHV DFFHSWDQFH RI RXU SRVLWLRQ WKDW WKH KLVWRU\ RI subjectivity does not start with man, but that the human spirit was preceded by many preliminary stages in the evoluWLRQ RI DQLPDOV´ %LRVHPLRWLFV LQ KLV UHQGHULQJ FRXOG EH ³D WKHRU\ DQG LWV PHWKRGV which follows the model of the semiotic of language. It investigates the communication processes of life that convey meaning in analogy WR ODQJXDJH´ %LRVHPLRWLFV DUJXDEO\ started taking off in the 1980s (see e.g. Anderson et al. 1984) ± again with Sebeok as a key player (for histories of biosemiotics, see Favareau 2010 and Barbieri 2009). Kull (1999b: 128) argues that biosemiotics

20

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür as a discipline, as a field, was born not much earlier than at the beginning of the 1990s, since this is the decade, when the name was taken into use in the titles of books and conferences, when an international society-like group of people appeared who regularly met and made attempts to approximDWH WR HDFK RWKHU¶V terminology, when the first university courses on the subject appeared, and when the history of the field was first reviewed[.]

Biosemiotics as a domain came into being much earlier, according to Kull, and was certainly established by the first decades of the twentieth century (cf. Kull 1999a). Returning to zoosemiotics, Timo Maran (2010b: 315), who has become a central chronicler of zoosemiotics and uses precise historiography as a launching pad for foundational theoretical reflections REVHUYHV WKDW ³]RRVHPLRWLFV DQG cognitive ethology have common roots in comparative studies of DQLPDO FRPPXQLFDWLRQ LQ WKH HDUO\ V´ +RZHYHU GLVDJUHHPHQW over interspecies language experiments soon emerged as a symptom of deeper differences between 6HEHRNDQG HJ'RQDOG*ULIILQ³7KLV GLVDJUHHPHQW´ 0DUDQ VXJJHVWV E   ³KDV EHHQ WKH PDLQ UHDVRQIRUWKHFULWLFDOUHFHSWLRQDQGODWHUQHJOHFWRI6HEHRN¶VZRUNVLQ FRJQLWLYHHWKRORJ\´0DUDQ¶VDUWLFOHE±326) further details 6HEHRN¶V QRWLRQ RI D OD\HUHG µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶7, a term which Sebeok intended as applicable in animal studies. Maran (2010b: 319) divides 6HEHRN¶VZULWLQJVLQWRWZRSHULRGVILUVWDFODVVLFDOSHULRGFI6HEHRN 1972) and then a philosophical period (cf. Sebeok 1990) ± after which 6HEHRN¶VLQWHUHVWWXUQHGWRGHYHORSPHQWRIELRVHPLRWLFVDWODUJH We agree with contemporary zoosemiotician Dario Martinelli that (if we may phrase it freely) the mission of zoosemiotics, in its relation to the humanities, is twofold: first, to examine whether properties that have been conceived of as uniquely human are in fact so, or whether they appear in the animal kingdom (or even larger realms of life) beyond humanity as well. And second, to examine the role of animals in human life and culture. The first field of inquiry ± the investigation into properties that might or might not turn out to be uniquely human ± was pursued somewhat by Thomas Sebeok, the founder of zoosemiotics, as well ± though he was uncompromising in claiming that language is uniquely human, and distinguished sharply between 7

$ FRQFHSW WUHDWHG SDUWLFXODUO\ ZLWK UHIHUHQFH WR 1RUEHUW :LOH\ LQ &ROHWWD¶V contribution to this volume.

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

21

language (as human) and animal communication. However, he introduced (Sebeok 1981: 216) a simple typology of aesthetic propensities of animals, involving (1) kinaesthetic signs, (2) musical signs, (3) pictorial signs, and (4) architectural signs. The latter field of study, which involves everything from animal representations to actual ecological human±animal interaction, is partly covered by the notion Human±Animal Studies (but perhaps somewhat differently conceived of by zoosemioticians). Martinelli has stressed that there are both ethological zoosemiotics and anthropological zoosemiotics, and that the field is thus associated with natural sciences and with human sciences respectively. After initially presenting zoosemiotics as more or less synonymous with an interdisciplinary study of animal communication, Sebeok eventually held that zoosemiotics should be understood as including, besides animal topics, only those aspects of human life and activities that were RI DQ µDQLPDO¶ FKDUDFWHU LH QRQYHUEDO FRPPXQLFDWLRQ  EXW excluding language and associated phenomena.8 Martinelli, on the other hand, has argued that all of human life, and all human activities, should be regarded as relevant in principle for zoosemiotic study, particularly in the context of human±animal interaction.9 In this respect we side with Martinelli. One good reason for conceiving of anthropological zoosemiotics as important for future zoosemiotic work is that as dominant as human kind is in ecological terms in our contemporary world, leaving humans out of our studies of animal lives would in many cases imply neglecting significant factors related to their actual living conditions. 8

³=RRVHPLRWLFVDFFRUGLQJWR6HEHRN´Maran (2010b: 322) writes, ³LVDFRPSDUDWLYH discipline of semiosis and communication in animals, whereas linguistics and literary studies can be considered as specific disciplines interested only in the communicative FDSDELOLWLHVRIRQHVSHFLHV´ 9 He also presents anthropologiFDO ]RRVHPLRWLFV DV D VWXG\ RI ³the problem of the DSSURDFK´0DUWLQHOOLSDUW RUDVZHPD\SHUKDSVVD\DSUREOHPDWLVDWLRQRI or reflection on the human perspective on animals. As detailed in Martinelli 2010, part  LQ 0DUWLQHOOL¶V YLHZWKHSUREOHPV RI DQWKURSRORJLFDO ]RRVHPLRWLFV LQFOXde both problems of a communicational character and problems of a significational/representational character. The first of these includes interspecies communication and applied zoosemiotics (i.e., in the context of anthropological zoosemiotics, actual human±animal interaction), the latter envelops everything from myths, tales, and allegories to ethical and systematic classifications involving animals.

22

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

Our positive attitude to anthropological zoosemiotics is reflected in the very choice of topic for this volume, given that animal representations, understood as human representations of animals, constitute an important theme in that exact branch of zoosemiotics. Our view on zoosemiotics as being more-than-ethological furthermore makes it evident that zoosemiotics as we conceive of it is aligned with ecosemiotics. While Winfried Nöth (1998; cf. 1996) defines ecosemiotics as the study of the semiotic interrelations between organisms and their environment, according to Kalevi Kull (1998:   LW LV ³WKH VHPLRWLFV RI WKH UHODWLRQVKLSV EHWZHHQ QDWXUH DQG FXOWXUH´ )RU DQ HFRVHPLRWLF DSSURDFK WR QDWXUH ZULWLQJ VHH 0DUDQ 2010a. Maran, who is also theorising on foundational matters on behalf of ecosemiotics, proposes (2010a:   WKDW ³>W@KH VFRSH RI HFRVHPLRWLFV´ FDQ IXUWKHUPRUH EH H[SUHVVHG LQ WHUPV RI ³YDULRXV interpretations and representations of nature, communicative processes between human culture and living nature and problems in these, RUDFXOWXUH¶V UHODWLRQVZLWKWKHORFDOHQYLURQPHQW´In summary, ecosemiotics can be understood as the semiotic study of ecological relations and complexity in general and human±nature relations in particular. If our conception of the range of zoosemiotics differs from 0DUWLQHOOL¶VLWLVLQWKDWZHFRQFHLYHRIDQWKURSRORJLFDO]RRVHPLRWLFV as a subfield which should to a large extent aim at describing actual human ecology ± i.e., common, widespread ecological couplings within human±animal relations (which in our current circumstances implies that e.g. livestock should be prioritised as study objects10). This is perhaps the biggest challenge of all: to proceed from the study of animal individuals (whether discrete ± concrete individuals ± or idealised) to studies of more complex circumstances at the ecological level beyond specific animal ecology. This final frontier of zoosemiotics is contested territory, since ecosemiotics in some of its variants lays claim to it as well. Where, then, does the border between zoosemiotics and ecosemiotics lie? We will not attempt to resolve that puzzle once and for all in this introduction, but suggest for now that a distinctive difference between zoosemiotics and ecosemiotics is that 10

In the context of literary animal representations, the wild/domestic distinction is central to Nelson 2000.

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

23

the former aims systematically to take on the respective animal perspectives (qua individual perspectives), whereas the latter aims to take on human perspectives or perspectives of general overview. Hopefully these two subfields of semiotics of nature can continue to thrive by way of fertile interaction ± that is, cross-pollination of the academic sort. 4. Overview: the chapters ,Q WKH ILUVW FKDSWHU RI WKH ERRN¶V ILUVW VHFWLRQ ³)URP VKHSKHUGLQJ WR colonisDWLRQ´ /RXLVH :HVWOLQJ focuses on the direct interaction of humans and dogs in herding situations as a co-evolutionary phenomenon, analysing it from a zoosemiotic viewpoint. She draws a remarkable number of parallels in the sign-based practices of humans and dogs, emphasising their mutual contingency. This chapter is primarily concerned with interspecies communication and co-action, or with concrete ecology as we could also say. David Rothenberg studies bird communication, combining statistical and musical analyses. He argues that the musical qualities of bird song may be of crucial importance in its evolution as a means of communication and with regard to sexual selection. To consider bird song as a performance involving a strong aesthetic aspect, not merely as a category of functional behaviour, opens up a wide range of possible research questions that evolutionary biology has not yet dealt with in depth. Methodological questions that arise about the codifying, quantifying, and graphic representation of bird sounds are also discussed in the chapter. Rothenberg addresses certain representations of communication, combining the analysis of bird semiosis with the analysis of our human ways of making sense of our fellow species. Christos Lynteris, in turn, describes the historical case of the imagined relations between marmot hunters and their prey. Analysing the causes and effects of human encounters with marmots during the Chinese Manchurian expansion from an anthropological perspective, Lynteris asks who or what was blamed when migrant hunters with no previous experience of the animals and their behaviour were perceived by Chinese epidemiologists to have initiated a dramatic outburst of pneumonic plague. Lynteris is thus concerned with representation and

24

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

PLVFRPPXQLFDWLRQRUµWKHDQWKURSRORJ\RILJQRUDQFH¶DVLWKDVEHHQ conceptualised in his chapter. 7KH VHFRQG VHFWLRQ ³)URP LOOXVWUDWLRQ WR VKRZ´ VWDUWV RII ZLWK $GDP 'RGG¶V FRQWULEXWLRQ :LWK KLV WKHRUHWLFDO DSSURDFK VWHPPLQJ from constructivist epistemology, Dodd discusses the development of WKHWURSHµLQVHFWZRUOG¶DQGLWVXVDJHLQSRSXODUQDWXUDOKLVWRU\-based rhetoric of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He regards the insect world as a result of a vital interplay of biology, culture, and imagination. The tension between the visible and invisible lies at the core of the construction of insect life as uncannily similar to our human, presumably rational one. Larissa Budde carries on with the problems of similarity and alienness in her chapter on insect representations in sci-fi films and TV series. Aliens with their insect-like features simultaneously embody a wide array of negative human qualities, such as insidiousness, as well as a world ultimately strange and disgusting to the human protagonists, thus revealing the abject-driven attitude of humans WRZDUGWKH RUJDQLF ZRUOG%XGGH¶VDQDO\VLVFRPELQHVDQHFRIHPLQLVW and a phenomenological approach. By thematising eating and being eaten, she is touching upon bodily semiosis, and by treating fictional ecologies she covers the ecological level too. Graham Huggan discusses one of the globally most widely renowned popularisers of natural history, Sir David Attenborough, and points to the discursive practices that construct his position as an authority and as a knowledgeable gentleman mastering all the corners DQGHUDVRIWKH(DUWK+XJJDQ¶VFXOWXUDOFULWLFLVPKHOSVXVWREHFRPH aware of the ways animal representations are produced and offered to the public by contemporary media. As is the case for Dodd and Budde, his topic is how certain representations of animals and of nature are communicated to the public. The same pathos prevails in Taija .DDUOHQNDVNL¶V chapter on human±cow interaction as depicted in Finnish autobiographical and ILFWLRQDO QDUUDWLYHV ZKLFK LV WKH ILUVW FKDSWHU LQ WKH ERRN¶V WKLUG VHFWLRQ³)URP OLIH ZULWLQJWR QDWXUHZULWLQJ´.DDUOHQNDVNLUHOLHV RQ phenomenological and constructionist theory, focusing on the bodily aspects of the human±animal relations. The cooperation of humans and cows in the small farm context is often regarded as a relationship of colleagues; the basic level of interbodily signification is shared by

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

25

both species involved ± which is in many cases a precondition for successful interspecies communication. The question of alien species and the attempts to domesticate them DUHSRQGHUHGXSRQLQ0DNL(JXFKL¶VFKDSWHURQVKHHSDVUHSUHVHQWHG in modern Japanese literature. Sheep, whether in the sense of real animals or in the sense of the imagery of sheep, have only been LPSRUWHG WR WKH -DSDQHVH ODQGVFDSH DQG FXOWXUH GXULQJ WKH FRXQWU\¶V modernisation process. Through literary analysis, Eguchi tracks the attempts to conceptualise sheep as a part of the contact zone of Japanese and Western cultures as well as the attributes of the Japanese expansion to Asia, thus opening up a whole new perspective on the cultural history of sheep. (JXFKL¶VFRQWULEXWLRQLVDYLYLGH[DPSOHRI how our human representations of animals ground our representation of ourselves as humans, be it in timeless or in time-bound fashion. In WKDWUHJDUGWKLVFKDSWHU¶VVLPLODULWLHVZLWK/\QWHULV¶VWUHDWPHQWRIWKH construction of certain groups of humans on the basis of their relations with certain animals are evident. 7KH SRLQW RI GHSDUWXUH IRU 6DQGUD 0lQW\¶V DQDO\VLV RI DQLPDO representations is fantasy literature. She observes the depiction and functions of animal characters in the Harry Potter series. Both the protagonist and many animals in the books are border-crossers, OLPLQDO ILJXUHV LQ D ZD\ 7KHUHIRUH 9ODGLPLU 3URSS¶V structuralist actant WKHRU\DORQJZLWK'DULR0DUWLQHOOL¶V zoosemiotic approach have proven to be suitable tools for conceptualising the human±animal interaction and the set of characters in the series. Like Budde, Mänty depicts a fictional ecology filled with imaginary animals of often telling design. In the following chapter, Kadri Tüür takes up the tendency to impose human cultural meanings upon other species through the example of human±fish interaction as depicted in angling narratives. Using semiotics and ecocriticism as the basis of her analysis, she applies models developed by leading zoosemioticians in the analysis of literary representations of fish. Tüür dwells with all the three aspects of meaning generation, first of all in an ecological context. The last section of the book opens with Wendy WhHHOHU¶V H[DPLQDWLRQRIµWKRXJKW ZLWKRXWFRQFHSWV¶DVthe idea appears in A.S. %\DWW¶VZRUNAngels and Insects. She argues, as does Rothenberg, that art has an evolutionary basis and that this idea also has relevance in

26

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

the context of scientific research, grounding her position in the biosemiotically informed discussion of the dynamics of natural and poetic signs which constitutes the core imagery in Angels and Insects. Wheeler appeals to us to think afresh about the phenomenon of mind, especially by tying it to the notion of ecology. The book concludes with two chapters on the ethical and existential dimensions respectively of human±animal relations and of semiosis in general. In the penultimate chapter of this volume, W. John Coletta conducts a semiotic analysis of the self and of subjecttivity, arguing for the reality of the anti-Oedipal self, a self which is necessarily multiple and which necessarily generates avatars of itself. ,Q&ROHWWD¶VZRUOGRILGHDVWKHKXPDQRUKXPDQLPDO VHOILVDOZD\V already ecological, always already more-than-human. And thus we end with a view according to which a distinction between human nature and nature cannot easily be drawn. Coletta also, in his WUHDWPHQW RI WKH JUDVVKRSSHU¶V HQFRGLQJUHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI LWVHOI DV DNA, touches upon bodily semiosis. Last but not least, Ralph R. Acampora explores the moral standing of animals from a semiotic point of view. His question raised already in the chapter title: When/how does one become somebody who matters? points VWUDLJKWWRWKHYLWDODPELJXLW\RIWKHYHUEµWRPDWWHU¶ Who matters?11 Though he is not the first to discuss the prospective of a biosemiotic ethics (for a historiography, see Beever 2011), 12 $FDPSRUD¶VFRQWULEXWLRQLVDUJXDEO\WKHPRVWV\VWHPDWLFDFFRXQWof it to date LQ WKH FRQWH[W RI SKLORVRSKLFDO HWKLFV SURSHU $FDPSRUD¶V argument is basically that if organisms are subjects of (not to be confused with objects of) signification, then they must have value. We believe that the ideas developed in the contributions to the present volume may proceed from different starting positions, but that they are in accord with each other, mutually reinforcing the idea of the need for meta-level analysis of human representation of animals. Only thus can we understand the place of human culture in the animal world. 11

Which is not so different from the ambiguity of the German substantive Bedeutung (meaning, mattering ± as in having importance, being important). This is a double PHDQLQJZKLFKLVRIJUHDWVLJQLILFDQFHLQ8H[NOO¶VRULJLQDOWH[WV 12 As Maran (2010b: 323) states, ³>L@Q6HEHRN¶V ]RRVHPLRWLFVWKHUHDUHDOPRVWQR>«@ ethical connotations.´

The semiotics of animal representations. Introduction

27

5. An interdisciplinary approach to human±animal studies Human±animal studies are inevitably interdisciplinary since they generally imply multiple academic disciplines, often in various combinations. Our approach based on semiotics differs from these other variants of interdisciplinarity in that it is grounded in the humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences. In other words, it attempts to bridge the abyss between the study of the natural world and the study of the human realm, which have traditionally been confined to separate enclosures. The key contributors to this theoretical union are the semiotic subfields of zoosemiotics, biosemiotics, and ecosemiotics. The great advantage of basing the analysis of animal representations on familiarity with zoosemiotics and biosemiotics is that this approach enables the scholarly community to combine cultural, literary analysis, etc. with an intelligible understanding of the makeup of our living nature in terms of natural science. In a prolonged era of specialised science and increasing specialisation at that, there is a great need for super-amateurs, or generalists. These terms were developed (in Norwegian) by the ecophilosophers Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng and Arne Næss. Kvaløy Setreng introduced the concepts in the following way (1973: 1, translation by M.T.): The following is the result of work over several years, where the starting point was the wish to connect ideas from a wide range of disciplines to obtain a more solid and better thought out rationale for actively engaging in environmental protection and conservation efforts. The basis for this was a sense of resignation when constantly coming up short against the federal authorities, experts, and industrial specialists. The idea formed ± that someone who was not a specialist in these various fields could only respond to their arguments by educating him- or KHUVHOIDVD³JHQHUDOLVW´LHDNLQGRI³VXSHU-DPDWHXU´ZKRFRXOGDUJXHWKHFDVH along several lines that the specialists did not master ± precisely because [they were] specialists. >«@ The destruction of nature and environment that we see today is of such a nature that it has to do with society as a whole, and with the health of the life system. For this reason what is needed ± alongside the specialists ± is, more than ever, people who have the branching, outgrowing kind of insight that a specialist is bereft of.

Kvaløy Setreng, who further characterises a super-amateur as a ³SDUWLFXODUOy well-LQIRUPHG DQG DUWLFXODWH HYHU\GD\ SKLORVRSKHU´

28

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

(1973:  HYHQWXDOO\DSSHDOVWKDW³>ZH@DUHLQGLUHQHHGRIHGXFDWLRQDO WUDLQLQJ LQ µJHQHUDOLVP¶ ± building bridges to tackle one of the key causes of the crisis ± WKHH[WUHPHIUDJPHQWDWLRQDQGµVSHFLDOLVP¶DQG WKHIDWDOODFN RI RYHUYLHZWKDWJRHVDORQJ ZLWKLW´1973: 114). Arne Næss, in one of his first writings on environmental concerns (1972: 137± WUDQVODWLRQ E\ 07  VWDWHG WKH ³>Q@HHG IRU JHQHUDOLVWV´ ³SHRSOH ZKR LQ DGGLWLRQ WR WKHLU VSHFLDOLVed education have intense training in popularising and articulation of value prioritisations on EURDG EDVLV´ 1 VV HPSKDVLVHG WKH QHHG WR VXSSOHPHQW VSHFLDOLVHG knowledge with studies in social sciences, politics (including communication and rhetoric), and ± notably ± ethics. Traces of this stance are also found in his main deep ecological work, translated into English as Næss 1989 (see e.g. 44±45, 145±146). We believe traces of a generalist approach can be found in the chapters of the current collection. As a discipline concerned with the construction, creation, and emergence of meaning, semiotics might, in a proper configuration, be capable of bridging the gap between the natural sciences on one hand and the social sciences and humanities on the other. It is simultaneously readily adjustable to other established approaches, such as ecocriticism, environmental ethics, environmental history, ecofeminism, ethology, etc., and we believe that the potential of the emerging synergy is remarkable both in scholarly terms and in terms of its general relevance for society. This collection of essays has been compiled and edited with the support of Estonian 6FLHQFH )RXQGDWLRQ JUDQW QR  ³'\QDPLFDO =RRVHPLRWLFV DQG $QLPDO 5HSUHVHQWDWLRQV´ and "Animals in Changing Environments: Cultural Mediation and Semiotic Analysis" (EEA Norway Grants EMP 151). The research presented in the introductory chapter has been supported by the same grants. We would like to thank Mara Woods for serving as language editor for the volume.

Bibliography Abram, David. 1997. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a MoreThan-Human-World. New York: Vintage Books/Random House. Anderson, Myrdene, John Deely, Martin Krampen, Joseph Ransdell, Thomas A. Sebeok and Thure von Uexküll. 1984. µ$6emiotic Perspective on the Sciences: 6WHSV7RZDUGD1HZ3DUDGLJP¶LQ Semiotica 52(1±2): 7±47.

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Barbieri, Marcello. 2009. µA Short History of Biosemiotics¶ LQ Biosemiotics 2(2): 221±245. Beever, Jonathan. 2011. µMeaning Matters: The Biosemiotic Basis of Bioethics¶ LQ Biosemiotics, published online October 15, 2011 (DOI 10.1007/s12304-011-91331). Cowley, Stephen J., João Carlos Major and Sune Vork Steffensen. 2010. Signifying Bodies, Interaction, Biosemiosis and Health. Braga: Portuguese Catholic University Press. Hoffmeyer, Jesper. 2004. µ8H[NOOLDQ 3ODQPlVVLJNHLW¶ LQ Sign Systems Studies 31(1/2): 73±97. ². 1996. Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Favareau, Donald. 2010. µIntroduction: An Evolutionary History of Biosemiotics¶LQ Favareau, Donald (ed.), Essential Readings in Biosemiotics: Anthology and Commentary. Dordrecht: Springer: 1±77. Kull, Kalevi. 1998. µSemiotic Ecology: Different Natures in the 6HPLRVSKHUH¶LQ Sign Systems Studies 26: 344±371. ². 1999a. µBiosemiotics in the Twentieth Century: A View from Biology¶ LQ Semiotica 127(1/4): 385±414. ². 1999b. µOn the History of Joining bio with semio: F.S. Rothschild and the Biosemiotic Rules¶LQ Sign Systems Studies 27: 128±138. Kvaløy Setreng, Sigmund. 1973. Økofilosofisk Fragment IV [Ecophilosophical fragment IV]. Trondheim: Tapir Forlag. Lotman, Juri. 2005 [1984]. µOn the 6HPLRVSKHUH¶LQ Sign Systems Studies 33(1): 205± 229. Maran, Timo. 2010a. µAn Ecosemiotic Approach to Nature :ULWLQJ¶ LQ PAN: Philosophy, Activism, Nature 7: 79±87. ². 2010b. µWhy was Thomas A. Sebeok not a Cognitive EWKRORJLVW")URP³Animal MLQG´WR³Semiotic SHOI´¶LQ Biosemiotics 3(3): 315±329. Maran, Timo, Dario Martinelli and Aleksei Turovski (eds). 2011. Readings in Zoosemiotics (Semiotics, Communication and Cognition 8). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Martinelli, Dario. 2009. Of Birds, Whales and Other Musicians: An Introduction to Zoomusicology (Approaches to Postmodernity III). Scranton, London: Scranton University Press. ². 2010. A Critical Companion to Zoosemiotics: People, Paths, Ideas. Dordrecht: Springer. ².  µ=RRVHPLRWLFV¶ LQ Semiotics Encyclopedia Online. E.J. Pratt Library, Victoria University. Online at: http://www.semioticon.com/seo/ (consulted 08.05.2012). McHugh, Susan. 2011. Animal Stories: Narrating across Species Lines. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. Nelson, Barney. 2000. The Wild and the Domestic: Animal Representation, Ecocriticism, And Western American Literature. Reno, Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press.

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Næss, Arne. 1972. Økologi og filosofi: Et økosofisk arbeidsutkast [Ecology and philosophy: An ecosophical working draft]. Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget. ². 1989. Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Tr. and ed. by David Rothenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nöth, Winfried. 1996. µÖkosemiotik¶ in Zeitschrift für Semiotik 18(1): 7±18. ². 1998. µEcosemiotics¶LQ Sign Systems Studies 26: 332±343. Nöth, Winfried, Eero Tarasti and Marek Tamm. 2008. µHumanities: State and 3URVSHFWV¶LQ Sign Systems Studies 36(2): 527±532. Peters, Roger and L. David Mech. 1978. µScent-Marking in Wolves¶Ln Hall, Roberta L. and Henry S. Sharp (eds) Wolf and Man: Evolution in Parallel. New York and London: Academic Press, Inc.: 133±148. Rothschild, Friedrich Salomon. 1962. µLaws of Symbolic Mediation in the Dynamics RI6HOIDQG3HUVRQDOLW\¶LQAnnals of New York Academy of Sciences 96: 774±784. Sebeok, Thomas A. 1963. µCommunication among Social Bees; Porpoises and Sonar; Man and Dolphin¶LQ Language 39: 448±466. ². 1972. Perspectives in Zoosemiotics (Janua Linguarum. Series Minor 122). The Hague: Mouton. ². 1981. The Play of Musement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ². 1990. Essays in Zoosemiotics (Monograph Series of the TSC 5). Toronto: Toronto Semiotic Circle/Victoria College in the University of Toronto. Short, Thomas L. 2007. 3HLUFH¶V7KHRU\RISigns. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Tønnessen, Morten. 2011. Umwelt Transition and Uexküllian Phenomenology ± An Ecosemiotic Analysis of Norwegian Wolf Management (Dissertationes Semioticae Universitatis Tartuensis 16). Doctoral dissertation. Tartu: Tartu University Press. Extensive introduction available online at: http://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/bitstream/handle/10062/19250/tonnessen_morten.pdf ?sequence=1, published online December 16, 2011. Uexküll, Jakob von. 1909. Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. First edition. Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer. ². 1928. Theoretische Biologie. Second edition. Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer. ². 1956 [1934/1940]. Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen: Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. Bedeutungslehre. Hamburg: Rowohlt. ². 2010. A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning 3RVWKXPDQLWLHV   7U -' 2¶1HLO 0LQQHDSROLV and London: University of Minnesota Press. Wheeler, Wendy. 2006. The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

PART I FROM SHEPHERDING TO COLONISATION

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs Louise Westling Human communication with dogs and prey animals is an ancient practice that developed gradually from the Paleolithic era at least 50,000 years ago, when our ancestors and their dogs followed and even lived alongside herds of horses, aurochs, sheep, and reindeer during their seasonal migrations. Gradually this developed into µORRVHKHUGLQJ¶DWFHUWDLQSHULRGVWRVHSDUDWH young animals after weaning, and then WRµFORVHKHUGLQJ¶DURXQG\HDUVDJRZKLFKLVVWLOOSUDFWLVHGDOORYHUWKHZRUOG 7KHVH DQLPDO VSHFLHV UHDG HDFK RWKHUV¶ PRYHPHQWV ZLWK PLOOHQQLD RI H[SHULHQFH having shaped their understanding and determined the meanings of complex and subtle behaviours. The result is a semiotic dance of cooperation, coercion, nurturing, and killing. Humans have selectively bred dogs to aid them in the tasks of moving sheep from pasture to pasture, to barns, and into pens for medicating, shearing, hoof trimming, castrating, and killing for food. Following the work of Vicki Hearne and Donna Haraway on dog training and cross-species communication, and the gestural linguistic theory of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this paper will analyse the cooperation between human handler and herding dog that enables the precise control of sheep.

1. Introduction Cary Wolfe begins a recent discussion of theories about animal FRJQLWLRQ E\ UHPLQGLQJ KLV UHDGHUV RI :LWWJHQVWHLQ¶V IDPRXV UHPDUN that if a lion could speak, we could not understand him (2003: 44). I do not believe this to be quite true, though humans and lions certainly have different ways of seeing and understanding the world. This article will assume that all sorts of animals, including Homo sapiens of course, communicate with each other all the time within a biosphere full of meaning and semiotic behaviour. Most study of this communication has focused on wild animals, but some animals have been closely entangled with human activities and communities as companions and domesticated food sources for at least 10,000 years. In fact this entanglement began in a semiotic context much earlier as mammalian species evolved together. More attention needs to be

34

Louise Westling

given to the complex reciprocities among these various species, relationships that biologist and cultural theorist Donna Haraway GHVFULEHV DV ³PRUWDO ZRUOG-maNLQJ HQWDQJOHPHQWV´ WKDW VKH FDOOV ³FRQWDFW]RQHV´ 0\ RZQIRFXV ZLWKLQWKHVHFRQWDFW]RQHV will be on the cooperation and communication among three species ± sheep, dogs, and humans ± to describe the complex bodily, gestural, and verbal communication among them that gradually developed from Paleolithic hominid and canid hunting activities beginning as long as 150,000 years ago. This ancient practice probably began when our ancestors and their wolf neighbours followed and lived alongside herds of reindeer, horses, aurochs, sheep, and goats during their seasonal migrations. Archaeologist Francis Pryor suggests that JUDGXDOO\WKLV GHYHORSHGLQWRµORRVH KHUGLQJ¶E\WKH ILIWK PLOOHQQLXP BC with domesticated dogs at certain periods of the year to separate \RXQJDQLPDOVDIWHUZHDQLQJDQGWKHQWRµFORVHKHUGLQJ¶WRZDUGVWKH Later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age which is still practised around the world (2003: 119±121). As a context for understanding how herding dogs work with humans to move sheep from place to place, we must first examine the history of the domestic dog as far as we know it, and consider the likely conditions for the co-evolution of this animal with humans from prehistoric times when neither of our species had its present form. Such a history can only be speculative, because the common history of canids and hominids has received relatively little scientific attention, and archaeological evidence as well as human symbolic representation is fairly recent. Nevertheless, with a tentative history of the relationship between dogs and humans, we can consider the traits that set dogs apart from their wild ancestors the wolves, and the cultural behaviours we share that made us natural allies thousands of years ago. Then we can look at the specific communicative behaviours of humans, their herding dogs, and their flocks of domestic herbivores as they have worked together from the earliest historically recorded period WR WKH SUHVHQW WLPH 7KHVH DQLPDO VSHFLHV UHDG RQH DQRWKHU¶V movements with millennia of experience having shaped their understanding and determined the meanings of complex and subtle behaviours. The result is a semiotic dance of cooperation, coercion, nurturing, and killing. Humans have selectively bred their dogs to aid in the tasks of moving sheep from pasture to pasture, to barns, and

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

35

into pens for vaccination, shearing, hoof trimming, medicating, FDVWUDWLQJ DQG µKDUYHVWLQJ¶ IRU IRRG )ROORZLQJ WKH ZRrk of Vicki Hearne and Donna Haraway on dog training and cross-species communication, the gestural linguistic theory of Maurice MerleauPonty, and the zoosemiotic work of Heini Hediger and Thomas Sebeok, I will analyse the cooperation between a human handler and a herding dog that allows the precise control of sheep. Along the way I will be calling upon my own experience in training my Australian Kelpie Melbourne and herding sheep with him in actual farm situations and sheepdog trials. My exploration of cross-species FRPPXQLFDWLRQ FDQ EH FRPSDUHG ZLWK 7DLMD .DDUOHQNDVNL¶V ³&RPmunicating with the Cow: Human±Animal Interaction in :ULWWHQ1DUUDWLYHV´LQWKLVYROXPHZKHUHVLPLODUO\FR-evolved habits of co-operative behaviour are demonstrated among Finnish dairy cows and their human caretakers. For Kaarlenkaski also, Merleau-3RQW\¶V gestural linguistic philosophy offers a way of defining other animals DVLQWHQWLRQDODQGSHUFHLYLQJVXEMHFWVWKDW³FDQEHXQGHUVWRRGWKURXJK VKDUHGJHVWXUHVDQGERGLO\IXQFWLRQV´see this volume). A contrasting FDVH LV DQDO\VHG E\ &KULVWRV /\QWHULV LQ ³6SHDNLQJ 0DUPRWV 'HDI Hunters: Animal±Human Semiotic Breakdown as the Cause of the Manchurian Pneumonic Plague of 1910±´VHH this volume). 2. Canine history and the differences between wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris) The earliest remains of domesticated dogs appear in archaeological sites dating from 15,000 to 12,000 years old (e.g. Case 2005: 9; Musil 2000: 21±28; Chaix 2000: 49±59; Clutton-Brock 2000: 5±6; Savolainen 2007: 22±23). However, this kind of dating is problematic because only a limited number of archaeological sites have been studied in only a few places on the globe, and no clear evidence of the process of domestication precedes these findings. We know from stone tools in the fossil record going back 2.5 million years that hominids were hunting and butchering large animals for food (Roche et al. 1999: 57±60). They lived among other predators with similar habits, competing for prey animals, and sometimes sharing kills or scavenging carcasses left by more successful hunters. Hungarian ethologist Vilmos Csányi speculates that once Homo sapiens had

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developed, their migrations out of Africa led them into territories where they moved among wolves as well DVRWKHUSUHGDWRUV³:ROYHV were the reigning intelligent and sociable predators of the Northern Hemisphere, when some 130,000 to 150,000 years ago there appeared in their habitat even smarter and more sociable large predators with African origins: humans. They probably hunted the same large prey, DQGWKXVOLYHGFKHHNE\MRZO´&ViQ\LVHHDOVR&DVWHOHWDO 2006: 138±151) Recent, very thorough mitochondrial DNA studies have allowed more precise dating than archaeology has offered so far, making it clear that dogs (Canis familiaris) are indeed descended from wolves (Canis lupus), and that their genetic separation from those wild ancestors began some 135,000 years ago, around the same time that modern humans appeared on the scene. Probably those behavioural traits and lifestyles similar to those of humans alongside or nearby resulted in some wolves becoming more comfortable around human encampments and gradually learning to feed on carcasses left by human hunters and on waste from human camps, perhaps shadowing hunters and eventually cooperating with them. Swiss ethologist Heini Hediger established in the 1930s and 40s that the very definition of taming and subsequent domestication is the reduction or even elimination of the crucial distance various animals feel the need to preserve before fleeing from others (Sebeok 2001: 18±19). This is ZKDWPXVWKDYHKDSSHQHGRYHUWLPHUHVXOWLQJLQ³PXWDQWZROYHV´WKDW began to share their social lives with those of early people and in fact to co-evolve with them in symbiotic relationships (Csányi 2005: 32± 35). At some point humans began to intervene in canid reproduction, selecting the most submissive and cooperative individuals. As Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev demonstrated in experiments with silver foxes during the 1950s, by selecting only the tamest foxes for breeding, dramatically different animals appear within ten generations. With floppy ears and piebald coats and tails curled up at the end, those foxes behaved like dogs in seeking human company, responded to their names, and enjoyed being petted, and came into oestrus twice a year rather than only once like their wild progenitors (Coppinger and Coppinger 2001: 63±66).1 1

Clutton-Brock (2000: 4) explains that under domestication evolutionary changes happen very quickly as opposed to ordinary circumstances for wild populations.

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

37

Wolves and humans share many behavioural characteristics (e.g. complex social lives, sophisticated communication with flexible signs, cooperative hunting behaviours, long-term bonding) which may have SUHGLVSRVHGWKHPWRWROHUDWH HDFKRWKHU¶VSUHVHQFHWR VRPH H[WHQWLQ prehistoric times, but dogs are markedly different from wolves in actively seeking human companionship and eagerly cooperating and communicating with people in many tasks. Indeed, many researchers in dog evolution and behaviour emphasise these unique qualities DPRQJGRPHVWLFDWHGDQLPDOVDQGGHVFULEHWKHGRJ¶VSURSHUHFRORJLFDl DQGVRFLDO µQLFKH¶DV KXPDQFRPPXQLWLHV RU HYHQVD\WKDWGRJVDQG KXPDQV UHSUHVHQW µD PL[HG VSHFLHV JURXS¶ 0LNOyVL  ±211; Csányi 2005: 42±43). Unlike wolves, dogs need humans, as humans need them, because the two species have so thoroughly co-evolved that their ways of living are profoundly intertwined, that is, symbiotic. The presence of dogs in human societies all over the world implies this reciprocity. Dogs differ in major ways from wolves in both bodily form and behaviour. While few differences are found at the deepest levels of behavioural patterns, many appear at higher levels. Some key distinctions are: x GRJV¶ VKRUWHU OHQJWK RI MDZ DQG UHODWLYHO\ VPDOOHU ERG\ DQG brain size, x GRJV¶FORVHVLPLODULW\ZLWKZROYHVDVSXSSLHVEXWGLIIHUHQFHin adulthood, particularly the retention of neotenous traits, x GRJV¶VORZHUPDWXUDWLRQUDWH x DGXOW GRJV¶ IUHTXHQW EDUNLQJ DV RSSRVHG WR UDUH EDUNLQJ LQ adult wolves, x breeding pattern of two oestrus cycles per year in dogs, in contrast to one for wolves, x dogV¶ VHHNLQJ RI KXPDQ FRPSDQLRQVKLS DQG DWWHQWLYHQHVV WR UHODWLRQVKLS WKDW LQFOXGHV JD]LQJ GLUHFWO\ LQWR KXPDQV¶ H\HV VHHNLQJ communication and mutual understanding, and active mutual VLJQDOOLQJZLWKERWKGRJDQGKXPDQXQGHUVWDQGLQJRQHDQRWKHU¶VERG\ language, facial expressions, and auditory communication in many ways. x GRJV¶ HDJHUQHVV WR OHDUQ IURP KXPDQV DQG UHVSRQG LQ sophisWLFDWHGZD\VWRKXPDQODQJXDJHDVZROYHVGRQRWDQGKXPDQV¶

38

Louise Westling

understanding of dogs and response to them (Csányi 2005: 34±43; Miklósi 2007: 219±220). Experiments have shown that even small wolf and dog puppies manifest clear differences in social orientation towards humans. When given a choice between a human and a dog, even human-raised wolf pups prefer to stay with an adult dog, whereas dog pups choose the KXPDQ 'RJV DOVR NQRZ KRZ WR µSRLQW¶ ZLWK WKHLU ERGLHV DQG understand directional gestures given by humans, whereas wolves raised by humans do not understand human gestures even though all wolves exhibit pointing behaviour among themselves (Miklósi 2007: 214± %ULDQ+DUHDQG0LFKDHO7RPDVHOORH[SODLQWKDW³GRJVKDYH VSHFLDOVNLOOVIRUUHDGLQJKXPDQVRFLDODQGFRPPXQLFDWLYHEHKDYLRXU´ DQGWKDWWKRVHVNLOOV³DSSHDUWREHPRUHIOH[LEOH ± and possibly more human-like ± than those of other animals more closely related to KXPDQVSK\ORJHQHWLFDOO\VXFKDVFKLPSDQ]HHV´+DUHDQG7RPDVHOOR 2006: 497; see also Soproni, Miklósi, Topál, and Csányi 2001: 122± 126). Thus, remarkably, dogs are in some ways behaviourally closer to us than apes. Like Csányi, Hare and Tomasello think this unusual similarity in social skills and interrelational behaviour must be the result of convergent evolution, i.e. co-evolution in intimate relationships over many thousands of years. As Kristen Abbey says, ³%\ WDNLQg seriously the dog as a co-evolutionary partner, by admitting to ourselves that the dog is another agent in discourse, we open ourselves to the reality that dogs shape our evolution as we shape WKHLUV´  3. Human±dog behaviour

co-evolutionary

partnership

and

semiotic

Vilmos Csányi has considered this possibility more seriously and with more depth than any other commentators except Vicki Hearne and Donna Haraway, basing his conclusions on his scientific experience as an ethologist and DOVR RQ FORVH GRFXPHQWDWLRQ RI KLV DQG KLV ZLIH¶V life with their own two dogs.2 Csányi finds that dogs have many of the 2

More typical is work like that of Coren 2005, whose research on intelligence is somewhat reductionist, focusing on experimental testing of learning and obedience to human commands rather than the more nuanced attention to reciprocity between the two species that we find in Hearne, Csányi and Haraway.

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

39

same kinds of physical and social intelligence that humans have, including a sense of fairness and a theory of mind that allows them to infer emotional states in each other and in human companions. Dogs, like humans, have intentionality, empathy, joint or linked attention, and the ability to follow glances. Cultural and cognitive similarities include personal rituals, cooperating and following rules, social learning, role playing and role reversal, deception, and interpretation. ³$OO GRJV ZDQW WR EHORQJ WR VRPH KXPDQ JURXS HYHQ LI WKDW JURXS FRQVLVWV RI RQO\ D VLQJOH KXPDQ´ &ViQ\L    $QG WKH\ OLNH joint group actions, accepting the internal rules of the group and being capable of self-sacrifice for the sake of the group (2005: 263±265). Like their wolf ancestors, though to a lesser degree, dogs are hierarchical and form packs with clear leaders. As they have been selectively bred for obedience, they expect leadership from their human companions. With each other and with humans, dogs engage in many kinds of semiotic behaviour, beginning with gestural signs they share with wolves (erect posture, raised hackles, cocking of the head in efforts to understand, raised or lowered tail, tail wagging, turning to the side in avoidance, crouching, play-bowing, submissive lying on back with stomach exposed) and many facial expressions (lip curling and snarling, brow wrinkling, widening or narrowing eyes, looking away or making aggressive eye contact) (Fox and Cohen 1977: 728±746). Dogs ask questions of humans by approaching and poking with the nose or gazing in significant directions. Sometimes a dog will go to a door, then turn back and gaze at the human; dogs request food by pawing a food dish or standing over it and then looking toward the human companion. Humans who live or work with dogs learn these signing practices with habit, observation, and situation as guides over time, just as dogs learn to interpret significant actions of human companions such as rituals of dressing for work, taking keys from pocket or purse, picking up a leash or ball, etc. Dogs learn to comprehend human language, as humans learn to interpret the different tones and types of barks or whines or groans made by their GRJV &ViQ\L H[SODLQV WKDW ³WKH DYHUDJH GRJ OLYLQJ LQ D KXPDQ environment understands at least forty to fifty expressions to some extent, obeys commands, and is able to act appropriately even in

40

Louise Westling

complicateGVLWXDWLRQV´ 6RPHGRJVXQGHUVWDQGDVPDQ\DV 200 words and can engage in complex kinds of teamwork. Semiotic signalling back and forth occurs within an intricate dynamic network of bodily relations which Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes as the basis of language acquisition even among humans. For Merleau-Ponty, human language is essentially gestural, growing RXW RI RXU ERG\¶V PRYHPHQW ZLWKLQ WKH VXUURXQGLQJ HQYLURQPHQW Each of us awakens to language in infancy as we reach out into the VSDFH DQG WKLQJV DURXQG XV HQYHORSHG LQ RXU KXPDQ FRPPXQLW\¶V behaviours. The individual human infant develops language by being EDWKHG LQ VXFK JHVWXUDO DFWLYLWLHV DQG VRXQGV 7KH LQIDQW¶V OLQJXLVWLF behaviour emerges simultaneously with gestures and facial expressions such as smiles in response to the facial expressions and other body language of adults who are gazing at the child, touching it, and interacting with it verbally in dynamic interrelations that gradually develop into mimicry (Merleau-Ponty 1973: 11±13). Even the nursing infant in the first months of life laughs and smiles in satisfaction and in response to the smiles of those around her. This very early relational behaviour is the context from which language will emerge.3 Speech addressed to the infant excites it, and this acoustic sensation in turn stimulates its limbs and phonotory organs (Merleau-Ponty 1973: 14). In Merleau-3RQW\¶V YLHZ ZH PDNHXVH RI RXUERGLHVDV³a way of systematically JRLQJWRZDUGREMHFWV´ 35) and this means that the young child is working with its whole body to participate in the surrounding linguistic activity. 4 The child is HQWLFHG E\ WKH VW\OH RI WKH VXUURXQGLQJ ODQJXDJH ³XQWLO D VLQJOH PHDQLQJHPHUJHVIURPWKHZKROH´EHFDXVHPHDQLQJ³LVLPPDQHQWWR living speech as it is immanent to the gestures by which we point out REMHFWV´  Philip Lieberman cites research demonstrating that the eventual ability to understand precise meanings is not a matter of simple word recognition. Instead, more complex cognitive activity is required, involving brain centres for shape and colour perception, vision, and 3

For more recent experimental evidence see Trevarthen 1993: 212±173; Johnson 2007: 34±45; Greenspan and Shanker 2004: 194±195; Tomasello 2008: 59±99. 4 Christine Kenneally (2007: 134) comments on developmental psychologists¶ present theory of the cross-PRGDOLW\RIODQJXDJHWKDWFDXVHVLWWRHPHUJH³LQWKe child as an expression of its entire body, articulating both limbVDQGPRXWKDWWKHVDPHWLPH´

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

41

motor activities, as well as acoustic recognition and processing. Humans share most of these brain processes with other creatures, from frogs to apes and dogs. Human speech involves complex patterns of format frequencies that can be perceived by many other animals as well, including some birds, apes and dogs. It consists of highly encoded signals in which individual consonants and words are not perceived as discrete items analogous to beads on a string but instead as interrelated elements that determine each other in context. Acoustic FXHVIRUDFRQVRQDQWIRUH[DPSOHDUH³VSUHDGDFURVVDQHQWLUHV\OODEOH and merged with the acoustic signal that conveyed WKH YRZHO´ (Lieberman 2006: 93, 100±101, 126±127). Understanding speech thus requires complex perceptive and interpretive abilities, not just recognition of particular words. Dogs understand many human words and phrases and their emotional colourings, and they come to do so by being bathed in language, much as human infants do, in relational, emotive contexts where they work with their whole bodies to participate in meaningful behaviours as Merleau-Ponty (1973) explained and Mark Johnson more recently describes according to increasing experimental evidence (2007: 34±45). Indeed, Lieberman cites brain imaging research showing that cortical areas homologous to those activated in humans during the production and reception of speech are also activated in chimpanzees and dogs that understand human language (2006: 36±37). When young dogs are surrounded by human speech, they gradually learn to associate sounds with situations, human body movements and gestures, actions, objects, human requests or commands or questions. They move their own bodies to reciprocate and harmonise with what WKH KXPDQV DUH GRLQJ ,I µIRRG¶ RU µGLQQHU¶ LV UHSHDWHG FRQWLQXDOO\ ZKHQ D GLVK RI IRRG LV SUHVHQWHG WKH GRJ TXLFNO\ OHDUQV WKDW ³:DQW \RXU GLQQHU"´ LV D TXHVWLRQ LQYLWLQJ WKH SRVVLELOity of eating and responds by jumping up and down, wagging its tail excitedly, looking expectantly, and perhaps approaching the kitchen where the food is prepared. From such beginnings the dog learns the time for feeding and can develop methods of signalling the human that he wants to eat, e.g. by barking or whining, or going over to paw his food dish on the IORRU'RJVOHDUQWKHZRUGµFDW¶RUµGRJ¶EHFDXVHRIUHJXODUH[SHULHQFH RIVHHLQJWKDWDQLPDOZKHQWKHZRUGLVXVHG³:DQWWRJRIRUDULGHLQ the car"´ EHFRPHV DQ H[FLWLQJ LQYLWDWLRQ DIWHU D GRJ KDV KHDUG LW

42

Louise Westling

precede such a trip. If the door is opened, the dog will rush toward the FDU µ/HW¶V JR RXW¶ µ/HW¶V JR IRU D ZDON¶ RU µ:DQW WR JR RXW"¶ DUH quickly learned by puppies when such comments or questions precede the opening of a door and an excursion. On hearing such an invitation RU TXHVWLRQ WKH GRJ ZLOO HDJHUO\ UXQ WR WKH GRRU µ:DLW¶ ZKHQ enforced by human body movements or constraint, is learned as a command, and the same techniques teach other common commands VXFK DV µ6LW¶ RU µ/LH GRZQ¶ RU µ*R WR \RXU NHQQHO¶ 6XFK OHDUQLQJ FRQWLQXHV WKURXJKRXW D GRJ¶V OLIH ZKHQ OLYLQJ DQG ZRUNLQJ ZLWK humans in a bi-cultural semiotic environment where humans are also OHDUQLQJDERXWDQGSDUWLFLSDWLQJLQWKHGRJ¶s cultural behaviours. 4. Herding Herding was probably the earliest kind of teamwork developed between dogs and humans, and it remains one of the most sophisticated, for it also includes semiotic interactions with a third species. While skilful herding may look like harmonious cooperation EHWZHHQ WKH VKHHS DQG D GRJ ZKR IROORZV WKH VKHSKHUG¶V YHUEDO commands or whistled signals, in fact it is a complex adaptation of wild canid predation. Herding dogs move around the flock of sheep as wolves do, watching the behaviour of the group as well as noting individual members like the leading ewe or any individual sheep that might split away or turn to challenge them. The sheep watch the dogs carefully to evaluate their intentions, while also paying attention to their leading ewe. Sheep judge the degree of danger posed by each SDUWLFXODUGRJDQGVHHNWRPDLQWDLQDµIOLJKW]RQH¶RUEXEEOHRIVDIHW\ between themselves and the dog. 5 If the dog moves suddenly or aggressively or crosses the edge of the flight zone, the sheep shy away. The speed or violence of their movement is determined by the degree of their fear of the dog. If, on the contrary, the dog moves gently and respects the flight zone, the sheep accept his presence QHDUE\+HUGLQJ GRJVXQGHUVWDQGWKHIORFN¶VEHKDYLRXUDQGFDUHIXOO\ evaluate the actions of individual sheep so that they can prevent escapes and shape forward movement. Skilful dogs subtly gesture 5

=RRVHPLRWLFLDQ 7KRPDV $ 6HEHRN    FDOOV WKLV GLVWDQFH ³WKH +HGLJHU EXEEOH´DQGDSSOLHVLWWRKXPDQEHKDYLRXUDVZHOODVWKDWRIRWKHUDQLPDOV

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

43

with their bodies at the edge of the flight zone to manipulate the IORFN¶VIHDUDQGWKXVFDXVHLWWRPRYHLQWKHGLUHFWLRQVVLJQDOOHGE\WKH shepherd. The dog can move in wide flanks or subtle shifts from side to side, or merely lean in one direction while staring at sheep facing him. When pushing sheep into a barn or field or pen, the dog must cover any effort to escape from one side or the other, and the shepherd can instruct the dog where to move to do this. However, if the dog has QR ³IHHOLQJ´ IRU WKH VKHHS QR QDWXUDO LQVWLQFWV IRU FRQWUROOLQJ WKHP and no understanding of the task at hand, this cooperative effort can fail. At the same time, any group of sheep will watch the approach of D GRJ WR µUHDG¶ LWV LQWHQWLRQV 7KH\ HDVLO\ GLVWLQJXLVK EHWZHHQ D GRJ who will treat them respectfully and one who will not, between a strong but self-restrained dog and a weak or anxious one, or one with violent motives. If they trust the dog (either from previous acquainWDQFHRUEHFDXVHRIWKHGRJ¶VFDOPDQGFRQVLVWHQWPRYHPHQW  and see that they cannot escape from the mouth of the pen or gate, they will turn and enter the new area even if it is small. The shepherd RU KDQGOHU PXVW VLPXOWDQHRXVO\ EH µUHDGLQJ¶ WKH EHKDYLRXU RI VKHHS and dog in order to participate in and direct the process. All three VSHFLHV PXVW EH FRQVWDQWO\ µUHDGLQJ¶ RQH DQRWKHU :KHQ WKHVH relationships and communications are working well, all the bodies IORZDORQJWRJHWKHUDQGDODUJHIORFN¶V PRYHPHQWFDQUHVHPEOHWKDW of a school of fish in the sea. English national sheep-herding chamSLRQ 'HUHN 6FULPJHRXU VSHDNV RI KLV ZRUN ZLWK KLV GRJV DV ³D FRQYHUVDWLRQRUDGDQFH´LQZKLFKLQWULFDWHly coordinated movements are achieved with gestural, verbal, and whistle communication. 6 5. Training a herding dog Vicki Hearne approached such coordination somewhat differently, DSSO\LQJ:LWWJHQVWHLQ¶VGHVFULSWLRQRIODQJXDJHDVDJDPHWRKHUZRUN as a dog trainer. She explains that the discipline of training develops precise collaboration between human and dog because it creates a situation or space of performance where cross-species communication occurs and shared purposes can be developed. This means coercion, the trainer exercising authority over the animal in a consistent, 6

Personal conversation, Scio, Oregon, October 2007.

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Louise Westling

respectful way that builds upon natural instincts. Understanding is thus enlarged by enforced obedience (Hearne 2000: 56). But the animal must agree to cooperate in this game or dance, and the trainer must earn that agreement. Cruelty, injustice, or inconsistency on the part of the trainer will elicit cringing submission that destroys skill and initiative, and creates confusion, impulse for flight, or refusal to work. The human traiQHUPXVWµUHDG¶WKHGRJ¶VEHKDYLRXUMXVWDVWKH GRJPXVWDWWHQGWRDQGµUHDG¶WKHWUDLQHU¶VEHKDYLRXUVRWKDWWKH\FDQ move cooperatively and the dog can come to enjoy learning and IXOILOOLQJ WKH UXOHV RI WKH JDPH $V WKH KXPDQ WUDLQHU VHHV WKH GRJ¶V intentions expressed in body movements, she can intervene to correct or encourage it. For example, if the dog lowers its head, tail, and ears and suddenly moves inward past the flight zone and toward the sheep, the trainer will understand the canine body language expressing the LQWHQWLRQWRDWWDFNDQGFDQPRYHWRZDUGWKHGRJFRPPDQGLQJµ.HHS RII¶ RU PRYH TXLFNO\ EHWZHHQ GRJ DQG VKHHS WR EORFN DFFHVV 2U LI the dog is driving the sheep in a direction away from the trainer but begins to slide around to one sideWKHWUDLQHUZLOOUHFRJQLVHWKHGRJ¶V GHVLUH WR PRYH DURXQG WR µKHDG¶ WKH VKHHS DQG EULQJ WKHP WR WKH human. To stop that from happening and continue the drive, the KDQGOHUWHOOVWKHGRJµ6WHDG\¶RUDVNVKLPWRFRPHEDFNLQWRSRVLWLRQ by making a warninJ RU FRUUHFWLQJ VLJQDO 7KH KXPDQ¶V ERG\ VXEWO\ IROORZV WKH GRJ¶V PRYHPHQWV OHDQLQJ WRZDUG WKH GLUHFWLRQ GHVLUHG This behaviour is similar to that Vinciane Despret describes for WDOHQWHGKRUVHULGHUV³7KH\KDYHOHDUQHGWRDFWLQDKRUVH-like fashion, and so their bodies transmit thoughts back and forth that induce them WR PRYH WRJHWKHU´ 'HVSUHW    *LOOHV 'HOHX]H DQG )HOL[ *XDWWDULZRXOGVD\WKHKXPDQLVµEHFRPLQJ¶GRJRUKRUVHDQGWKHGRJ RU KRUVH LV µEHFRPLQJ¶ KXPDQ E\ PRYLQJ LQ V\QHUJ\ ZLWK each RWKHU¶V ERGLHV DQG WKLQNLQJ with the other. Their work together is a block of becoming (1987: 237±238). When you add sheep to this situation, the block of becoming grows much more complex, with all three species involved in bodily communication that leads to cooperation. As an interesting side-note, Hearne and others who work with animals say that behavioural scientists are very limited as trainers, EHFDXVHWKH\ IDLOWRDFNQRZOHGJHWKHFRPSOH[EHLQJ RIDQLPDOV³7R the extent that the behaviourist manages to deny any belief in the

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

45

GRJ¶VSRWHQWLDOIRUEHOLHYLQJLQWHQGLQJPHDQLQJHWFWKHUHZLOOEHQR flow of intention, meaning, believing, hoping going on. The dog may WU\WRUHVSRQGWRWKHEHKDYLRXULVWEXWWKHEHKDYLRXULVWZRQ¶WUHVSRQG WR WKH GRJ¶V UHVSRQVH´    7KH GRJ ZLOO VWRS WU\LQJ DQG WKH behaviourist will receive only the mechanical, impoverished behaviour he expects. The influence of behaviourism has led some to claim that attributing active emotion, conscious intention, and communication to dogs and other animals is anthropomorphism, the projection of human traits upon creatures whose minds we cannot know. But of course the VDPHFRXOGDOVREHVDLGIRURXUDELOLW\WR³NQRZ´H[DFWO\WKHWKRXJKWV or intentions of any other human. Fortunately, careful animal studies of the past several decades, including comparative brain imaging as discussed by Philip Lieberman (see above), has amassed a rich body of evidence demonstrating that other animals think, communicate, plan, and feel emotions, WKDWWKH\KDYHµWKHRU\RIPLQG¶LHDWWULEXWH intentions and thoughts to each other and to other species (SavageRumbaugh 1998: 53±62; Çsányi 2005: 264; Hare and Tomasello 2006: 497), and that cross-species communication of many kinds occurs regularly and has done so as they have evolved together for thousands of years. Anyone who lives and works with other animals knows this. Training a dog to herd sheep means introducing it to a situation it is genetically predetermined to understand and enjoy. Unlike with some other kinds of dog training, dogs being trained for herding need no food rewards because the interaction with the sheep is the reward. Different herding breeds have been developed to specialise in particular skills, some focused on driving large groups of livestock (drovers) along roads or over long distances, some sent out to gather large groups in open country where they have been left alone for long periods of time, some for moving smaller flocks from fenced pasture to fenced pasture, and some for specialised work in pens and yards where shearing, medicating, breeding, and other manipulations occur. The traditional herding dog of English-speaking countries was a veUVDWLOHµFROOLH¶RIPHGLXPVL]HWKDWFRXOGKDQGOHPRVWRIWKHVHWDVNV Only in the past two hundred years have herding breeds become more specialised. The best-known breed of sheep herding dog nowadays is the Border Collie, developed in the north of England late in the

46

Louise Westling

QLQHWHHQWK FHQWXU\ ZLWK D SDUWLFXODUO\ IL[HG SUHGDWRU\ JD]H RU µH\H¶ and a crouching stalking posture. My dog Melbourne is an Australian Kelpie, much like the Border Collie in abilities but more independent and without the crouching posture. The Kelpie breed was developed from smooth-coated herding dogs brought to Australia from England in the mid-nineteenth century, and its traditional role has involved much more work in large unfenced expanses of wild Australian µRXWEDFN¶ FRXQWU\ ZKHUH IUHH-ranging sheep had to be gathered up once or twice a year and brought back long distances to pens for shearing, medicating, selling, or slaughtering (Parsons 2010: 36±104). Thus Kelpies had to be tough, resourceful, independent thinkers who nevertheless worked with their human partners to bring in the sheep DQGWKHQ PRYHWKHPDURXQGWKHµ\DUGV¶ RUSHQVWKURXJKFKXWHVDQG into barns or vehicles. Training a herding dog begins with socialisation of the young puppy, teaching it to live in the human home and learn the rules of cohabitation, including coming when called, lying down on command, and harmonising appropriately with domestic routines. During the first year, the dog and its human companions interact with each other constantly, coming to understand body language and vocalisations. The young dog learns to walk on a leash and to behave politely with other dogs and people while growing accustomed to the speech of its human partner. At the age of six to eight months, the dog can be introduced to several sheep to see how it behaves in a relatively small pen. The trainer protects the sheep with a rake or flag from any aggressive approaches, also protecting the dog from any aggressive sheep that PLJKW FKDOOHQJH LW $WWKLVVWDJHWKHGRJ¶VLQQDWH KHUGLQJWDOHQWs can usually be seen. As in the case of my dog Melbourne, most talented herding dogs are instantly fascinated by the sheep and run to approach them. Melbourne instinctively chased the sheep, moving around toward their heads to stop their forward progress but always keeping a distance along the edge of the flight zone or Hediger bubble. Then the trainer moved around to the head of the sheep and backed away from the dog, causing Melbourne to bring the sheep to her. After a short session of this kind of testing, Melbourne did not work sheep again until he was a year old and had matured intellectually and emotionally. Attempting to train a dog intensively before that time can

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

47

arrest its development and destroy initiative. Always in training and working with a herding dog, a delicate balance must be maintained between human control and canine initiative, so that the dog always is able to think for itself and perform as a full partner in the work. Mechanically trained, completely obedient dogs will always fail in challenging situations where unruly sheep or unexpected complications arise and they are too far from the human handler for precise instructions. In sheep herding, the shepherd and dog (or dogs) are analogous to a wolf pack, with the human performing the role of dominant wolf, and the dog(s) stalking and gathering the prey animals to bring them to their leader for the kill. Many ethological discussions of herding dog behaviour assert that predatory instincts have been reduced so that no instinct for biting or killing remains (e.g. Case 2005: 179; Csányi 2005: 38). Actually this is not true, as many herding dogs retain the drive to attack, bite, and even kill livestock. That is why judges at KHUGLQJ WULDOV PXVW DOZD\V ZDWFK FDUHIXOO\ WR LGHQWLI\ µJULSSLQJ¶ and immediately disqualify dogs who do it. When registering for a trial, dog handlers must sign a legal form agreeing to pay for any animals killed by their dogs. German Shepherds can be especially lethal to sheep, and I have seen many other herding breeds bite sheep while ZRUNLQJWKHP6RPHµFRZER\¶UDQFKHUVRIODUJHSRSXODWLRQVRIVKHHS and cattle in the Western USA actively seek aggressive dogs and encourage them to treat the livestock roughly. I personally know a Cattle Dog that attacks sheep whenever his owner is not looking; he has occasionally pulled new lambs through the fence and eaten them. In contrast my dog Melbourne is reluctant to bite a sheep, even if urged to do it. He was bred to be considerate of stock, which serves him well in the field, because they can read his movements and understand his gentleness. However, if particular sheep are very independent and want to challenge him, he has to be taught methods for enforcing his will. Ultimately the human partner of each herding dog must come to understand the temperament and character of the dog, watching and commanding an aggressive dog to prevent biting, or as in my case, trying to devise other strategies to help Melbourne move the sheep when they might be inclined to challenge him. If he stares forcefully at them and walks steadily up towards them, sheep will almost always decide to turn and walk in the opposite direction. If he

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pauses, however, they may decide they do not have to do as he has signalled them. Therefore, I am teaching him to run toward them from a distance so that they think he might be dangerous and begin to move away. Or I will ask him to move to right or left so that the sheep see action and decide to leave. He is also learning to bite or snap on command if a sheep tries to challenge him. Eventually he will be able WRµDLUVQDS¶RUDGPLQLVWHUDTXLFNQLSLIQHFHVVDU\+HVLWDWLRQLQDGRJ makes sheep begin to think he is weak and does not have to be µREH\HG¶ 6. Basic requirements for working with a herding dog Authority is necessary if a person wants a successful working relationship with a dog. This is sureness, consistency, and fairness of OHDGHUVKLS ZKLFK DPRXQW WR FODULW\ DQG MXVWLFH IURP WKH GRJ¶V perspective. Dogs have a strong sense of fairness and do not respond well to harsh treatment (Feddersen-Petersen 2007: 108). The dog is a pack animal that evolved to work in a social system of hierarchy and cooperation, but it must feel respected. Melbourne simply refused to work with one trainer who threatened him; instead he simply went to a far end of the field and refused to come back. That man wanted to dominate the dog completely, rather than work with him as a partner. Humans have flight zones, or bubbles of influence, just as sheep and dogs do, and the handler uses body language that exerts or relaxes that force. For example, facing the dog with squared shoulders is threatHQLQJ DV LV UDLVLQJ RQH¶V DUPV DQG OHDQLQJ WRZDUG WKH GRJ ZLWK D command to stop or lie down. Pointing a crook or stock stick at the GRJ¶VH\HVRUVKRulder is also threatening. Alternatively, standing with RQH¶VVLGHWRWKHGRJLVQRQ-threatening and signals trust and assent to what the dog is doing. As suggested above, respect is necessary on all sides. If dog is too fierce, the sheep will be frightened and will not cooperate. They will run away or break away from the flock and split off in all directions, getting too far away for control. But if the dog is too weak, the sheep will challenge it ± a lead ewe will face the dog and stamp her hoof or chase the dog. Sheep could even attack and kill a puppy, so the human trainer must take precautions to prevent this from occurring. In practice what tends to happen is that sheep that are herded often learn

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

49

to seek safety from the dog by staying close to the human handler. 7KH\DUHVDLGWREHµGRJJHG¶RUµIHWFK\¶$V'HUHN6NULPJHRXUVD\VD VKHHSLVWKLQNLQJ³7KHUH¶VDZROILQWKHILHOGDQG,PD\EHWKHRQHWR EH NLOOHG WRGD\´ VHH IRotnote 6 above). The sheep try to flock together and keep their backs to the dog, as that is the safest position for defence, since the most vulnerable parts of their bodies are their stomachs and necks. But if the handler and dog do their jobs properly, the sheep relax and move with the gentle prompting of the dog, directed by the human. 7. Rules and commands The dog must keep off the sheep and move them calmly. Some very keen young dogs will want to get at the sheep and bite them. Biting is only allowed if a sheep challenges the dog, and then only a nip in the nose or ear. Commands: x )ODQNV µ&RPH E\¶ JR FORFNZLVH  DQG µ$ZD\ WR PH¶ JR counter-clockwise). If the sheep are far away or out of sight, the dog will make a sweeping movement in the direction indicated, to do an outrun to find the sheep and get behind them, then turn in toward them WKHµOLIW¶ DQGIHWFKWKHPWRWKHKDQGOHU x µ/LHGRZQ¶RUµ6WRS¶RUµ6WDQG¶VWRS  x µ:DONXS¶ZDONGLUHFWO\WRZDUGWKHVKHHSPRYLQJWKHPLQD given direction). x µ6WHDG\¶VORZGRZQJRVWUDLJKWDORQJVWRSMXPSLQJDURXQG  x µ5LJKWWKHUH¶RUµ7KHUHQRZ¶FRUUHFWSRVLWLRQVWRSPRYLQJWR the side). x µ/RRNEDFN¶ORRNEHKLQGDQGVHHVKHHSOHIWRXWDIWHUWKHGRJ has seen the sheep, then he is given a flank and sent out around them to bring them up to the rest). x µ7KDW ZLOO GR¶ WKH WDVN LV RYHU OHDYH WKH VKHHS DQG FRPH away). Whistles are used from a distance to make these same commands. Verbal commands are taught by naming actions that the dog is doing instinctively early in training, as handler and dog move around the sheep in a small fenced area. The dog wants to balance the sheep to the handler, at the opposite side of the flock from the human. If the

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human moves to one side, the dog instinctively changes position to maintain the balance, and that flanking movement can be named. After verbal commands are securely learned, then whistle signals can be substituted and used at distances where voice commands would not carry. As mentioned above, this is an adaptation of wild canine hunting behaviour, with the human taking the place of the dominant pack animal and the herding dogs bringing the prey to him or her. Once a dog understands the rules and tasks of herding, he takes great pride and pleasure in performing them. The joy iQ D %RUGHU &ROOLH¶V RU .HOSLH¶V PRYHPHQWV DQG IDFLDO H[SUHVVLRQV LV XQPLVWDNDEOH ZKHQ KH returns to his human partner after completing a job of gathering sheep, penning them, or moving successfully through a gate. 8. Conclusion 7R -DFTXHV 'HUULGD¶V (2008) musing about whether animals respond to us, the answer for sheep dogs and their human partners is unquestLRQDEO\ ³\HV´ )RU WKRXVDQGV RI \HDUV PDQ\ NLQGV RI human/canine cooperation have been performed in shared communication for mutual benefit. Sentimentality is entirely out of order here. Both humans and dogs want to eat the sheep. The sheep want shelter and food from the humans, and protection from predators. Humans provide those comforts, but only for a time. Even dogs have often been part of the human diet and remain so in parts of the world today. But none of this context has prevented powerful bonds of attachment from forming among the three animal kinds, and intricate forms of semiotic behaviour have been operating among them for thousands of years. This is also true among wild animals, and between wild animals and humans who live in their proximity. But the herding of domestic sheep by dogs and their human partners is a special case in which more coordinated kinds of cross-species co-operation and communication have become habitual and have blurred species ERXQGDULHV'RQQD+DUDZD\VXPPDULVHVWKHVHUHODWLRQVKLSVDV³DNQRW of species co-shaping one another in layers of reciprocating complexity all the way down. Response and respect are possible only in those knots, with actual animals and people looking back at each other, sticky with all their muddled histories´ .

The zoosemiotics of sheep herding with dogs

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Bibliography $EEH\ .ULVWHQ  µ'RJ 7KHRU\¶ LQ Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 17: 777±780. Case, Linda P. 2005. The Dog: Its Behaviour, Nutrition, and Health. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell Publishing. Castel, Jean-&KULVWRSKH HW DO  µ6ROXWUHDQ $QLPDO 5HVRXUFH ([SORLWDWLRQ DW &RPEH 6DXQLqUH 'RUGRJQH )UDQFH ¶ LQ 0DOWE\ 0DUN HG  Integrating Zooarchaeology. Oxford: Oxbow Books: 138±151. &KDL[ /RXLV  µ$ 3UHERUHDO 'RJ IURP WKH 1RUWKHUQ $OSV 6DYRLH )UDQFH ¶ LQ Crockford, Susan Janet (ed.) Dogs Through Time: An Archaeological Perspective. Oxford: Archaeopress: 49±59. Clutton-Brock, Juliet. 200 µ,QWURGXFWLRQ¶ LQ &URFNIRUG 6XVDQ -DQHW HG  Dogs Through Time: An Archaeological Perspective. Oxford: Archaeopress: 3±7. Coppinger, Raymond and Lorna Coppinger. 2001. Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour, and Evolution. New York: Scribner. Coren, Stanley. 2005. The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of Our Canine Companions. New York: Free Press. Csányi, Vilmos. 2005 [2000 in Hungarian]. If Dogs Could Talk: Exploring the Canine Mind. (tr. R.E. Quandt). New York: North Point Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (tr. B. Massumi). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, Jacques. 2008. The Animal That Therefore I Am. (tr. D. Wills; ed. M.-L. Mallet). New York: Fordham University Press. 'HVSUHW9LQFLDQHµ7KH%RG\:H&DUHIRU)LJXUHVRI$QWKURSR-zoo-JHQHVLV¶ in Body & Society 10(2±3): 111±134. Feddersen-Petersen, Dorit U. 2007. µ6RFLDO%HKDYLRXURI'RJVDQG5HODWHG&DQLGV¶LQ Jensen, Per (ed.) The Behavioural Biology of Dogs. Cambridge, MA: CAB International: 105±119. )R[ 0LFKDHO : DQG -DPHV $ &RKHQ  µ&DQLG &RPPXQLFDWLRQ¶ LQ 6HEHRN Thomas A. (ed.) How Animals Communicate. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 728±746. Greenspan, Stanley I. and Stuart G. Shanker. 2004. The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Haraway, Donna J. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. +DUH%ULDQDQG0LFKDHO7RPDVHOORµ%HKDYLRXUDO*HQHWLFVRI'RJ&RJQLWLRQ Human-/LNH 6RFLDO 6NLOOV LQ 'RJV $UH +HULWDEOH DQG 'HULYHG¶ LQ Ostrander, Elaine A., Urs Giger and Kerstin Lindblad-Toh (eds.) The Dog and its Genome. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Coldspring Harbor Laboratory Press: 497±514. Hearne, Vicki. 2000. $GDP¶V 7DVN &DOOLQJ $QLPDOV E\ 1DPH Pleasantville, NY: Akadine Press. Johnson, Mark. 2007. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Kenneally, Christine. 2007. The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York: Viking. Lieberman, Philip. 2006. Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1973. Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language. (tr. H.J. Silverman). Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 0LNOyVLÈGiPµ+XPDQ±$QLPDO,QWHUDFWLRQVDQG6RFLDO&RJQLWLRQLQ'RJV¶LQ Jensen, Per (ed.) The Behavioural Biology of Dogs. Cambridge, MA: CAB International: 207±222. 0XVLO5XGROIµ(YLGHQFHIRUWKH'RPHVWLFDWLRQRI:ROYHVLQ&HQWUDO(XURSHDQ 0DJGDOHQLDQ 6LWHV¶ LQ &URFNIRUG 6XVDQ -DQHW HG  Dogs Through Time: An Archaeological Perspective. Oxford: Archaeopress: 21±28. Parsons, Tony. 2010. The Kelpie. Camberwell: Penguin Books Australia. Pryor, Francis. 2003. Britain B.C.: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans. New York: Harper. Roche, Hélène, A. Delagnes, J.-P. Brugal, C. Feibel, M. Kibunjia, V. Mourre and P.-J. Texier  µ(DUO\ +RPLQLG 6WRQH 7RRO 3URGXFWLRQ DQG 7HFKQLFDO 6NLOO  0\U$JRLQ:HVW7XUNDQD.HQ\D¶LQNature 399: 57±60. Savage-5XPEDXJK 6XH  µ%ULQJLQJ 8S .DQ]L¶ LQ 6DYDJH-Rumbaugh, Sue, Stuart G. Shanker and Talbot J. Taylor. Apes, Language, and the Human Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Savolainen, 3HWHU  µ'RPHVWLFDWLRQ RI 'RJV¶ LQ -HQVHQ 3HU HG  The Behavioural Biology of Dogs. Cambridge, MA: CAB International: 21±37. Sebeok, Thomas A  µ=RRVHPLRWLF &RPSRQHQWV RI +XPDQ&RPPXQLFDWLRQ¶LQ Sebeok, Thomas A. (ed.) How Animals Communicate. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press: 1055±1077. ². 2001. The Swiss Pioneer in Nonverbal Communication Studies Heini Hediger (1908±1992). New York: Legas. Soproni, Krisztina, A. Miklósi, J. Topál and V. Csányi  µ&RPSUHKHQVLRQ RI +XPDQ &RPPXQLFDWLYH 6LJQV LQ 3HW 'RJV &DQLV IDPLOLDULV ¶ LQ Journal of Comparative Psychology 115(2): 122±126. Tomasello, Michael. 2008. Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. 7UHYDUWKHQ &ROZ\Q  µ7KH 6HOI %RUQ LQ ,QWHUVXEMHFWLYLW\ $Q ,QIDQW &RPPXQLFDWLQJ¶ LQ 1HLVVHU 8OULF HG  The Perceived Self: Ecological and Interpersonal Sources of Self-Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press: 121±173. Wolfe, Cary. 2003. Animal Rites: American Culture and the Discourse of Species. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Avian aesthetics: The representation of bird song from music to science David Rothenberg It is not arbitrary that in most human languages, certain bird sounds are called µsongs¶. These are the sounds that are learned by birds for the purposes of inter- and intrasexual selection, as opposed to the µcalls¶ that have specific simple meanings and are often innate. I argue that such sounds are inherently musical. Music adds a sense of meaning that is different than the semiotic sense of language where sounds stand for signs. The meaning of music takes place only in the correct performance of patterns and phrases of sound, and is not encompassed by translating such performance into a sign for some separate function. This chapter reviews the history of how humans have tried to represent the musicality of bird song, and suggests how the quantifiable methods of science may be combined with musical analysis to advance our comprehension of bird song structure.

1. Introduction For thousands of years people have named certain bird sounds µsongs¶, and others µcalls¶. It seems we have long known that there is something musical about the ways birds communicate. And this representation of animal communication has been extended to other orders: there are insect songs, whale songs, now even ultrasonic mouse songs. Do we call animal sounds musical only if we find them pleasant to listen to? I believe the recognition of some animal sounds as music represents a valuable understanding of the natural world, one that is often overlooked by biology as a quaint aesthetic prejudice. The music of nature is something that can be studied scientifically, but to do so the science of animal communication needs to ask more difficult questions than it is used to doing. In this chapter I will trace the ways

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humans have tried to represent the more musical of animal sounds, from musical notes to graphic notations, mnemonics to sonograms, and finally to the number-crunched statistics that scientists today need to assess to turn a natural phenomenon into data. What makes an animal sound musical? Bird calls are not usually considered musical. These are the usually brief sounds the animal PDNHV WKDW KDYH VSHFLILF PHDQLQJV VXFK DV ³,¶P KXQJU\´ RU ³,¶P KHUH´ RU ³GDQJHU LV QHDU´ 7KH UHSHUWRLUH RI VXFK VRXQGV KDV EHHQ carefully mapped in certain species, such as the chickadee and the chaffinch (Freeberg 2008; see also Templeton et al. 2005). There are even five different British bird species that make the same ³ZKHHHHHHHHHH´VRXQGonly if there is a hawk flying overhead ± a real interspecies communication (Marler 1957). These kinds of sounds work like a very primitive language; each sound has a precise meaning, and can be fairly easily translated or coded. Some animals have a much more complex code of such sounds, like dolphins, beluga whales, or ravens. These creatures use sound in back-and-forth kind of conversations that seems very much like language, albeit languages that humans have been so far unable to effectively decode. But what of the animal sounds recognised as music? Bird songs have a structure and pattern independent of their function and meaning, making them very difficult to translate as if they were a language. What I mean is this: the function of bird song is wellestablished: to attract mates or defend territories. In most cases, only the males sing (though well-known exceptions include duetting species such as cardinals and laughing thrushes). Babies must learn the song from adult males. In closed-end learners they only have a few months in which they can learn their tunes. In open-end learners they are able to keep learning, changing, or refining their song throughout their whole lives. A bird song, either simple or complex, can be understood as a miniature musical composition. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. It has form, shape, and structure. Notes are often sung with rich timbre, inflection, and precise and controlled ornamentation. Some species favour exact compositions sung identically by all males in a particular population. Other species improvise their songs out of a shared set of learned motifs, while still others seem to be more free

Avian aesthetics

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improvisers working with compositional or genre constraints that enable humans to identify the species, and members of the species to recognise and probably also assess something about the singer from the song. So if we try to understand the bird song from its function, we get the same answer: getting the girl, keeping other guys away. Music may have that function sometimes for humans too, but such an answer says almost nothing about the music itself. One will not learn how to play or sing better from that explanation. Clearly bird music, or human music, is not like a foreign language that can be simply translated into our language so we can understand it. It is a musical performance, with the shape of a melody and the structure of a phrase that must be performed correctly for its objective to be achieved. To understand what makes a song right or wrong, we have to get into the music, not explain it away. This is most easily understood with examples of songs that are pleasing to human ears as well as presumably to those of birds. Historically, there has been a mix of graphic, textual, and notational approaches to the representation of avian music. A few of these methods are recounted below for the case of one of my favourite bird songs, that of the veery, Catharus fuscescens, a brown, spotted-belly thrush that lives in temperate American forests, whose song proves HVSHFLDOO\ HOXVLYH WR KXPDQ GHVFULSWLRQ , EHOLHYH WKLV ELUG¶V VRQJ LV the source of its name, a swirling, peeooweeeoooweeeooo descending invisible behind dense green leaves. You will almost never see this bird, but you will often hear him, sometimes from very far away. An HDUO\QDWLYH$PHULFDQIRUHVWJXLGHVDLG³this sound really makes me sick´ (Bent 1960), but I find it captivating, mysterious. 2. Representations of bird song How are we to represent the sound, to bring it within the realm of human understanding? Alien sounds are sometimes converted into text, and at other times into image. A pioneering work in this field, )6 0DWKHZV¶ Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music (1904), describes the song of the veery using both methods:

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Figure 1. 0DWKHZV¶Vong of the veery (Mathews 1904). Aretas Saunders, author of a famous mid-twentieth century Guide to Bird Songs, represented the sound like so:

Figure 2. Song of the veery according to Saunders (1951). Here the graphic notation of the veery song looks like a sweeping round sigh descending through the trees. Not as musical to our classical aesthetes but more like a wash of synthesised atmosphere present in the electronic music of today. Using the popular computer PXVLF VRIWZDUH $EOHWRQ /LYH , VORZHG WKH YHHU\¶V VRQJ GRZQ DQG GLVFRYHUHG D V\QFRSDWHG OLQH OLNH D SKUDVH RXW RI 0LOHV 'DYLV¶V electric fusion period, which conventional musical notation can only partially report:

Avian aesthetics

57

Figure 3. The song of the veery slowed down represented in musical notation (Rothenberg 2005). ,UHDOO\ GLGQ¶W H[SHFWVRPHWKLQJ OLNHWKDWWRFRPH RXWDPHORG\WKDW changes from C minor to G7 midcourse. And who knew a veery was swinging like that, with the sound so high and too fast for us to hear it? Modern science prefers computer-generated sonograms, like the following one created by the shareware Mac program Amadeus, with frequency on the vertical axis plotted against time. If the machine generates the graphic image, it is considered far more objective than a human hand freely sketching a piece of music that we cannot easily describe objectively within our accepted systems of notating sequences of sounds:

Figure 4. The song of the veery represented in Amadeus (Rothenberg 2005).

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So we have the wishful thinking early transcription, the transposed melody into the astonishing realm of Miles Davis-like cool jazz trumpet phrase, and then a more precise transcription, which in the end demonstrates a very refined sense of musicality in the single utterance of this musical bird. He is veerying with feeling, he means VRPHWKLQJ EHFDXVH KH¶V JRW WKDW VZLQJ ,Q WKH HQG ZH KDYH WKH sonogram, produced by a machine seeking no nuance. Is that then our most accurate representation of what this veery sings? What does the veery song mean? Some call music the language of emotions, pulling our heartstrings the way nothing else can. Others say its meaning is purely musical, to be understood only between precise rules of form and order that most listeners hardly know. There is truth in both these claims, and this is true for both humans and animals. I speak mostly of birds because so much more is known about their music that that of any other kind of animal, because it is most accessible to human ears and their biology is much more understood than that of other animal musicians. We know birds release dopamine when they sing, so in a sense they are addicted to singing. They love it, they enjoy it, they need it. Singing is of the very essence of being a bird. And I also believe there are right and wrong ways for a bird to sing. If they mess up, listeners will be far less impressed, and pay much less attention. I believe each singing animal species has a carefully developed musical aesthetic, the result of millions of years of evolution. This is evolution never designed to solve problems, not only working in a way so that each creature is perfectly adapted to its ecological niche ± that adaptive sense of natural selection is only part of the story. Charles Darwin certainly realised that aesthetics was a major part of evolution, so much so that he needed to write an entire book about this additional process that could explain what natural selection could not. ³7KHSHDFRFN¶VWDLO´ KH ZURWe (Darwin 18 ³PDNHV PHVLFN´. On the Origin of Species (1876 [1859]) introduced the concept of natural selection, organisms adapting to their environment and being chosen for their fitness, while his next book, The Descent of Man (1874 [1871]), introduced the notion of sexual selection, where females of the species also choose some traits just for the hell of it, because they happen to like them, for no reason beyond that.

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A species-wide whim of fashion determines the course of a whole species. Although function and efficiency are always an important part of how an animal is defined over many generations, there is also the consideration of beauty, which is sometimes selected for to an H[FHVVLYH GHJUHH +HQFH WKH SHDFRFN¶V WDLO WKH RYHU-fluffed birds of paradise, the ornate and extended songs of the nightingale, mockingbird, lyrebird, thrasher, catbird, and European wetland warblers. These things are not necessary, or directly useful. Wind evolution back a few million years, run it again, and you would not necessarily get any of these same traits. Evolution proceeds opportunistically, by following possible strands that happen to catch on, generation after generation. Nothing about its results is preordained. Sexual selection could also be called aesthetic selection. The males are supposed to be the artists, but the females call the shots, make the rules, decide what is good and what is bad. It is not only survival of the fittest, that is just half the story. We also have survival of the interesting, survival of the weird and the quirky, and at its best ± survival of the beautiful (see Rothenberg 2011). Who decides what is beautiful? Above I chose to demonstrate seven representations of the song of the veery, from drawings to musical notes to words to machine-made images, all trying to capture the song and turn it from time into space, from sound into picture. Only then does it seem weighty enough to be apprehended as data by the discerning scientist or philosopher. But it is still the beauty and the surprise that led me to choose this particular song. Hearing it real in the forest, there is an instant mood of mystery. Slowing it down, it turns immediately into a suave music that surprises and delights humans. Even Philip Ball, a great science writer who does not agree that bird song is music, in his masterful book The Music Instinct points out the slowed-GRZQYHUVLRQRIWKHYHHU\¶VVRQJDWP\website whybirdssing.com, and admits his astonishment (Ball 2010: 70). But sexual selection in veeries cares nothing for what any humans WKLQN DERXW WKLV VSHFLHV¶ PXVLF $OO WKDW PDWWHUV LV WKH HYROYHG aesthetic preference of generations of female veeries, with cumulative ZHLJKW VKDSLQJ WKH IRUP RI WKHLU FKRVHQ PDWHV¶ VRQJ 6RPHZKHUH along the line the parameters of the song coalesce, and the musical rules of the species are defined, in contradistinction from related

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species like the wood thrush and the hermit thrush. The distinct song is one of the traits that definitively separates the veery from his near relatives. Plenty of sexually selected traits are things that humans find ugly. Giant red growths on beaks in the case of hornbills, incredibly noisy strange songs in the case of starlings, catbirds and bowerbirds, globular wattles on turkeys and pheasants. It is not all to the general human taste. Yet so much of sexually selected beauty in animals is of interest and wonder to us. Is this only by chance? Our aesthetic preferences also evolve through the march of evolution. It may be tempting to say that they serve some adaptive function, as Denis Dutton (2009) does in his book The Art Instinct, but I stand closer with Darwin to believe that the possibility of excess is always lurking in evolution, especially when there is intense competition for a few good mates (Silke et al. 2004). Most birds do QRW HYROYH DQ\WKLQJ OLNH WKH SHDFRFN¶V WDLO EXW WKH possibility for an extreme trait is always there. And humans are a pretty extreme HYROXWLRQDU\UHVXOWE\DQ\RQH¶VVWDQGDUGV± look how much work we must do to survive! We change our environment, invent countless cultures and languages, constantly change our tunes and strategies, DQGLQWKHHQGSHUKDSVXVHXSWKHZKROHSODQHW¶VUHVRXUFHV,QWHUHVWLQJ ZD\ WR OLYH« OXFNLO\ YHU\ IHZ VSHFLHV FRPH XS ZLWK D SODQ DV outlanGLVKDVWKLV$GDSWLYH"+DUGO\6H[XDOO\VHOHFWHG"3RVVLEO\« But I digress. We cannot explain the reason for humanity with any form of evolutionary selection, only show the mechanism that made it happen, a wonderful result with no necessity behind it. Biologists, including Darwin, tend to emphasise the arbitrariness of sexual selection, suggesting that any extreme trait might turn out to be the thing the females like, with no reason or rhyme behind their desires. If WKDW LV WUXH ZK\ GR ZH ILQG WKH YHHU\¶V VRQJ VR EHDXWLIXO? Why are there such similarities in the form and structure of humpback whale songs, and nightingale songs, when these animals are very far away from each other on the evolutionary scale? Both of these creatures are outliers, because the sounds they make are particularly intricate, extended, and beautiful. Nightingales sing from twilight long into the dark hours ± if you have not yet heard one you may be surprised that their songs are not immediately melodious, but rhythmic, strange, like a secret pulsed code emitting from an alien star. There is indeed something otherworldly about their clear whistles

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and ratchety rhythms heard across a forest lake in the middle of the night. From our current listening vantage they sound a bit like a DJ scratching records or some Euro techno artist; perhaps to Shakespeare or John Clare they sounded like something else entirely. Their songs, though, are full of energy, sung all night long while the birds sit motionless on a high branch, easy for a predator to pick off. We do not know where the females are as this happens, but the males do compete with each other for attention with the songs, a fact observable in the wild and in the laboratories of Berlin, where Dietmar Todt and his students have shown how the males birds specifically compete with each other to jam rival signals, and through song establish a hierarchy of musical dominance that plays out on the mating field (Kipper et al. 2004). Nightingale song consists of rhythms at different frequencies, interspersed with long, clear whistle tones, a few whoops and bleeps. Definitely organised, with a structure not yet much analysed by human scientists, or human musicians. But a music is there, an always alien music. Is it beautiful? To the female nightingales, it is supposed to be. To other males? A challenge. Take the nightingale song and slow it down, stretch it out, and take the pitch down a couple of octaves. It used to be with tape recorders that when you slowed the speed down the sound got slower and the pitch went down, but if you do this digitally the two factors are independent. We slow down a song like this so our differently-tuned human ears can make better sense of it, think about the patterns, hear their relationship with time to track it. Ask a person what a slowed down nightingale song sounds like and WKH\PLJKWVD\³KXK",WVRXQGVDORWOLNHDKXPSEDFNZKDOH´7KRVH whoops, blats, chirps, grumbling rhythms happen on a wholly different metabolic scale, in a different medium, the tough-to-seethrough tropic underwater world, slow enough that humans have again a hard time paying attention to the whole way it moves. But again, there are clear patterns, rhythms, tones, a definite structure. Speed it XSUDLVHWKHSLWFKDQGLWVWUDQJHO\UHVHPEOHVWKHQLJKWLQJDOH¶VVRQJLQ terms of kind of different elements, spacing of the silences between sounds, and relative complexity of structure. Here is a small sampling of each, with scale of time and pitch adjusted to see the similarity, ten seconds of bird compared to one minute of whale:

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Figure 5. Comparison of thrush nightingale and humpback whale song (Rothenberg 2005). Why should these very different animals have songs with similar attributes? If they are supposed to be the result of sexual selection, a process of evolution that favours extended preference of random qualities, or at least arbitrary qualities, why should the songs of these very animals be so alike instead of wildly divergent? The occurrence of similar patterns of sound and song throughout the animal kingdom has hardly been studied at all. But visually, patterns in living creatures have received some attention, especially more than a hundred years ago, when the beauty of nature was celebrated more seriously by aesthetically-inclined scientists like (UQVW +DHFNHO DQG '¶$UF\ 7KRPSVRQ +DHFNHO  VHH DOVR Richards 2008 and Thompson 1992). They were both interested in fundamental patterns at the heart of life, and advanced their own differing theories on how the form of nature is anything but arbitrary, but governed by certain laws of mathematics that guide chemistry and physics. 3. The form of beauty Is it not strange that biology appears to favour randomness while these other sciences have more agreement on the rules governing form? Does that mean they have some currency over beauty as well? The

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physical laws of nature determine what form the natural world takes. Because we are of this world, and we are the species who has evolved to step back and take stock of nature in all its myriad forms, this is what we will find beautiful. Is this where our aesthetics comes from? Is there a kind of beauty that all species appreciate, in their own ways? Sexual selection implies that the specifics of a bird or whale song is so essential to each species that they will be more beautiful in their contexts, to the females who are listening, than they could ever be to us. But the parallels in what is preferred at different levels of life, like the similarities in the songs of birds and of whales, suggest that nature may favour certain kinds of patterns over others. There may be universal patterns of sound and substance, and rules of music may be found to be wider than the aesthetic of any one species as opposed to another; a sense for beauty may be one of the many attributes that link diverse and distinct species together as part of the great symphony of life. Bird song biologists generally have little use for this kind of talk, WKH\WHQGWRFDOOLW³VXEMHFWLYH´EHFDXVHDHVWKHWLFVLVYHU\GLIILFXOWWR measure. Scientists want it simple. This is the kind of thing they want to conclude: a male bird with the loudest or longest or most complex song should be the most successful in a contest to fend off his rivals and succeed in finding a mate. Is this true? Well, it turns out to be true in only a few bird species, such as the sedge warbler, Acrocephalus schoenobaenus. If a sedge warbler has a longer song with more distinct musical phrases, he does tend to have more mating success. Bravo! There are many, many papers documenting this behaviour in the sedge warbler. But the sedge warbler has many relatives, with equally complex or sometimes more complex songs: the great reed warbler, the moustached warbler, and perhaps most interesting for us, the European marsh warbler, Acrocephalus palustris. I like the marsh warbler especially because it shows how the µmore is better¶ theory is not complete. This European warbler migrates from Northern Europe to Africa every winter, like many songbirds do. But only the marsh warbler does this very remarkable thing. He learns about fifty songs of African birds, and flies back to Europe in late spring and sings them, one after DQRWKHUDWDQDVWRQLVKLQJVSHHG,W¶VDQLQFUHGLEOHH[FHVVLYHLQWULFDWH

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performance, unlike anything else we know of in the avian world (Dowsett-Lemaire 1979a; see also Dowsett-Lemaire 1979b). The male marsh warblers tend to arrive a few weeks before the females, and congregate in swamp-area trees, all singing together like some grand remix jam session. They do not sound like they are competing for any territory, but all singing together like some giant mad choir. It is a wild sound few people get to hear, since it only happens for a week or two, and very early in the morning in the high latitudes, for example the middle of Estonia in the first week of May, and that means getting up around 3 a.m. When the females arrive a few weeks later, the males tend to shut up and immediately help them build the nest. She does not even get to hear this astonishing, presumably sexually selected performance. As Françoise DowsettLemaire, the ornithologist who convincingly discovered this SKHQRPHQRQ DV D WHHQDJH JLUO IRUW\ \HDUV DJR WROG PH ³VKH PD\ QHYHUJHWWRKHDUZKDWKHUPDWHLVFDSDEOHRI´5RWKHQEHUJ  In the case of marsh warblers, and in most other songbirds with very complex songs, no one has demonstrated that the more complex song offers any competitive advantage whatsoever. Sexual selection does not work as simply as science would like it to. We cannot explain why the marsh warbler developed such an interesting song aesthetic. /LNH WKH SHDFRFN¶V WDLO LW PD\ MXst be that the possibility was there and this one bird chose to run with it. The singing marsh warblers represent the world of other singing birds by putting them into their own song with a rush of diversity of complexity. I have talked to many biology students who have wanted to study more anomalous behaviour in the animal world, and more often than not, their advisors have discouraged them, because they want more research to bolster the mainstream simplistic idea of sexual selection, not more extreme examples that will never prove the rule. While in sexually selected avian music extremes may not be the rule, they are the songs that most impress and confound us. We insult the music of birds by saying that the best of it is the loudest, longest, or most complex. As in human aesthetics, the best bird songs in any one species will have a balance of complexity and simplicity, and will need to attend to the perfect rules of that one species and no other. Each species has its own behavioural solutions, strategies, and also aesthetics. It can be very difficult to quantify, and it may be

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impossible to quantify, but first we have to dare to ask more complex questions. From the excellent research of Dietmar Todt, Henrike Hultsch, and their many students from the Free University in Berlin we know that male nightingales do use their songs to compete with each other for female attention, either alternating songs with each other in peaceful announcement of territory, or overlapping their songs in a more DJJUHVVLYH PDQQHU WR WU\ WR ³MDP´ WKH VLJQDOV RI WKHLU FRPSHWLWRUV The researchers also conclude that the most successful bird, the Top Gale, so to speak, just sings and sings without paying any attention to what the others are doing. He is neither alternating nor overlapping, but just ignoring. The other males are of no interest to him at all (Naguib 1999). That shows how song is used, but not what it is. Are there specific characteristics in the structure and form of the beautiful and complex nightingale song itself that might be studied in more subtle and aesthetic terms? 4. Nightingale aesthetics At first scientists laughed at me when I suggested they should look at nightingale aesthetics. Their tendency was to dismiss my concern as the naïve view of an outsider philosopher and musician. Aesthetics, they surmised, is purely a human affair. But it was already Darwin who emphasised that birds, with their ornately co-evolved female preferences for outlandish traits and behaviours, can clearly be said to KDYH ³D QDWXUDO DHVWKHWLF VHQVH´. Although such ideas have largely been ignored by biology until the recent work of Richard Prum (2010), the Finnish biologist Olavi Sotavalta, who also had a degree in music from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, was the first to try this out fifty years ago, on the thrush nightingales of his native Finland. Sotavalta wondered if he might try out the approach of musical analysis on a genuinely complex bird song, that of the thrush nightingale, Luscinia luscinia, an Eastern European and Asian bird with a more rhythmic and scratchy song than the Luscinia megarhynchos nightinJDOH RI :HVWHUQ (XURSH¶V URPDQWLF SRHWU\ English nightingales sing fifty to two hundred different phrases with much variation and change. Sotavalta noted that thrush nightingales

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sing an equally large number of distinct phrase types, but each type has a fairly consistent structure more stylised than the phrases of the PRUH IDPRXV ELUG +H OLVWHQHG LQWHQWO\ WR WKH QLJKWLQJDOH¶V VRQJ ,WV timbre is not easily harmonious, but raw and complex, combining SHUFXVVLYH UK\WKPV DQG FOHDU QRWHV ³3XUH WRQHV FRXOG EH whistling, piccolo-like, dull, like a low flute, metallic, celesta-like or chippy, like a xylophone, long or short´. +H VWUXJJOHG WR SXW LW LQ ZRUGV ³7KH commonest noise-type appeared in the cadence and resembled the UDWWOHRIDWDPERXULQH´ (Sotavalta 1956: 5). Sotavalta studied two birds, one in 1947 and the second in 1948. The first had fifteen basic phrases, and the second seventeen. At the level of the phrase, a definite form can be identified. In the thrush nightingale song, the rhythm seems more significant than the pitch. Here is the basic structure Sotavalta identified that fit nearly every phrase of both the birds:

Figure 6. The structure of the thrush nightingale song according to Sotavalta (1956). The introductory notes are one or two soft whistling tones. Then comes a low-pitched antecedent, then a brief link to the characteristic motif, which is the part most distinct between one phrase and the next. It is in double or triple time, sometimes with distinct wide intervals. Then a postcedent series of repeated low notes, a high bleep, final ³FKLSS\[\ORSKRQH-like chords´, and that one quick tambourine-type rattle. Chhuum. Thrush nightingale deciphered? At least some structure was found. Here (see Figure 7) are four of the fifteen basic phrases Sotavalta heard from one of the birds:

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Figure 7. Four basic phrases LQ D VSHFLILF QLJKWLQJDOH¶V VRQJ according to Sotavalta (1956). This revelation of a drumbeat music resembles a battery of percussion rather than a luminous turn of melody. With all the praise given to the QLJKWLQJDOH¶V YLUWXRVLW\ LW LV DPD]LQJ KRZ DOLHQ LWV PXVLF ORRNV DQG sounds. Sotavalta listened acutely and perceptively to decode the structure RIWKHWKUXVKQLJKWLQJDOH¶VVRQJ+Hfound clear rules in it, yet no line of research was based on his conclusions. Later nightingale researchers scoffed at his sample size of only two individual birds. And he used a kind of musical argumentation that is difficult to quantify. Yet he traced the secrets of nightingale music more accurately than anyone since. Inspired by Olavi Sotavalta, a Nightingala Festival was organised DW6LEHOLXV¶VKRPHLQ.DOOLR-Kuninkala by Dario Martinelli and Petri Kuljuntausta in 2008.1 This remarkable gathering brought together biologists, composers, musicologists, and performers to celebrate the musicality of nightingales and discuss ways the different disciplines might meaningfully collaborate. There I managed to convince biologist Ofer Tchernichovski that nightingale aesthetics could, in principle, become a scientific subject that might be quantified in the way science likes to measure things. Tchernichovski makes use of 1

See http://www.umweb.org/nightingala/ (consulted 14.03.2012).

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computerised listening; he has recorded every single sound zebra finches make in their first three months of life, the only time they are able to learn to sing, in what LVFDOOHGWKH³VHQVLWLYHSHULRG´. Then he has used an algorithm of his own design to identify recurring patterns in the song: in amplitude, time, pitch, and a phenomenon called ³Weiner entropy´, which is a measure of the relative amount of noise in a single bird song syllable. With this kind of statistical quantification he has been able to discover much about how birds learn to sing: at what time of day they learn new phrases, how the full song coalesces out of individual parts, and how they need to forget some parts of the song in order to remember others. It is remarkable research, with a lot of data to back it up, all the while harming as few birds as possible. Tchernichovski works mainly on the model species of neuroscientists, which is the zebra finch, the single species about which most is learned. Neuroscience in general is interested in birds because they are one of the very few kinds of animals that are able to learn sounds beyond instinct. Most animals cannot do this: the only ones that can are whales, dolphins, and humans ± not other intelligent primates. Why not? Natural selection must somehow select against vocal learning, in general it must not be advantageous. But it offers untold possibilities for communication, and enhancement. Sexual selection must favour it, but still, it is rare in the animal kingdom. The zebra finch has a very brief, stereotyped song, less than a second in length, and even the process of learning such a simple song is complicated and difficult to understand. But by developing a way to analyse hours and days of singing, Tchernichovski has made real progress toward our understanding of how birds learn to sing (Tchernichovski et al. 2004; see also Tchernichovski et al. 2001). What I asked him to consider with the nightingale is whether the same statistical and quantitative approach, well-described on his website,2 could be applied to the analysis of a single bird singing one very long and complicated song, such as a male nightingale going on for hours and hours through the night. He immediately agreed that it could be done, and soon afterwards we found a very capable post-doc

2

See http://ofer.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/ (consulted 14.03.2012).

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student from Berlin, Christina Roeske. Three years later we are beginning to get some results.3 Like most biologists working today with the representation of bird songs, sound is first of all converted into image so it can be analysed with greater ease by our very visual minds. Roeske decided to focus RQWKHDPSOLWXGH RIWKH GLVWLQFW PRWLIVLQWKH QLJKWLQJDOH¶VVRQJDQG she colour coded the data, red being loudest, blue being silence, with the continuous visual spectrum of colours in between. Then she plotted the continuous amplitude of each three to eight second song phrase (she and most biologists tend to think of each of these phrases as a complete song, whereas I, as a musician, tend to consider the whole song performance or ³song bout´ to be a single song, alas doing that makes it much harder to analyse). Then they aligned each song phrase from the beginning, to discover what common features each phrase might reveal statistically (see Figure 8):

Figure 8. Amplitude of selected song phrases in nightingales (Roeske et al. 2010).

3

7LQD5RHVNHSUHVHQWHGRXUSDSHURQ³5K\WKPLQ1LJKWLQJDOH6RQJ´IRUWKHILUVWWLPH at a birdsong neuroscience meeting in Fall 2010 (Roeske et al. 2010), and I presented some of the same results to a quite different audience in Tartu in April 2011.

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The most visible pattern appeared at the very beginning of each song phrase. Here are hundreds of individual songs compared:

Figure 9. Comparison of the amplitude of song phrases in nightingales (Roeske et al. 2010). After the first three notes, things get very wild and diverse in terms of amplitude, and there is not much simple commonality that can be revealed:

Figure 10. Averaged amplitude in nightingale song phrases (Roeske et al. 2010).

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This result, though quite basic, shows just how much statistical analysis would be necessary to find biological data to back up the kind of musical analysis Sotavalta attempted with only two birds. So much DERXWHDFKELUG¶VUHSHUWRLUHRIVRQJVLVGLIIHUHQWWKDWLWLVLPSRUWDQWWR find one or two features that are statistically similar. These become the quantifiable features that might begin to identify, for humans, the particular species aesthetic for the nightingale, the basic rules behind the music the female nightingales would consider acceptable, or preferable. What is the purpose of this preference? Roeske and her collaborators are hoping they will find some qualities in the song that will correlate with more mating success, thereby discovering the details of some sexually preferred trait among the aesthetic experts among the nightingale species, namely, the female birds, who are doing all the choosing. As a musician I am more interested in what rules might lie behind the music, so I might learn from them. A more recent study we are working on demonstrates, albeit with a small sample of just a few birds, that there are rhythmic rules that distinguish one bird from another. Each of these four birds has a quite specific way of handling the space between each syllable or motif:

Figure 11. FRXUQLJKWLQJDOHV¶VRQJV according to Roeske et al. (2010).

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Using a similar approach with human musicians, one would likely be DEOH WR ILQG VWDWLVWLFDO WRROV FDSDEOH RI GLVWLQJXLVKLQJ RQH SHUVRQ¶V SOD\LQJ VW\OH RU RQH FRPSRVHU¶V ZULWLQJ VW\OH IURP WKH RWKHUV7KLV approach might be useful for decodLQJPXVLFDO³IHHO´KRZH[DFWO\LV Coltrane different from Parker?) but also suggestive of another possible reason for the vast diversity in nightingale performance: an individual male might be identifiable by his personal singing style. 4 Do we know if nightingales think like this? Not yet. 5. Conclusion Science needs to represent animal music as statistics and graphs for it to be taken seriously as data. As a musician I am happy to enjoy DQLPDOV¶ songs as music, slowing them down to greater appreciate their nuance, playing along in the studio with such slowed-down sounds, or out in the wild with the real thing, to get inside the bird from an aesthetic perspective.5 Science and music are two distinct forms of human knowledge, and they take very different approaches when confronting the enigma of complex bird songs. Musical methods can help reveal the beauty inherent in the form, inflection, and energy of these sexually-selected learned songs. The insight of the musician can reveal aesthetic criteria that explain how certain songs contain the same qualities we identify as beautiful in human music. Music can suggest such formal and emotional elements, but it cannot prove that they are really there. Science can analyse empirical data to support or refute aesthetic hypotheses only if it admits that the components of the beautiful can be measured, and are not mere subjective opinion. Certainly they are not merely subjective for the birds, as each species has evolved a unique aesthetic sense, as Darwin proposed and the mainstream of biology has ignored. It is high time that scientists admit that aesthetic value can be tested and assessed as much as any

4

Presented at the Gathering in Biosemiotics meeting (no. 11) in New York in June 2011. 5 I have written extensively about this elsewhere in Why Birds Sing (Rothenberg 2005), about whales in Thousand Mile Song (Rothenberg 2008), and in greater detail on why it is important to make music live along with animals in Rothenberg, forthcoming. For a review of musicality in birdsong, see Rothenberg et al. 2013.

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RWKHUDVSHFWRIDQDQLPDO¶VEHKDYLRXURUDSSHDUDQFHDQG,KRSH,KDYH suggested some methodologies that might help make this possible. In our context of animal representation, I hope I have shown that musical questions can be turned into scientific questions once they can be codified and expanded into the mass of data that science needs to work its quantifying magic. There are tough questions to quantify, but we need difficult questions if we are to get the most interesting answers.

Bibliography Ball, Philip. 2010. The Music Instinct. London: Bodley Head. Bent, Arthur Cleveland. 1960. Life Histories of Familiar North American Birds. New York: Harper. Darwin, Charles. 1860. Letter from Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, April 3, 1860. Darwin Correspondence Project, no. 2743. Online at: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2743 (consulted 16.02.2012). ². 1874 [1871]. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd edition. London: John Murray. ². 1876 [1859]. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. 6th edition. London: John Murray. Dowsett-Lemaire, Françoise. 19Dµ7KH,PLWDWLYH5DQJHRIWKH6RQJ RIWKH0DUVK Warbler Acropehalus palustris¶LQIbis 121: 453±468. ²Eµ9RFDO%HKDYLRXURIWKH0DUVK:DUEOHU¶LQLe Gerfaut 69: 475±502. Dutton, Denis. 2009. The Art Instinct. New York: Bloomsbury. Freeberg, Todd M. 2008. µComplexity in the Chick-a-Dee Call of Carolina Chickadees (Poecile carolinensis): Associations of Context and Signaler Behavior to Call Structure¶LQ Auk 125: 896±907. Haeckel, Ernst. 1905. The Wonders of Life. New York: Harper. Kipper, Silke, Roger Mundry, Henrike Hultsche and Dietmar Todt. 2004. µ/RQJ-term 3HUVLVWHQFHRI6RQJ3HUIRUPDQFH5XOHVLQ1LJKWLQJDOHV¶LQ Behaviour 141: 371± 390. 0DUOHU3HWHUµ6SHFLILF'LVWLQFWLYHQHVVLQWKH&RPPXQLFDWLRQ6LJQDOVRI%LUGV¶ in Behavior 11 (1957): 13±39. 1DJXLE 0DUF  µ(IIHFWV RI 6RQJ 2YHUODSSLQg and Alternating on Nocturnally 6LQJLQJ1LJKWLQJDOHV¶LQAnimal Behaviour 58(5): 1061±1067. 3UXP 5LFKDUG  µ7KH /DQG\-Kirkpatrick Mechanism is the Null Model of (YROXWLRQE\,QWHUVH[XDO6HOHFWLRQ¶LQEvolution 64: 3085±3100. Richards, Robert. 2008. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Roeske, Tina, Philipp Sprau, Iva Ljubicic, Eathan Janney, David Rothenberg, Gary Marcus, Ofer Tchernichovski DQG 0DUF 1DJXLE  µMelody and Rhythm in 1LJKWLQJDOH6RQJ¶ Poster presented at Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting (San Diego, November 13±17, 2010). Rothenberg, David. 2005. Why Birds Sing. New York: Basic Books. ². 2008. Thousand Mile Song. Whale Music in a Sea of Sound. New York: Basic Books. ². 2011. Survival of the Beautiful. New York: Bloomsbury. ² )RUWKFRPLQJ µ,QWHUVSHFLHV ,PSURYLVDWLRQ¶ LQ Oxford Handbook on Critical Improvisation Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. Rothenberg, David, Tina C. Roeskeb, Henning U. Vossc, Marc Naguibd and Ofer 7FKHUQLFKRYVNLE  µInvestigation of musicality in birdsong¶ LQ Hearing Research, published online September 11 (DOI 10.1016/j.heares.2013.08.016). 6RWDYDOWD2ODYLµ6RQJ3DWWHUQVRI7ZR6SURVVHU1LJKWLQJDOHV¶LQAnnals of the )LQQLVK=RRORJLFDO6RFLHW\³9DQDPR´ ±31. Tchernichovski, Ofer, Thierry J. Lints, S. Derégnaucourt, A. Cimenser, Partha P. Mitraµ6WXG\LQJWKH6RQJ'HYHORSPHQW3URFHVV: Rationale and Methods¶LQ Behavioural Neurobiology of Birdsong, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1016: 348±363. Tchernichovski, Ofer, Partha P. Mitra, Thierry J. Lints, Fernando Nottebohm. 2001. µ'\QDPLFVRIWKH9RFDO,PLWDWLRQ3Uocess: How a Zebra Finch Learns IWV6RQJ¶LQ Science 291(5531) (30 March 2001): 2564±2569. Templeton, Christopher N., Erick Greene, Kate Davis. 2005. µAllometry of Alarm Calls: Black-Capped Chickadees Encode Information About Predator Size¶ LQ Science 308(5730) (24 June 2005): 1934±1937. 7KRPSVRQ '¶$UF\ 1992 [1917]. On Growth and Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Speaking marmots, deaf hunters: Animal±human semiotic breakdown as the imagined cause of the Manchurian pneumonic plague of 1910±11 Christos Lynteris The great Manchurian pneumonic plague of 1910±1911 claimed the lives of 60,000 people with a 100 per cent mortality rate amongst the infected. The natural vector of plague was the Siberian marmot, known as the tarbagan, which inhabits large areas of ,QQHU$VLD¶VVWHSSHV(SLGHPLRORJLFDOH[HJHVLVDWWKHWLPHSODFHGLPSRUWDQFHRQWKH supposed inability of marmot-hunting migrant workers to understand signals regarding the state of health of the particular animal. Amongst the most conspicuous signals transmitted by the marmots was sXSSRVHGWREHWKHXWWHUDQFHRI³EXSD´RU ³QRIHDU´ by healthy adult animals basking in the sun, a semiotic ability lacking in ill marmots. This paper investigates the semiotic breakdown between marmots and their human hunters as perceived by Chinese epidemiologists at the time, underlining its consequences for targeting of migrant workers as responsible for the spread of the pneumonic plague epidemic across Manchuria.

1. Introduction In the last few years we have been witnessing the return of a threat to global human health that had not made its appearance for almost a century: pneumonic plague. Although commonly regarded today as a disease which has been overcome, a feature of our agricultural past, the plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) remains a potentially lethal threat to modern human societies. Examples can be drawn from Madagascar, Uganda, and more recently China, where a pneumonic plague outbreak struck Qinghai Province in the summer of 2009, providing ample evidence of both the threat posed by and our lingering inability to fully understand this ancient disease, especially in its most lethal, pneumonic form. By means of examining epidemiological discourse at the time, this paper will relate to how the

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most devastating plague outbreak in the last 100 years, striking Manchuria in 1910, was attributed to a semiotic breakdown in the hunter±prey relation between marmots and humans. Moreover, I will demonstrate how this imagined breakdown was linked to particular, governmental ways of constructing an anthropology of ignorance, which targeted migrant workers, or so-called coolies, as the class responsible for spreading the plague. Following the analysis of ignorance first proposed by Roy Dilley, my paper presents the reader with an anthropology of méconnaissance, as a political field of ethnic and class distinctions in late imperial and early republican China. 2. Plague and the marmot According to Erika Reuter (2008: 9), Marmota sibirica, the species of the Sciuridae family commonly known by its Mongol name, tarbagan, LVDPDMRU³HFRV\VWHP HQJLQHHU´ LQWKH JUHDW,QQHU $VLDQVWHppes. Its soil turning and aerating operations (unearthing buried nutrients) are EHOLHYHG WR ³FUHDWH VSHFLILF µ]RRJHQLF ODQGVFDSHV¶ WKDW DUH KLJKO\ VWDEOH´5HXWHU $WWKHVDPHWLPHPDUPRWEXUURZVDUHRIWHQ used by other animals of the steppe (both mammals and birds) for habitation, while the tarbagan itself accounts for a large proportion of the diet of wolves, eagles, buzzards, and snow leopards in the wider region (Reuter 2008) $FFRUGLQJ WR 5XVVLDQ VFLHQWLVWV¶ UHFHQW UHsearch, the genesis of Yersinia pestis during the late Pleistocene is closely related to the marmot population of the Inner Asian steppes. In particular, Viktor Suntsov and Nina Suntsova (2005) argue that the evolution of plague from pseudotuberculosis is linked to the habit of this particular species of marmots of using its forearms and mouth to seal the entrance of its burrow during winter with a mixture of pebbles and faeces. In combination with the propensity of the larvae of the PDUPRW¶VIOHDSDUDVLWHOropsylla silantiewi) to feed on the mouths of hibernating rodents, this faeces-to-mouth practice is believed to have created an ideal environment for the natural selection of Yersinia pestis. $W WKH VDPH WLPH $OHNVDQGU 3LO¶QLNRY   KDV QRWHG WKH propensity for plague in areas where the soil is rich in heavy metals, OLNH XUDQLXP DQG WKRULXP 3LO¶QLNRY¶V PHDVXUHPHQWV LQ 6RXWKHDVW Transbaikalia indicate a high concentration of radon gases within tarbagan burrows, especially during the hibernating season, due to the

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increased difference ratio between subterranean and ground WHPSHUDWXUHV $FFRUGLQJ WR WKH 5XVVLDQ VFLHQWLVW ³UDGRQ FRQFHQtrations in the burrows of the rodents are more than ten times greater than the established norms for people working in uranium mines, suggesting that these burrowing animals have special adaptations to FRSH ZLWK UDGLRDFWLYH HQYLURQPHQW´ 3LO¶QLNRY    $V VXFK conditions are believed to boost epizootic contagion of plague amongst mammals, it is possible that relatively radioactive-immune tarbagans could not only have provided an ideal environment for the selection of Yersinia pestis, but also have caused the unusual levels of plague transmissibility across Inner Asia. Interesting as such information may be from a natural history perspective, it should not preoccupy us any further, as this is a historicalethnographic study, and the ecology and biology of the marmot as defined by western science today is not just irrelevant to our discussion, but must be excluded from it, if we want to avoid both heterochronic and ethnocentric bias in our anthropological analysis. What is far more important here is a brief genealogy of the scientific study of marmots and their supposed relation to the plague in Inner Asia, leading to the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910±11. The first scientific observation of Marmota sibirica, commonly known by its Mongol name tarbagan, was made by the naturalist Gustav Radde during the Great Siberian Expedition organised by the Russian Geographical Society in the mid-1850s (Bassin 1983). In his classic two-volume work, Radde gives for the first time a detailed description of what he named Arctomys bobac (1856), and its relation to native hunters (Radde 1862: 162):1 7KHSDJDQKXQWHUVZKRZHUHYHU\IDPLOLDUZLWKWKHEREDF¶VKDbits, it being for them a basic source of food, and who we can certainly believe as simple and uninfluenced observers, certify that in the summer the bobacs grind leaves of grass between the upper side of their arm and the front side of their belly so as to soften them and then use them in order to support their nests. They also say that the really deep sleep of the bobacs begins only in December and that when one unearths them at the end of autumn without smoking them out one can never

1

For help with the translation from the original below, I thank Emily Stavridis; I am, however, solely responsible for any mistakes.

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Christos Lynteris hand-handle them [«] This is why the Tungus,2 once they reach the end of the plug sealing the winter home, in order to pierce through it light a fire, with the help of wet manure, from which the smoke is directed into the nest and suffocates its inhabitants. They do the same in springtime, a little before the time comes for bobacs to leave their nests. The pagan hunters thus rest only for the three months during which bobacs lay motionless as they say in deep sleep. That is from December to the end of February. As far as the nests themselves is concerned, while they have a common form externally, they differ greatly in their internal structure, and as I have been told, they are larger wherever the ground is harder. No bobac dwells in sand, and the softer the ground the shorter the corridor towards the nest and the shallower the nest itself is.

'HVSLWH 5DGGH¶V SLRQHHULQJ ZRUN LQWHUHVW LQ WKH SRVVLEOH UHODWLRQ between wild rodents and human plague did not arise before 20 more years had elapsed. Partly due to the devastating plague epidemic at Vetlianka (Petrie 1924: 397), at the mouth of the Volga, in 1878±79, and partly due to the increasing imperialist expansion in Central and Inner Asia, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century &]DULVW5XVVLD¶VLQWHUHVWLQWKHSDUticular disease in the South-East of the Empire intensified. Thus, in 1895 two articles appeared in the Journal of General Hygiene and Juridical and Practical Medicine (ȼɟɫɬɧɢɤ ɨɛɳɟɫɬɜɟɧɧɨɣ ɝɢɝɢɟɧɵ ɫɭɞɟɛɧɨɣ ɢ ɩɪɚɤɬɢɱɟɫɤɨɣ ɦɟɞɢɰɢɧɵ), for the first time problematising the relation between marmots and plague. In their respective pioneering papers, Beliavski and Reshetnikov described pneumonic plague as ɱɭɦD ɬɚɪɛɚɝɚɧɨɜ, Russian for the disease tarbagan plague. While the latter gave a brief account of an outbreak in September 1891 at the military settlement of Aksha, killing seven people of a family of a Cossack man who allegedly partook to the flesh of a tarbagan, the former provided a detailed account of an outbreak in September 1894 at the village of Soktui, allegedly originating once again in marmot hunting (Clemow 1900: 170±171). Through interviews with the local population, Beliavski managed to reconstruct the origin of the outbreak in some detail: it originated in the hunting of six marmots by the dog of the original victim of the disease, a Cossack paterfamilias, who was on his way to a court-case in a nearby town. While attending court, the man kept the six animals hidden in straw on the roadside, only to recover 2

Here one can only assume a very generic use of the term by Radde, not necessarily reflecting the actual identity of the ethnic group under question.

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them on his way back home. There he fell ill infecting the rest of his family. %HOLDYNVL¶V DPDWHXU HWKQRJUDSK\ ZDV PRUH IUXLWIXO WKDQ VLPSO\ pinning down the origin of the particular outbreak. As related to in his Vestnik article, discussions with locals established the existence of a regular epizootic disease amongst marmots in the area, as well as sporadic outbreaks of a disease in the nomadic settlements of the area. Informants communicated to Beliavski that a common way of testing a captured tarbagan for plague was to make an incision on the paw of the animal to see if the blood is coagulated, in which case they leave it or feed it to the dogs. Moreover, they claimed that in the past it had been common to use for treatment an infusion of powdered glands found near the kidney of healthy marmots in black tea ± a method none considered efficient. Such amateur ethnographic observations, forming the basis of future stories on native±marmot±plague relations, culminated at the assertion that upon the start of an outbreak, natives abandon the stricken and move camp, sometimes returning to burn the stricken yurts and whatever they may contain. 3 Over the next 15 years similar observations followed; in Mongolia by the attaché to the French Legation in Beijing, Jean-Jaques Matignon (1898), and in Transbaikalia by a string of Russian epidemiologists, amongst whom the most prominent was Danylo K. =DERORWQ\DPHGLFDOPDQRILQWHUQDWLRQDOVWDWXVDV5XVVLD¶VGHOHJDWH to the Indian Plague Commission investigating the effects of the third plague pandemic on the British Raj. Whereas this literature attracted the interest of Russia-watchers like )UDQN &OHPRZ WKH %ULWLVK 'HOHJDWH WR &RQVWDQWLQRSOH¶V 2WWRPDQ Health Board, its effect on international epidemiology was limited, in all probability because the fascination at the time was with Paul-Louis 6LPRQG¶V HVWDEOLVKPHQW RIWKHUDWIOHDDVWKH YHFWRURISODJXH GXULQJ the third pandemic, which was spreading from the mountains of Yunnan all the way to San Francisco. Events in Manchuria at the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century were going to change all that, and challenge the monopoly of the rat as the origin of Yersinia pestis.

3

For a condensed account of the findings in English see Clemow (1900).

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3. The Great Manchurian plague It is easy to imagine that were it not for the contested sovereignty over the vast and rich expanses of Manchuria between Russia, China, and Japan (Clyde 1926; Gamsa 2006), the 1910±11 pneumonic plague outbreak would have not assumed the political proportions it did at the time. The epidemic struck the Manchurian border town of Manzhouli on October 13, 1910. Facilitated by the extensive railway system covering Manchuria at the time, the disease quickly spread across the region, reaching Harbin on October 27 and Changchun on December 31. Following the trail of migrant workers returning home for the Chinese New Year, it reached Beijing on January 12 and the provinces of Jilin and Shandong by February 1911. By April 1911, when it finally showed definite signs of waning, it had led to the death of approximately 60,000 people. Scientists at the time put the mortality rate to 100 per cent amongst those infected. Farrar, a British doctor involved in the containment of the outbreak, claimed that the incubation of pneumonic plague varied from two to five days with the usual first symptoms being an increase in temperature and a fast pulse rate (Farrar 1912: 10±11). After developing blood-containing sputum DQGWKHFROODSVHRIWKHSXOVHUDWHWKHSDWLHQWXVXDOO\GLHG³RIFDUGiac failure from the rapid development of toxaemia over the large area SUHVHQWHG E\ WKH EURQFKLDO PXFRXV PHPEUDQH´ )DUUDU    Farrar (1912: 2) claimed, and all available sources from the time agree, that patients died within 48 hours. The streets of the great Manchurian cities and towns were strewn with people staggering and collapsing to their death. Where they fell, there they lay crouching, for none dared succour them, they passed from stupor into coma, and died shunned and untended [«] none dared give shelter to a stricken patient, and the sick were often thrust out into the streets to die, lest their death should implicate the household. (Farrar 1912: 2)

This major epidemiological crisis fed into the already intense sovereignty debacle between China and Japan (and to a lesser extent Russia), which commanded zones of control over Manchuria under a complex system of treaties (Nathan 1967). As one might expect, the DSSDUHQW LQDELOLW\ RI &KLQD¶V 4LQJ '\QDVW\ WR FRQWURO WKH HSLGHPLF

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was a much welcomed embarrassment from the perspective of the -DSDQHVH (PSLUH ,WV FODLPV UHJDUGLQJ &KLQD¶V LQFDSDELOLW\ WR UXOH over the region now spectacularly validated, it only seemed natural to insist that Manchuria had to be ceded to the rational and scientific control of Japan and its local colonial representatives, the Kwantung *RYHUQPHQW DQG WKH 6RXWK 0DQFKXULDQ 5DLOZD\ &RPSDQ\ &KLQD¶V response to these claims and to the increased Japanese military interference in the region on the pretext of epidemiological control (Nathan 1967; Rogaski 2010), was to summon a quasi-medical quasipolitical summit, which came to be known as the First International Plague Conference. The Conference took place in April 1911 at the city of Mukden (Shengyang) with Chinese, Russian, and Japanese representation alongside delegates from other Western colonial powers interested in both the disease and in the regional geopolitical balance (Strong 1911). Amidst general confusion as to the precise causes of the epidemic, it was the Russians who provided with a pragmatic and scientifically based explanation. The leading Russian delegate, Professor Zabolotny, proposed the idea that the primary source of the mass outbreak was not rats but Siberian marmots hunted in the Manchurian, Mongolian, and Transbaikalian steppes for their fur. Despite the lack of concrete evidence the tarbagan theory was quickly adopted on an administrative level. As a result, the Chinese Prefect of Manzhouli banned the hunting of the animals. The penalty for whomever disobeyed the hunting ban was set at two and, as of April 1911, six months of imprisonment (Wu Lien-teh and the Hulun Taotai 1913: 247). And yet, on a scientific level the Russian theory was greeted with suspicion if not outright sarcasm, exemplified in its aggressive dismissal by the British Beijing Legation delegate, Dr. Douglas Gray, and its reluctant acknowledgement by no less than the Imperial Commissioner Sao Ke µ$OIUHG¶6]HZKRVHLQDXJXUDODGGUHVVWRWKH,QWHUQDWLRQDO&RQIHUHQFH as Deputy to the Throne provided an excellent sample of mandarin cultivated irony: If we are to believe the able scientists who have already studied the subject, there is present in northwest Manchuria as well as over the greater part of the mountains of Asia a marmot (the tarbagan), a small rodent animal that suffers more or less permanently from swellings, in which plague bacilli are found. (Strong 1911: 5)

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The only medical officer who seemed to take the hypothesis seriously was Wu Lien-teh, the leader of Chinese anti-plague efforts. Wu had MXVW ZRQ LQWHUQDWLRQDO IDPH DV D ³SODJXH ILJKWHU´ GXH WR KLV XQRUthodox insistence on the airborne contagiousness of the disease. Initially these claims were ridiculed by colonial medical experts who proceeded as if the epidemic was bubonic with secondary pneumonic symptoms. Whilst Wu was equipping his Chinese staff with improvised masks of his own invention (Lei 2010) ± in fact the first competent biohazard masks in medical history ± European and Japanese doctors alike shunned his warnings and operated with their faces fully exposed. Only after a series of deaths, including that of the illustrious French Dr. Mesny (Lei 2010), did Japanese and Europeans alike humble themselves to adopt that most necessary of precautions. The universal adoption of the facemask by plague workers was a triumph for Wu, demonstrating that China was not a scientifically backward nation, as portrayed by imperialists east and west. Now, as Chair of the International Plague Conference, Wu ventured to adopt yet another LPSUREDEOH K\SRWKHVLV 3URIHVVRU =DERORWQ\¶V tarbagan theory, albeit raising a most pragmatic question: Why, if the marmots were indeed the source of pneumonic plague, had the traditional hunters of the animal been spared from this terrible affliction for so many centuries? It was to this problem that Chinese epidemiologists would dedicate all their attention in the months to come. 4. Hunting marmots, hunted by disease To this day, all across the great Inner Asia steppes the hunting of marmots takes place in springtime, between the end of April and the beginning of June, and in autumn between mid-August and the end of 6HSWHPEHU 0DUPRWV DUH ³KDUYHVWHG´ IRU WKHLU PHDW IDW LQWHUQDO organs, and fur. Although eating taboos and preferences regarding the tarbagan seem to vary geographically and historically, its meat is believed to comprise a substantial source of protein in Buryatia and Mongolia, especially in springtime when the flocks are most meagre (Pratt et al. 2004). At the turn of the twentieth century, salted marmot meat was exported to European Russia and the famous yellow fat of the marmot, also known for its internal medicinal properties, was sold and used as grease for the preservation of leather and for dressing

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wounds (Wu Lien-teh and the Hulun Taotai 1913: 266), a practice still in place in Mongolia today (Kolesnikov, Brandler, Badmaev 2009). Yet, most important of all was and remains the trade in the tarbagan¶V fur which, if one is to take Wu Lien-WHK¶V ZRUG LV ILQHVW LQ HDUO\ spring while heavier but less valuable in autumn. It is hard to establish how far back the use of and trade in marmot fur across Inner Asia dates. What is certain is that the breakthrough in WKHPDUPRWIXUWUDGHFDPHLQZKHQ³IXUGHDOHUVLQ/RQGRQDQG Leipzig found that if properly cured and dyed, these furs could be turned into imitation sabOH DQG VHDO VNLQV´ :X /LHQ-teh and the Hulun Taotai 1913: 251). In fact, such was the demand for tarbagan fur at the turn of the first decade of the twentieth century that, following Wu Lien-WHK    ³WKH SULFH RI WKH PDUPRW VNLQ quoted at 0,30 rouble in 1907, had risen to 1,20 rouble in 1911; 700,000 skins were exported from Manzhouli in 1907, 2½ million in ´ 7KLV KXJH RXWSXW LQ PDUPRW IXU ZDV IXHOOHG E\ DQ XQprecedented influx of migrant labour from the province of Shandong. In 1910 alone Manchuria received a total of 219,000 migrant workers from the peninsula of Shandong and another 210,900 from Hebei and western Shandong (Gottschang and Lary 2000). A great number of these migrants found seasonal employment as marmot hunters between April and October, returning to their home province for the Chinese New Year. Wu claims that in the summer of 1910 the border town of Manzhouli alone hosted no fewer than 11,000 Chinese hunters (Wu Lien-teh 1936: 31). Could it then be that this overhunting and human overexposure to marmots was the reason of the great Manchurian plague outbreak? :X¶V UHVHDUFK JUHDWO\ DLGHG E\ WKH FRSLRXV DQG ODUJHO\ unacknowledged fieldwork of his subaltern Dr. &K¶XDQ6KDR&KLQJDW plague-stricken marmot-hunting areas, suggested that plague amongst the tarbagan was as old as the hills. When I first went there many of the inhabitants with whom I conversed informed me that this epidemic was quite an ordinary visitation, to which they had been accustomed. It never killed many, and would stop of itself, if no attention was paid to it. (Wu Lien-teh 1934a: 16)

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Wu (1934b: 150) in fact ventured as far as claiming that natives of the area had a long history of knowledge of the disease, which protected them from contagion. [Wasslewski] points out that the natives have known plague for generations, that they possess a working knowledge of the disease and adopt elaborate precautionary measures for fighting it. It is furthermore mentioned that the tarabagan, its habits and disease are part and parcel of the folklore of the Buryats and Mongols and that the disease among these animals and man is recorded in old Tibetan sacred books.

It is worth paying attention to the phUDVHV XVHG KHUH ³ZRUNLQJ NQRZOHGJH´DQG³HODERUDWHSUHFDXWLRQDU\PHDVXUHV´7KHVHSRLQWRXW that in the shadow of the great Manchurian outbreak, Chinese epidemiologists came to believe (or at least claim) that Mongols and Buryats were aware not only of the existence of a deadly pestilence amongst their prey, but also of how to prevent getting infected by it. The natives usually knew how to beware of infected rodents and localities. Even when human cases arose, they remained isolated on account of the drastic measures adopted by relatives and neighbours who as a rule left the victims to their fate, hurriedly shifting camp. It is evident that this system of precautions produced excellent results as long as the nomadic habits of the natives were upheld and the sparse population did not increase with the influx of new elements. Modern civilisation, through facilitating immigration into these ancient foci of infection tended to spread the disease from them, especially as the state of existing equilibrium was liable to become upset. (Wu Lien-teh 1936: 30)

:KDW WKHQ GLG WKLV VXSSRVHG ³V\VWHP RI SUHFDXWLRQV´ DQG WKH ³QRPDGLF KDELWVRIWKH QDWLYHV´FRQVLVWRI"%HOLDYVNL¶VDFFRXQW was employed so as to demonstrate that Mongol and Buryat hunters shared a unique diagnostic proto-experimental method. As a confirmatory test, the hunters make an incision into the paw of the animal. If the blood is coagulated and does not flow readily, the animal is regarded as diseased and given to the dogs, which are said not to suffer from eating it. Not only do the experienced hunters reject plague-stricken animals, but it is said that they quit the districts in which they are found. (Farrar 1912: 5)

Moreover, at the same time as possessing a proto-science focused on experimentally verifying the health status of tarbagan, Mongol and Buryat hunters were portrayed as adopting insightful public health

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measures against the spread of the disease to humans. The International Conference delegate Dr. C.J. Martini accordingly praised ³WKH H[FHOOHQWIURPWKHSXEOLFKHDOWKSRLQWRIYLHZ´%XU\DWSUDFWLFHRI sewing up plague patients in their yurts until no smoke rose from the WRS³:KHQWKDWNLQGRISURFHGXUHZDVRSHUDWLYHRQHGLGQRWUHTXLUH medical officers for health. It showed quite a viULOHSXEOLFVSLULW´LQ Farrar 1912: 23). More importantly however, in terms of the epidemiological exegesis of the Manchurian outbreak, Mongol and Buryat hunters were invested with a most spectacular telluric connaissance: an ability to recognise a sick marmot at first sight. Note the following intriguing passage by Wu Lien-teh, marking his opening speech at the First International Plague Conference in 1911: Nature is very rich in coincidences, and perhaps as scientists more than any other class of men you are prepared for such, but who would have dreamed that the healthy marmot, basking, as it loves to do, in the warm sunshine, utters a cry UHVHPEOLQJWKHVRXQGRIµbu pa, bu pa¶4 which in Chinese language, at any rate, PHDQVµGRQ¶WEHDIUDLG¶RUµQRKDUP¶6LFNQHVVUHQGHUVLWPXWHVRWKDWLQWKHOLJKW RISUHVHQWNQRZOHGJHLWZRXOGVHHPWKDWZKHQWKHPDUPRWLVQRWFU\LQJµQRKDUP QRKDUP¶WKHUHLVYHU\UHDOKDUPLQGHHG7KHVLFNQHVVLQWKH tarabagan5, which we presume is the forerunner of the plague, in this case is characterised by an unsteady gait, inability to run or to cry when chased, and when caught, the physical signs are seen to consist principally of enlargement of the glands. When noticing the above signs, the experienced hunter leaves his quarry severely alone and betakes himself to more distant spheres. During the past few years, however, there has been an exceptional demand for the marmot skins in the European and American markets, and numbers of wandering Shandong coolies have, in consequence, found their way to the marmot resorts, hunting the animal indiscriminately, and food being scarce, they have often cooked and eaten the flesh of the marmot. (in Strong 1911: 19±20)

This fragment provides us with fascinating evidence regarding the mentality of Chinese epidemiologists at the turn of the twentieth century. Let us first consider the subject of vilification here: ³6KDQGRQJFRROLHV´DGHURJDWRU\SKUDVHUHIHUULQJWRPLJUDQWZRUNHUV from the Shandong peninsula working as mass commercial hunters of 4

Here, as of course anthropos was a notion alien to the ideology of the Chinese imperial elites, we can say that :X µ6LQLILHG¶ UDWKHU WKDQ DQWKURSRPRUSKLVHG WKH marmot. 5 $OWHUQDWLYH (QJOLVKVSHOOLQJLQ RI µWDUEDJDQ¶ ± both versions have been and are in use.

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tarbagan in Manchuria. In Chinese epidemiological imagination these comprised the anthropological antipodes of Mongol and Buryat native hunters, forming with them a bipolar continuum of skill and knowledge. Migrant workers were accused as being the culprits of the plague epidemic in so far as they were problematised as fundamentally and lamentably unskilled. The newcomers were usually raw and ignorant migrants from the villages of Shandong who had never seen a tarbagan before and perhaps had never heard of the plague. Hence they caught the animals indiscriminately with snares and even congratulated themselves when they saw a sluggish one. One sick animal could provide the spark for the epidemic; inexperience and overcrowding in underground inns, to which the hunters returned from the fields, would supply the necessary fuel for its spread. (Wu Lien-teh 1936: 32)

In contrast to the fabled skill of Mongol and Buryat hunters, the ineptitude of the Shandong coolies was epitomised by their practice of digging out hibernating marmots, a taboo to native hunters, if one is to believe the accounts of Chinese epidemiologists at the time. We know that [the tarbagan] hibernates and that in spring the younger ones seek new homes in which to breed. The new burrows RIWHQ UXQ LQWR ROG µHDUWKV¶ LQ which it may happen that there may be dead left from a previous season which may infect the new arrivals. The animals that die in the open are probably all devoured by birds, etc., but it seems that the marmot creeps into its home, as a rule, to die. The inexperienced hunters nearly always dig out the marmots from their holes and thus run more risks than the ordinary Mongol, who generally hunts the marmot in the open, or traps it near its abode, thus coming in contact with and catching only healthy animals. (Wu Lien-teh 1934a: 14±15)

Similarly, Farrar (1912: 20) argues that whilst Mongolian hunters hunt the tarbagan ZLWKGRJVLQWKHRSHQVWHSSH³WKHQHZKDQGVKRZHYHU mostly Shandong coolies, who were not such good hunters, preferred digging down into the burrow of the animal and hauling it out by means of a wire noose round its neck, the idea being to avoid injuring WKHVNLQ´:X/LHQ-teh (1913) described this hunting method in detail. One end of a two foot long medium-sized iron wire is twisted into a ORRSWRILWWKHRSHQLQJRIWKHPDUPRW¶VEXUURZZKLOHWKHRWKHUHQGLV fixed to the ground above or beside the entrance on a wooden peg: ³:KHQWKHDQLPDO FRPHV RXWWKH KHDGDQGSUREDEO\ DOVR RQH RIWKH front paws are caught in the loop. The more it struggles the tighter the

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snare becomes, and in this state the hunter finds the animal when he UHWXUQV IURP KLV URXQGV´ :X /LHQ-teh and the Hulun Taotai 1913:  )DUUDU DGGHGWKDWDVDUHVXOW³LWZDVHDV\WRLPDJLQH that a plague-infected marmot caught in that way might cough in the IDFHRIWKHFDSWRUDQGVRJLYHKLPWKHSODJXH´. Leaving aside the epidemiologically droll idea of the coughing marmot, the conspicuous ineptness of the so-called coolies did not simply consist in technical inadequacy, but was in fact seen as a V\PSWRP RIWKH PLJUDQWZRUNHUV¶SURIRXQG ODFN RIDKXPDQFXOWXUH The main limitation of the Shandong coolies in skilfully relating to nature (in the form of the marmot) was identified as a failure to attend to its signs and warnings, in other words its language. On the one KDQG WKLV LQFOXGHG µSK\VLFDO VLJQV¶ VXFK DV WKH VOXJJLVKQHVV RU unstable gait characteristic of plague-infested marmots. Mongol and Buryat hunters supposedly avoided such easy prey, for they recognised in this opportunity for quick profit the treacherous danger of a lethal disease. On the other hand, and most importantly, as our second to last passage by Wu indicates, native hunters were supposed to recognise the alarm call of the marmot as signifying its healthy state, and could thus rest assured that there was no need to fear it being infested. The pneumonic plague outbreak was thus, effectively, imagined as a result of méconnaissance QRW VR PXFK ³WKH VLPXOWDQHRXV PLVreading RIV\PEROVE\GLIIHUHQWDFWRUV´Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 16) as the discrepant recognition of the same sign by two interested parties. Whereas native Mongolian and Buryat hunters supposedly recognised LQWKHPDUPRW¶VQRQ VLJQµDEVHQFH-of-vocal-VLJQDO¶DWKUHat to human health, thus leaving the emitter of that (non)sign, or non-emitter of a vocal signal, alone, migrant workers from Shandong supposedly not only failed to recognise this (non)sign as what it really stood for (immanent death), but misapprehended it as a sign of the availability of its non-emitter, a non-alarm raising marmot being not only an easier prey (due to is concurrent wobbliness) but also a facilitator of the overall fur harvest amongst the targeted population. Hence, the imagined semiotic gDSEHWZHHQWKHPDUPRWV¶QRQ VLJQ and Shandong coolie apprehension-interpretation played a key role in establishing an anthropological comparison between Mongol and Buryat native hunters and Shandong migrant workers on the bases of

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skill. Whilst the former were invested with cultural authenticity and ancient wisdom, the latter were reduced to lazy uncultured coolies, a WUXH OLDELOLW\ WR WKHLU RZQ µUDFH¶ 7KH VXSSRVHG JUHHG RI WKH PLJUDQW workers, within the context of which the lack of alarm-whistling was considered a positive sign, and their failure to associate skilfully with nature and its zoosemiotic manifestations reduced them to the ultimate symbols of regression and degeneration in an era obsessed with scientific modernisation and Social Darwinist notions of race competition. 5. The anthropology of ignorance 7KLV SDWKRORJLVDWLRQ RI 6KDQGRQJ PLJUDQW ZRUNHUV¶ méconnaissance poses an interesting anthropological problem. Rather than reflecting Ohkuri-TLHUQH\¶VVHQVHRIWKHWHUPDV³WKHDEVHQFHRIFRPPXQication that results when people do not share a meaning but rather derive GLIIHUHQW PHDQLQJV IURP WKH VDPH V\PEROV DQG ULWXDOV´    LQ this historical-ethnographic context, méconnaissance relates to a different set of problems which pertain to what Roy Dilley (2010) has recently designated as a grossly neglected area of anthropological VWXGLHV LJQRUDQFH (ODERUDWLQJ RQ -DPHV )UHGHULFN )HUULHU¶V  ± 1864) epistemology±agnoiology contrast, Dilley argues for a dialectical understanding of the mutual constitution of knowledge and LJQRUDQFH³LINQRZOHGJHLVWUDQVPLWWHGFRPPXQLFDWHGGLVVHPLQDWHG or exchanged through social relations, it is given form and process by the potentiality of ignorance, of not-knowing, either as an absence in and of itself, RUDVDZLOOHGDQGLQWHQWLRQDOVWDQFHWRZDUGVWKHZRUOG´ (Dilley 2010: 177). Hence, ignorance is rescued from the position of being the mere shadow of knowledge, its mere lack, and assumes a life and importance of its own. For anthropologists interested in investigating the agnoiological aspects of a social relation, Mark +REDUW¶V ZDUQLQJ WKDW ³LJQRUDQFH >«@ LV QRW D VLPSOH DQWLWKHVLV RI NQRZOHGJH´    PXVW EH WDNHQ WR KHDUW ³,W LV D VWDWH ZKLFK people attribute to others and is laden with moral judJHPHQW´+REDUW 1993: 1; for discussion of Hobart see Dilley 2004: 141). In the case of the great Manchurian epidemic of 1910±1911, the tarbagan theory of plague was a mode of knowing the particular disease vis-à-vis a suspicious if not hostile international medical

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audience. The symbolic capital of knowing plague, its causes, mode of action, and ways of containing and preventing it, was an immense and highly contested asset in an environment of acute geopolitical antagonism in the region. Yet this knowing had as its dialectical prerequisite an ignorance that rendered it both possible and necessary. Following Dilley, this ignorance was situated, in the sense that, at one DQGWKHVDPHWLPHLWZDV³SURFHVVXDOGLDOHFWLFDODQGFRQIURQWDWLRQDO´ (2004: 142). In other words, rather than a mere state or condition, the ignorance at hand was something active, both in the sense of its attribution and in the sense of its actual embodiment and performance. Given these precepts of the anthropology of ignorance, I must thus assert that Chinese epidemiologists could claim to possess a unique ability to know plague because they could claim that they knew who ignored it, and how this ignorance was articulated. They could claim to be the monopolistic bearers of plague-related knowledge only to the extent that they were able to reveal and expose the agents of ignorance, i.e. the source of the devastating outbreak. In this way, the imagined méconnaissance RIWKHPDUPRW¶VQRQ VLJQRQWKHSDUWRIVRcalled Shandong coolies became the pillar of scientific authority in the midst of a major biopolitical and geopolitical crisis: knowing those who were ignorant, being aware of those who lacked awareness, formed a powerful dialectical node of legitimation for Chinese medical elites and their governmental patrons in Beijing vis-à-vis the intensifying Japanese challenge of sovereignty over Manchuria. Hence, Chinese claims over the right to rule Manchuria became dependent on rendering migrant workers who travelled from Shandong to the great Inner Asian steppes to procure marmot fur for the global capitalist market an object of scientific knowledge and biopolitical surveillance and control. What had to be known, surveyed, and controlled was the imagined ignorance of this labour force, a funGDPHQWDO SURSHUW\ RI WKH PLJUDQW ZRUNHUV¶ ³UDZQHVV´ 7KLV ODWWHU term was directly used by Wu Lien-teh to describe the so-called 6KDQGRQJ FRROLHV ³7KH QHZFRPHUV ZHUH XVXDOO\ UDZ DQG LJQRUDQW migrants from the villages of Shandong who had never seen a tarbagan EHIRUH DQG SHUKDSV KDG QHYHU KHDUG RI WKH SODJXH´ :X Lien-teh 1936: 32). More than a mere degrading label, the notion of ³UDZQHVV´ sheng) was one of the most central terms in imperial Chinese classifications of civilisation and barbarity.

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Magnus Fiskesjö (1999) provides a detailed analysis of the rawcooked (sheng±shu) dichotomy in Chinese imperial constructions of UDFHDQGFXOWXUH6WUHVVLQJWKHLPSRUWDQFHRI³FRRNLQJ´RU³LQJHVWLQJ´ raw peoples at the periphery of the Empire as a mode of governmental enclosure, Fiskesjö reclaims the category of the barbarian as central to the construction of Han Chineseness (Billé 2009: 208). What makes the case of the so-called Shandong coolies interesting in light of this analysis is that although there could be no doubt about their being Han Chinese, in the prevalent, Social Darwinist, racial sense of the term, PLJUDQWZRUNHUVIURPWKHSDUWLFXODU3URYLQFHZHUHFODVVLILHGDV³UDZ´ due to their perceived lack in culture, or, to be more precise, their imagined embodiment of cultural-racial degeneration. As much as HWKQLF µEDUEDULDQV¶ FRXOG EH µFRRNHG¶ DQG µLQJHVWHG¶ LQWR WKH +DQ cultural body, Han Chinese were equally susceptible to degeneration DQG µURWWLQJ¶ ± to re-employ Levi-6WUDXVV¶V WKLUG µFXOLQDU\ WULDQJOH¶ term (1983) ± into a pre-cultural state of ignorance altogether different from the cookable, as it were, rawness of Mongol or Buryat native hunters. They exemplified an unequivocal state of contagious decay that could no longer be meaningfully enclosed into civilisation, only contained, confined and if need be, exterminated by it. Rendering migrant workers an object of knowledge on the basis of their acquired rather than natural rawness transformed their situational ignorance of the specific signification system between marmots and their human predators into a symbol of their overall agnoiotic condition and of the threat that such mortal ignorance could become the condition per se of the Han Chinese as a whole, lest they followed the road of modernisation and µUDFLDO UHJHQHUDWLRQ¶ SUHVFULEHG E\ WKH medical elites. More than simply placing the particular labour force outwith6 the status of Han-civilised subjects of the Empire, this µDQWKURSRORJLFDO PDFKLQH¶ LQ*LRUJLR $JDPEHQ¶VWHUPV WKXV rendered them objects of knowing for a medical apparatus endowed with the biopolitical ambition and authority of preserving the Han ERWK DV D µUDFH¶ DQG DV D FLYLOLVDWLRQ vis-à-vis external dangers (i.e. Western colonialism and Japanese imperialism) and internal weakness embodied in the decaying imperial system of the Qing. The Chinese 6

+HUH WKH XVH RI WKH 6FRWWLVK LGLRP µRXWZLWK¶ LV XVHG WR VWUHVV WKH RSSRVLWLRQ WR µZLWKLQ¶DVHPDQWLFQXDQFH PLVVHGE\WKH6WDQGDUG(QJOLVKµRXWVLGH¶

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medical elites were set in a unique position of power and knowledge, facilitated on the one hand by their ability to provide an effective explanation of the way of transmission of the disease and adopt the face mask, and on the other hand by their ability to adopt the latest epidemiological theory on the original vector of the disease, and elaborate and refine it into a plausible explanation. Following the Republican Revolution in the autumn of 1911, this would place in their hands the first grand-scale biopolitical apparatus in China: the North Manchurian Plague Prevention Service. This particular Service would devote considerable time and effort in the examination of marmots and their relation to their human predators. However, these ground-breaking investigations are beyond the scope of this paper. What is important is here that, rather than simply being an opportunistic tactic on the part of Chinese epidemiologists, the investment of human±marmot semiotic relations with medical meaning formed an important node at the core of Chinese biopolitical modernisation in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Not pertaining to the realm of hunter-gatherer human±animal PXWXDOLW\LQ7LP,QJROG¶s sense (2000), nor to the realm of pastoralist interspecies diachronic cooperation (Louise Westling, this volume), but to the political, racialised and medicalised economy of industrialised hunting/trapping, the imagined semiotic breakdown between Shandong coolies and the pestilent tarbagan paved the way for the hegemony of scientific statism in China. 6. Conclusion This chapter has examined the anthropological construction of marmot-hunting migrant workers as raw and ignorant coolies based on Chinese epidemiological claims at the time of the great Manchurian plague of 1910±1911 that the particular epidemic was largely caused E\ WKH PLJUDQW ZRUNHUV¶ LQDELOLW\ WR KHHG WKH VLJQDOV RI KHDOWK DQG illness emitted by their prey. Playing an until now overlooked role in the establishment of Chinese biopolitical authority vis-à-vis its colonialist competitors, the theory of human±marmot semiotic breakdown functioned so as to legitimate Chinese claims over the ability to rule Manchuria within an environment of intense geopolitical competition. And at the same time, it fostered the position of

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Chinese medical elites as a force of reason and modernisation, a force against degeneration and decay, effectively placing them at the forefront of biopolitical modernisation in the Republic to come. The research leading to this chapter was funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and by the Russell Trust, and was sponsored by a scholarship of the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of St Andrews. I would like to thank Caroline Humphrey and the late David Riches for their stimulating commentaries on work leading to this article. I would also like to thank Roy Dilley for his tireless support in my research of epidemics in China and for bringing to my DWWHQWLRQ)HUULHU¶VDJQRLRORJ\,DPJUDWHIXOWRWKHSDUWLFLSDQWVRIWKH0RQJROLDQDQG Inner Asian Studies Unit Seminar at the University of Cambridge and of the International Conference on Zoosemiotics and Animal Representation at the University of Tartu for their comments and criticism. This article was written under a Residential Fellowship of the Centro Incontri Umani, in Ascona, Switzerland; I am greatly indebted to Angela Hobart and the Foundation for its generous support and to my co-Fellows David Napier, Tanya Zivkovic and Smadar Lavie for their time in discussing the intricacies of the anthropology of marmot hunting.

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. 2004. The Open: Man and Animal. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bassin, Mark. µ7KH5XVVLDQ*HRJUDSKLFDO6RFLHW\WKHµ$PXU(SRFK¶DQGWKH Great Siberian Expedition 1855±1863¶ in Annals of the Association of American Geographers 73(2): 240±256. Belyavskii, Aleksandr Kapitonovich. µɁɚɩɢɫɤɚɩɨɩɨɜɨɞɭɫɦɟɪɬɧɵɯɫɥɭɱɚɟɜ ɨɬɭɩɨɬɪɟɛɥɟɧɢɹɜɩɢɳɭɫɭɪɤɨɜɩɨɪɚɠɟɧɧɵɯɱɭɦɨɸɜɋɨɤɬɭɟɜɫɤɨɦ¶>2QWKH Siberian marmot plague: seven mortal cases following marmot eating in Soktui village] in ȼɟɫɬɧɢɤ ɨɛɳɟɫɬɜɟɧɧɨɣ ɝɢɝɢɟɧɵ ɫɭɞɟɛɧɨɣ ɢ ɩɪɚɤɬɢɱɟɫɤɨɣ ɦɟɞɢɰɢɧɵ [Journal of general hygiene and juridical and practical medicine] 26(1): 1±6. Billé, Frank.  µ&RRNLQJ WKH 0RQJROV)HHGLQJ WKH +DQ 'LHWDU\ DQG (WKQLF ,QWHUVHFWLRQVLQ,QQHU0RQJROLD¶LQInner Asia 11(2): 205±223. &OHPRZ )UDQN *  µ3Oague in Siberia and Mongolia and the Tarbagan (Arctomys bobac ¶LQThe Journal of Tropical Medicine February: 169±174. Clyde, Paul Hibbert. 1926. International Rivalries in Manchuria, 1689±1922. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Dilley, Roy.  µThe Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge in a Colonial Context: the Case of Henri Gaden (1867± ¶ LQ +DUULV 0DUN HG  Ways of Knowing: Anthropological Approaches to Crafting Experience and Knowledge. Oxford: Berghahn Books: 139±157.

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². 2010. µReflectiRQV RQ .QRZOHGJH 3UDFWLFHV DQG WKH 3UREOHP RI ,JQRUDQFH¶ LQ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16: 176±192. )DUUDU5HJLQDOGµ3ODJXHLQ0DQFKXULD¶LQProceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 5: 1±14. Fiskesjö, Magnus.  µOn the µ5DZ¶ DQG WKH µ&RRNHG¶ %DUEDULDQV RI ,PSHULDO &KLQD¶LQInner Asia 1(2): 139±68. Gamsa, Mark. 2006. µ7he Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague in Manchuria 1910±¶ in Past & Present 190: 147±184. Gottschang, Thomas R. and Diana Lary. 2000. Swallows and Settlers: The Great Migration from North China to Manchuria. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Centre for Chinese Studies. Hobart, Mark. µ,QWURGXFWLRQ7KH*URZWKRI,JQRUDQFH"¶LQ+REDUW0DUNHG  An Anthropological Critique of Development. London: Routledge: 1±30. Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. .ROHVQLNRY9LDFKHVODY9DVLO¶HYLFK O.V. Brandler, B.B. Badmaev. 2009. µFolk use RIPDUPRWVLQ0RQJROLD¶LQEthology Ecology & Evolution 21(3±4): 285±287. Lei, Sean Hsiang-Lin.  µ6RYHUHLJQW\ DQG WKH 0LFURVFRSH &RQVWLWXWLQJ Notifiable Infectious Disease and Containing the Manchurian plague (1910± ¶ in Ki Che Leung, Angela and Charlotte Furth (eds) Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia: Policies and Publics in the Long Twentieth Century. Durham: Duke University Press: 73±108. Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1983. The Raw and the Cooked: Mythologiques. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Matignon, Jean-Jacques. 1898. µ/D 3HVWH %XERQLTXH HQ 0RQJROLH¶ LQ Annales G¶+\JLHQH3XEOLTXHHWGH0HGLFLQH/HJDOH Janviere: 227±256. Nathan, Carl F. 1967. Plague Prevention and Politics in Manchuria 1910±1931. Cambridge: Harvard East Asian Monographs. Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. 2002. Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Petrie, George Ford.  µ$ &RPPHQWDU\ RQ 5HFHQW 3ODJXH ,QYHVWLJDWLRQV LQ 7UDQVEDLNDOLDDQG6RXWKHUQ5XVVLD¶LQThe Journal of Hygiene 22(4): 397±401. 3LO¶QLNRY Aleksandr Eduardovich. 2005. µ5DGRQ LQ WKH PDUPRW EXUURZV¶ LQ Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Genus Marmota, Tashkent, 31 August±2 September 2005: 92±93. Pratt, D.G., Douglas C. Macmillan, Iain J. Gordon. 2004. µ/RFDO &RPPXQLW\ Attitudes to Wildlife Utilization in the Changing Economic and Social Context of 0RQJROLD¶LQBiodiversity and Conservation 13: 591±613. 3UHEOH 3DXO  µ7KH Tarbagan (Arctomys bobac  DQG 3ODJXH¶ LQ Public Health Reports 27(2): 32±67. Radde, Gustav. 1862. Reisen im Süden von Ost-Sibirien in den Jahren 1855±1859. St. Petersburg: Buchdruckerei der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 5HVKHWQLNRY $3  ¶Ɉ ɱɭɦɟ ɬɚɪɛɚɝɚɧɨɜ, ɩɟɪɟɧɟɫɟɧɧɨɣ ɧɚ ɥɸɞɟɣ¶ >2Q WKH plague of tarbagan marmots and transmission to man] in ȼɟɫɬɧɢɤ ɨɛɳɟɫɬɜɟɧɧɨɣ

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ɝɢɝɢɟɧɵ, ɫɭɞɟɛɧɨɣ ɢ ɩɪɚɤɬɢɱɟɫɤɨɣ ɦɟɞɢɰɢɧɵ [Journal of general hygiene and juridical and practical medicine] 26(1): 6±10. Rogaski, Ruth. 2010. µ9ampires in Plagueland: The Multiple Meanings of weisheng iQ 0DQFKXULD¶ LQ .L &KH /HXQJ $QJHOD DQG &KDUORWWH )XUWK HGV  Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia: Policies and Publics in the Long Twentieth Century. Durham: Duke University Press: 132±159. Strong, Richard P. (ed.). 1911. Report of the International Plague Conference (held at Mukden in April 1911). Manila: Bureau of Printing. Suntsov, Viktor Vassilievich, Nina Ivanovna Suntsova. 2005. µ0RQJROLDQ 0DUPRW (Marmota sibirica) and the Origin of Yersinia pestis ± the Causative Agent of 3ODJXH,QIHFWLRQ¶LQProceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Genus Marmota, Tashkent, 31 August±2 September 2005: 112. Wu, Lien-teh and G. L. Tuck. 1913. µFirst Report of the North Manchurian Plague 3UHYHQWLRQ6HUYLFH¶LQThe Journal of Hygiene 13(3): 237±290. Wu, Lien-teh. 1934a. µInaugural Address Delivered at the International Plague &RQIHUHQFH 0XNGHQ¶LQ Manchurian Plague Prevention Service Memorial 1912±1932. Shanghai: National Quarantine Service: 13±20. Ȅ. 1934b. µ7KH2ULJLQDO+RPHRI3ODJXH¶LQManchurian Plague Prevention Service Memorial 1912±1932. Shanghai: National Quarantine Service: 143±158. Ȅ. 1936. µ+LVWRULFDO $VSHFWV¶LQ :X /LHQ-teh, J.W.H. Chun, R. Pollitzer and C.Y. Wu (eds) Plague, A Manual for Medical and Public Health Workers. Shanghai: National Quarantine Service: 1±55.

PART II FROM ILLUSTRATION TO SHOW

Entomological rhetoric and the fabrication of the insect world Adam Dodd &HQWUDOWRPRGHUQXQGHUVWDQGLQJVRILQVHFWVLVWKHWHUPµLQVHFWZRUOG¶ ± a hybrid of IDQWDV\ VFLHQFH DQG ILFWLRQ WKDW HQVXUHV DQ µRWKHUZRUOGO\¶ VWDWXV IRU LQVHFWV LQ general 2QH RI WKH HDUOLHVW DSSHDUDQFHV RI WKLV WHUP LV IRXQG LQ 'UX 'UXU\¶V Illustrations of Natural History (1770), and it reappears in a number of other natural history texts of the late eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, with its surge in popular natural history and amateur microscopy, the term was appearing in many books, which were increasingly illustrated with detailed plates, encouraging readers to embark on educational and edifying journeys into the strange, alien world of the insect. In this paper, I trace the origins and effects of this enduring metaphor which, despite its ubiquity in scientific and popular discourse, has thus far been subject to very little critical scrutiny. Animals live in worlds parallel to our own; we can occasionally reach them through fragile passageways. The world of insects is one of the most remote of these non-human worlds. It lies somewhere on the edge of our perception. The path leading to it is strewn with paradoxes and oddities. We must keep our imaginations alert as we enter this world and be prepared to set aside our most firmly held beliefs. Nuridsany and Pérennou 1997

1. Introduction It is now widely appreciated as a truism that the ways in which we represent animals shape the ways in which we perceive animals, while also signifying a diverse nexus of historical, cultural, moral, religious, political, and philosophical circumstances. In short, representations of

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animals say as much about the human beings responsible for the portrayals, and their cultural environment, as they do about the animals being portrayed. But while descriptions of animals inevitably appear as representative of variable sociocultural circumstances, they also function rhetorically ± that is, as forms of self-conscious, persuasive language use. Much of what we know and think about animals is derived from our acceptance of persuasive representations of them ± representations which many of us first encounter during infancy ± rather than direct experience of the animals themselves. Representations of animals certainly may seek to educate, inform, and entertain, but in doing so, they work to persuade their audiences to see and think about animals in particular ways, usually at the expense, and sometimes to the detriment, of other ways. In this chapter I broadly discuss the utility of entomological rhetoric, which can be understood as the self-conscious, persuasive language use, including words and pictures, that has been historically engaged, across a range of media, to convince addressees of certain things about insects. In particular, I consider the origins, dimensions, and effects of the so-FDOOHGµLQVHFWZRUOG¶ZKLFK,VHHQRWDVDOLWHUDO world, but rather as an abstraction of real insects and their environments that has been employed to advance and sustain a particular rapport between human beings and insects. Although insects constitute the most prolific class of animals on the planet, accounting for about 56 per cent of all documented species (McGavin 2000: 7), they are often regarded as only tangential to human affairs; this cognitive distancing is given expression in language use, especially in WHUPLQRORJ\WKDWORFDWHVLQVHFWVLQWKHLURZQµZRUOG¶:KHUHGRHVWKH WHUPµLQVHFW ZRUOG¶RULJLQDWH":K\ KDVLWUHWDLQHGFXUUHQF\IRUPRUH than two centuries, despite having no clear referent? How does it coordinate human±insect relations? These are the key questions I address in the pages that follow. The insect world as I discuss it here is not synonymous with what Uexküll so vividly describeG DV WKH WLFN¶V Umwelt RU µWKH LQVHFW¶V HQYLURQPHQW¶ ± its own perceptible sphere of meaningful, sensory H[SHULHQFH +RZHYHU WKLV DVSHFW RI WKH LQVHFW¶V µYLWDO GRPDLQ¶ characterised by experiences of time and space vastly different from our own, is often included in descriptions of the insect world itself. In Uexküllian terms, the insect world might instead be considered

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µPDJLFDO¶ $V 8H[NOO QRWHV LQ A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans ³>L@W LV VDLG RI SULPLWLYHV WKDW WKH\ OLYH LQ D PDJLFDO world in which fantastic phenomena blend with the sensually given things of their world. Whoever looks closer, however, will find the VDPHPDJLFDOIRUPDWLRQVLQWKHHQYLURQPHQWRIFXOWLYDWHG(XURSHDQV´ (2010: 120). As we shall see, when naturalists and entomologists write RI µWKH LQVHFW ZRUOG¶ WKH\ DUH YHU\ RIWHQ ZULWLQJ RI IDQWDVWLF SKHQRPHQD EOHQGHG ZLWK VHQVXDO H[SHULHQFH IRU µWKH LQVHFW ZRUOG¶ exists neither in the human imagination nor nature, but rather represents a dynamic entanglement of the two. My theoretical approach to the rhetorical fabrication of the insect world, then, departs from constructivist epistemology in one VLJQLILFDQW VHQVH %HFDXVH µWKH LQVHFW ZRUOG¶ LV LQVSLUHG E\ DFWXDO phenomena of the natural world that have been directly perceived by human observers in combination with the abstracted or metaphysical precepts of religious, mythological, and philosophical thought, I consider the fabrication of the insect world as a rhetorical process that is inherently responsive to, and active upon, a physiological relationship with insects and the environments in which they are found. The LQVHFW ZRUOGLV QRW PHUHO\DQDEVWUDFWLRQQRULVLWDOLWHUDOµZRUOG¶, suggest that the insect world should be understood as the outcome of a vital interplay of biology, culture, and imagination ± as a world that sits unstably, perhaps necessarily, on the fringe of the human Umwelt itself. 2. Early modern origins of the insect world 7KH VXVWDLQHG LGHD WKDW WKHUH H[LVWV D ZRUOG RWKHU WKDQ RXU ³RZQ´ visible world is one that appears across disparate cultures through time. Indeed, it can be regarded as a fundamental precept of religious belief, and perhaps even as a precondition of humanity itself, as someWKLQJ GLVWLQFW IURP RUGLQDU\ µDQLPDOLW\¶ $V 5D\PRQG 5Xyer (1957:   QRWHV ³0DQ JRHV EH\RQG KLV DQLPDO Umwelt, his vital domain, DQG KH LV RQO\ D UHOLJLRXV DQLPDO RQ WKLV FRQGLWLRQ´ 6LPLODUO\ William James begins his lecture on µThe Reality of the Unseen¶ with WKH REVHUYDWLRQ WKDW ³[w]ere one asked to characterise the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that

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RXU VXSUHPH JRRG OLHV LQ KDUPRQLRXVO\ DGMXVWLQJ RXUVHOYHV WKHUHWR´ (1906: 53). In both instances (and this can be said to apply to ³ZRUOGPDNLQJ´ LQ WKH EURDGHVW VHQVH  WKH TXHVWLRQ DW OHDVW IURP DQ SUDJPDWLVWHSLVWHPRORJLFDO SRVLWLRQ LV QRW ZKHWKHU VXFK DQ ³XQVHHQ RUGHU´ H[LVWV RU HYHQ ZKHWKHU LW LV EHOLHYHG WR H[LVW EXW UDWKHU KRZ the ways in which we articulate such an order allow us to act as if it does exist. In early modern Europe, the reality of numerous unseen orders, previously knowable only through intuition, epiphany, hallucination, or the highest forms of abstract thought, became nuanced and advanced by natural philosophy, visioning technologies, empiricism, and empire ± all of which collaborated to pluralise and organise these XQVHHQ RUGHUV PDNLQJ WKHP VHQVLEOH DV YDULRXV NLQGV RI µZRUOGV¶ Insects and other small invertebrates, already long-associated with the uncertain fringes of human perception, came to co-function as signals and symbols of many newly-UHDOLVHG ³XQVHHQ ZRUOGV´ 7KH NLQGV RI worldmaking that appear prominently in the science and literature of early modern Europe have been addressed by Mary Baine Campbell, DQG KHUH , DGRSW KHU FDWHJRU\ RI µZRUOGV¶ ZKLFK UHWDLQV ³DV DQ DWWULEXWHWKHVRFLDOFRQFHSWRIWKH KDELWDEOH RULQKDELWHG´  Importantly, such habitable or inhabited worlds need not exhibit, or even be available for, human habitation ± Campbell notes that the New World was only debatably inhabited by humans, while the µPLFURVFRSLFZRUOG¶ZDVUHSUHVHQWHGDVRQHRIQRQKXPDQVHQWLHQFH,W was during the early modern period, then, that legitimately nonhuman worlds were first realised (in the literal sense of the word) by Europeans. The notion of an insect world has always represented a curious hybrid of science and fiction, and so it is not surprising that we find some of its conceptual foundations in the earliest examples of VFLHQWLILFURPDQFH)RQWHQHOOH¶VEntretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds; 1686), although not dealing specifically with what is now figured as the insect world, nevertheless draws its inspiration from the multiple new worlds opened up by the microscope and telescope for the privileged European observer during this period. The dialogue eloquently FRQYH\VWKHLPDJLQDWLYHVSHFXODWLRQLQKHUHQWWRWKHQHZHPSLULFLVP¶V conception of how multiple worlds correspond with, and are made

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from, one another. ³, VWLOO WKLQN LW ZRXOG EH YHU\ VWUDQJH´ ZULWHV )RQWHQHOOH³IRUWKHHDUWKWREHVRZHOOLQKDELWHGDQGWKHRWKHUSODQHWV perfectly solitary; and numerous as we know the inhabitants of the earth to be, we do not see them all, our world contains as many VSHFLHV RI DQLPDOV WKDW DUH LQYLVLEOH WR XV DV WKRVH WKDW ZH GLVFHUQ´ (1803: 75). For Fontenelle, and many succeeding popularisers of science, the extended visibility afforded by the new optical instruments merely suggested an enhanced realm of invisibility ± a SHUSHWXDOO\ µLQYLVLEOH ZRUOG¶ DV LW ZHUH ± that both provoked and facilitated whimsical conjecture. Those objects and animals brought into view by the telescope and the microscope, while empirically verified, would also emblematically stand for the worlds that remained beyond, or still on the edge of, human perception. Moreover, the apparent infinitude of life at the subvisible and microscopic levels seemed to indicate the likelihood that life was plentiful throughout the cosmos, on many other planetary bodies, whether we could see it or not ± WKH VSHFXODWLYH UHDOP RI ³KLGGHQ OLIH´ ZDV H[WHQGHG exponentially. The modern fabrication of the insect world, then, should be understood in relation to a wider cultuUHRI³ZRUOGPDNLQJ´WKDWWKULYHV on correspondences with other so-called worlds across a range of scientific, religious, and popular discourses. As Goodman points out, ³ZRUOGPDNLQJ DV ZH NQRZ LW DOZD\V VWDUWV IURP ZRUOGV DOUHDG\ RQ hand; the making is remaNLQJ´    7ZR VSHFLILF H[DPSOHV RI WKH ZRUOGV DOUHDG\ RQ KDQG LQ WKLV LQVWDQFH DUH µWKH PLFURVFRSLF ZRUOG¶DQGµWKHLQYLVLEOHZRUOG¶%RWKDUHRIWHQXVHGLQWHUFKDQJHDEO\ ZLWK µWKH LQVHFW ZRUOG¶ KRZHYHU WKH PLFURVFRSLF ZRUOG HVVHQWLDOO\ refers to thH µZRUOG¶ UHYHDOHG E\ WKH PLFURVFRSH IURP WKH ODWH seventeenth century onwards, an inhabited world that is literally LQYLVLEOH WR WKH XQDVVLVWHG KXPDQ H\H 7KH µPLFURVFRSLF ZRUOG¶ KDV DOVREHHQXVHGLQWHUFKDQJHDEO\ZLWKWKHµLQYLVLEOHZRUOG¶WKHODWWHULV often employed when a kind of supernatural aura is intended for the minutiae of nature visible only through the microscope. The invisible ZRUOG ZKLFK HIIHFWLYHO\ ZRUNV DV DV\QRQ\P RI µWKH XQVHHQ RUGHU¶  has traditionally been regarded as a kind of omnipresent spiritual realm of dubious benevolence, accessible only under specific conditions, in accordance with abstruse principles. These are qualities that became absorbed respectively into the microscopic world as a realm

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considered also to be invisible and yet empirically verifiable, and the insect world as a strange, alien lifeworld that challenged the scope of human knowledge and imagination. Insects and other small animals such as rats, toads, and worms (all RIZKLFKZHUHRIWHQFDOOHGµLQVHFWHV¶LQHDUly modern Europe) retained strong associations with beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery until at least the beginning of the eighteenth century. Prior to the dismissal of the theory of spontaneous generation, first challenged empirically by Francesco Redi in 1668, the appearance of insects in particular could still be interpreted within a wholly superstitious worldview: the smallest or lesser1 creatures, being less visible to human beings, were WKXV ³FORVHU´ WR WKH RFFXOW IRUFHV RI WKH LQYLVLEOH ZRUOG WKDW EURught them into being, and these were forces that could potentially be utilised and exploited by practitioners of witchcraft and sorcery. For example, Francesco Maria Guazzo, in his widely esteemed Compendium Maleficarum (originally published in 1608) reported that ³[i]t is the opinion of S. Augustine [«] supported by all other Theologians, particularly S. Thomas and S. Bonaventura, that witches can in a moment produce imperfect animals, such as flies, worms, frogs and such insects and other animals which are generated by putrefaction; QRW E\ FUHDWLQJ WKHP EXW E\ DSSO\LQJ DFWLYH WR SDVVLYH SULQFLSOHV´    6LJQLILFDQWO\ ZLWKLQ WKLV HSLVWHPH LW ZDV ³XVXDOO\ WKH demon who, in accordance with his pact with the witch, produces such animals by the application of active to passive forces: for the witches themselves for the most part do not know how they are produced, and are ignorant of the causes [«]´ 7KLVDUUDQJHPHQWIXUWKHU HQVXUHGWKHLQVHFW¶VRFFXOWFKDUDFWHU± ultimately, its origin lay in the invisible world of the demon, rather than in the visible world of the human. In the final decade of the seventeenth century (about twenty years after the first observation of normally-invisible animals through a microscope), the invisible world still retained a supernatural, occult FRQWH[W DV H[HPSOLILHG E\ &RWWRQ 0DWKHU¶V The Wonders of the Invisible World; Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches 1

$OWKRXJK LQVHFWV DUH QRZ UDUHO\ UHIHUUHG WR DV ³OHVVHU´ FUHDWXUHV WKHLU UHODWLYHO\ small size, in conjunction with their large populations and lack of individuality, often has a direct bearing on the value attached to their lives. Insects thus represent a FKDOOHQJHIRUDQLPDOHWKLFVVHH5DOSK5$FDPSRUD¶VFRQWULEXWLRQWRWKLVYROXPH 

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Lately Executed in New-England (1693). 0DWKHU¶VWRPHZKLFKZDVDW the centre of the contemporary New England witch hysteria, outlines WKH 'HYLO¶V DWWHPSWV WR VHGXFH DQG FRQVXPH WKH JRRG SHRSOH RI 0DVVDFKXVHWWV³ZLWK,PSUHVVLRQVERWKDVreal and as furious, as if the Invisible World were becoming Incarnate, on purpose for the vexing RI XV´  80). One of the ways in which this Invisible World became Incarnate was in the form of malevolent insects. As Weiss notes, 0DWKHU¶VWH[WFRQWDLQVWHVWLPRQ\IURPD0DUJDUHW$UQROG WKDW ³$WDQRWKHUWLPHDWKLQJOLNHD%HHIOHZDWWKH)DFHRIWKH\RXQJHr Child; the Child fell into a Fit; and at last vomited up a Two-penny Nail with a Broad Head; affirming, That the Bee brought this Nail, and forced it into her Mouth. The Child would in like manner be assaulted with Flies, which brought Crooked Pins unto her, and made KHUILUVWVZDOORZWKHPDQGWKHQ9RPLWWKHP´TXRWHGLQ:HLVV 130). It is worth remembering, then, that despite the impressive advances made by the empirical sciences during the second half of the seventeenth century, significant numbers of people throughout Europe and the New World were unfamiliar with the sobering, rational discourse of the gentleman scientists, scholarly publications such as the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, contemporary experiments in optics, and the verification of the many invisible DQLPDOV NQRZQ DV µDQLPDOFXOHV¶ ,W VHHPV UHDVRQDEOH WR DVVXPH WKDW many who were aware of such developments regarded them with suspicion, since a chief objective of the new sciences was the direct explication of the invisible or the occult. Folk beliefs in fairies, witches and demons ± in a malevolent, inhabited, invisible world ± remained comparatively widespread at this time, against a backdrop of elite, exclusive scientific endeavour. And although notions of the invisible world did steadily become more secular through the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, it is debatable whether the notion of an invisible world could ever be entirely secularised ± especially when folklore and popular culture reserve a special enthusiasm for entertaining the persistence of invisible, supernatural forces in the face of scientific advances. The invisible connotes the hidden, and the hidden is, by its very definition, occult ± a term that historically has assumed powerful (if erroneous) connotations of the supernatural.

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6WLOOLWLVLPSRUWDQWWRQRWRYHUVWDWHWKHSURPLQHQFHRIµWKHLQVHFW ZRUOG¶WURSH LQWKH HDUO\ PRGHUQSHULRG $OWKRXJKWKHSURFHGXUHV RI modern worldmaking were well underway by the eighteenth century, the term itself does not seem to appear in print until 1735, in Henry %URRNH¶V ±1783) six-book philosophical poem, Universal Beauty  %RRN9RIZKLFKFRQWDLQVDSDVVDJHWLWOHGµ7KH5HSWLOH DQG ,QVHFW :RUOG¶ 'RGG    ,W ODWHU DSSHDUV LQ WKH ,ULVK GUDPDWLVW)UDQFLV*HQWOHPDQ¶VRoyal Fables (1766: 156): But Bees, indeed, both great and small Are little less than robbers all; A poor, dependent set of knaves, To undeserving mankind slaves; Who think their citadel of straw Should keep the INSECT world in awe.2

:H ILQG WKH WHUP DJDLQ LQ WKH (QJOLVK HQWRPRORJLVW 'UX 'UXU\¶V Illustrations of Natural History RIZKHUHKHZULWHV³>L@IZHWDNH a cursory view of the different ranks of animals that inhabit our globe, we shall hardly find one that can excite our wonder and astonishment more than this genus [Libellulidæ, the dragonflies]; nor is it from that general ignorance of the insect world, that reigns so strongly in these kingdoms, that I am emboldened to say this [«@´    :H find it also iQ-RKQ+LOO¶VA Decade of Curious Insects of 1773, where WKHDXWKRUUHIHUVWR³WKHFUHDWXUHVLQWKH,QVHFWZRUOG´ DQG ODWHU LQ WKH H[WHQGHG WLWOH RI %XIIRQ¶V Natural History abridged, of 1791.3 What is noteworthy is that, in none of these instances is the term ³DQQRXQFHG´± it is simply employed, despite apparently having little currency in printed works at the time. This may indicate that the term was already being used in entomological orations and general verbal descriptions of insect life before being committed to print. Indeed, this possibility is further suggested by a letter dated December 13, 1766, from Drury to an anonymous gentleman living in Africa, in which 2

I am indebted to Brian Ogilvie for this reference. The complete title is: %XIIRQ¶V 1DWXUDO +LVWRU\DEULGJHG ,QFOXGLQJ WKH +LVWRU\ RI the Elements, the Earth and its component Parts, Mountains, Rivers, Seas, Winds, Whirlwinds, Water-spouts, Volcanoes, Earthquakes; of Man, Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Shell-fish, Lizards, and Serpents; with a general View of the Insect World. 3

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'UXU\H[SODLQVWKDW³LI\RXKDYHFXULRVLW\HQRXJKWRHPSOR\DQKRXU in this amusement [capturing and examining insects], permit me to say you will have a scene of wonders opened to you in the insect world, you will have such a number of objects of speculation present WKHPVHOYHVWKDWZLOODPD]H\RX´'UXU\YLLL 7KLVHTXDWLRQ of the insect world with an under-appreciated scene of wonders and amazement would become especially ubiquitous in popular entomology and microscopy books of the nineteenth century; within the wider culture of worldmaking that preceded that century, to think, speak, and write of insects as inhabiting their own figurative world VHHPHG XQUHPDUNDEOH HVSHFLDOO\ VLQFH WKH WHUP UHSUHVHQWHG D ³QDWXUDO´ RXWJURZWK RI WKH LQYLVLEOH ZRUOG DQG WKH PLFURVFRSLF ZRUOG which were already in circulation. Developing in close conjunction with the increasing use of microscope, an instrument which seemed to SURYLGH D NLQG RI ³ZLQGRZ LQWR DQRWKHU ZRUOG´ WKH LQVHFW ZRUOG DV rhetorically figured is evidently expressive of the way in which insects were actually experienced by many European observers at the time, even while it guided those experiences to be understood within a particular context. At no point were the cognitive or discursive origins RI WKLV µZRUOG¶ FDOOHG LQWR TXHVWLRQ QRU ZHUH LWV PDWHULDO RU VSDWLRtemporal dimensions specified. Nor, for that matter, was its rhetorical function acknowledged: the insect world was consistent with a rhetorical position that works to ensure addressees (and perhaps even WKHDGGUHVVRU WKDW³QRWKLQJUKHWRULFDOLVKDSSHQLQJ´ 3. The insect world in the nineteenth century The standard entomological text in English for most of the nineteenth FHQWXU\ZDV:LOOLDP.LUE\DQG:LOOLDP6SHQFH¶VIRXU-volume Introduction to Entomology (1815±26). This work did much to establish the study of insects as a legitimate scientific pursuit in nineteenthFHQWXU\%ULWDLQDQGLWVDXWKRUVHPSOR\HGµWKHLQVHFWZRUOG¶LQRUGHUWR do so. A significant portion of the first volume is dedicated to overturning the widespread contemporary assumption that insects ZHUH RI OLWWOH LPSRUWDQFH WR WKH DIIDLUV RI KXPDQ EHLQJV ³7KH ILUVW NQRZOHGJHZHJHWRIWKHP´VWDWHVWKHILUVWOHWWHURIWKHILUVWYROXPH ³LVDVWRUPHQWRUVWKH\DUHXVXDOO\SRLQWHGRXWWRXVE\WKRVHDERXWXV as ugly, filthy, and noxious creatures; and the whole insect world,

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butterflies and perhaps some few others excepted, are devoted by one universal ban to proscription and execration, as fit only to be trodden under our feet and crushed: so that often, before we can persuade ourselves to study them, we have to remove from our minds prejudices deeply rooted and of long standing [«@´ )RUWKH author, what is helpful in removing such prejudices from the mind is not so much a metaphorical change of perspective, but rather the actual close, attentive observation of insects themselves, preferably with the assistance of a microscope. In a subsequent passage, the author (probably Kirby, a clergyman) GHVFULEHVKRZ³LQILVKHVWKHOXFLGVFDOHVRIWKHYDULHGKXHWKDWFRYHU and defend them are universally admired, and esteemed their peculiar RUQDPHQW EXW SODFH D EXWWHUIO\¶V ZLQJ XQGHU D PLFURVFRSH that avenue to unseen glories in new worlds [emphasis added], and you will discover that nature has endowed the most numerous of the insect tribes with the saPH SULYLOHJH´    7KH LQVHFW ZRUOG LV ODWHU GHVFULEHGDV³WKH/LOOLSXWDQ ZRUOG´ DQGWKHOLIHF\FOH RI WKH LQGLYLGXDO LQVHFW GHVFULEHG DV D SDVVDJH WKURXJK ³WKUHH RU IRXU worlds. It is an inhabitant of the water during one period; of the earth during another; and of the air during a third: and fitted for its various DERGHV E\ QHZ RUJDQV DQG LQVWUXPHQWV DQG D QHZ IRUP LQ HDFK´ (1818: 80). Kirby in particular was sensitive to the connotative functions of the otherworldly qualities that could be perceived and bestowed upon insects, and appreciated how emphasising these qualities could generate public enthusiasm for entomology as practice. In doing so, he began to invest the insect world with moral, spiritual, and aesthetic traits in a way that positioned insects as emblematic of that which remains beyond the direct observation of the human observer. For example, insects not only mimic, in a manner infinitely various, every thing in nature, they may also with very little violence be regarded as symbolical of beings out of and above nature. The butterfly, adorned with every beauty and every grace, borne by radiant wings through the fields of ether, and extracting nectar from every flower, gives us some idea of the blessed inhabitants of happier worlds, of angels, and of the spirits of the just arrived at their state of perfection. Again, other insects seem emblematical of a different class of unearthly beings: when we behold some tremendous for the numerous horns and spines projecting in horrid array from their head or shoulders; ± others for their threatening jaws of fearful length, and armed with cruel fangs; when we survey the dismal hue and demoniac air that

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distinguish others [«] we can scarcely help regarding them as aptly symbolising evil demons, the enemies of man, or of impure spirits for their vices and crimes driven from the regions of light into darkness and punishment. (Kirby, Spence 1818: 12)

Although the insect world is mentioned throughout the Introduction, the authors make no sustained attempt to describe the qualities of this so-called world itself; the priority is instead to explain the anatomy, instincts, and habits of its insect inhabitants, in as much detail as possible. If the insect world is to be considered directly, it is to be done so according to what is known about (or simply believed about) its inhabitants. This is typical of descriptions of the miniature in general because, as Susan Stewart has observed, the miniature ³FRQWLQXDOO\ SRLQWV RXWVLGH LWVHOI FUHDWLQJ D VKell-like, or enclosed, H[WHULRULW\´6WHZDUW 7KXVUHSUHVHQWHGWKHPLQLDWXUHWUDQVforms the surrounding environment ± LW³KDVWKHFDSDFLW\WRPDNHLWV context remarkable; its fantastic qualities are related to what lies outside it in such a way DV WR WUDQVIRUP WKH WRWDO FRQWH[W´ 6WHZDUW 1993: 46). Hence, the more one described the insects, the more HODERUDWH DQG ³UHDOLVHG´ GLG WKH LQVHFW ZRUOG EHFRPH HYHQ ZKLOH LW took on abstract, fantastic qualities (such as good and evil, beautiful and ugly). During the nineteenth century, it was not always possible or desirable to clearly distinguish between entomology books intended to promote serious scientific work on insects, and more fanciful books intended to arouse fascination with insects in a general readership. Not only was natural theology a significant presence in nineteenth-century entomology, but many insect books of the period also began to blend WKHLUFRQWHQWZLWKIDLU\WDOHVVXEVWLWXWLQJLQVHFWVIRUWKH³OLWWOHSHRSOH´ of Victorian fairyland, as Nicola Bown (2001) has observed. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a market for popular works on all kinds of natural history ± including entomology and microscopy ± had become well established. As we have seen in Kirby and Spence, not all of these books were thoroughly committed to the kind of dry, critical distance from their subject matter that one might expect from modern science books, and it was during this period that the co-dependent metaphors of the insect world, microscopic world, and invisible world gained significant rhetorical influence, laying much of the groundwork for what would become key themes of science fiction at the turn of the century. We find an example of this in

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*LGHRQ$OJHUQRQ0DQWHOO¶VThoughts on Animalcules; or, Glimpses of the Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope (1846), which FRQWDLQVDVLWVILUVWFKDSWHUDGLVFXVVLRQRIWKH³UHDO´LQYLVLEOHZRUOG¶V VXSHUQDWXUDO DQWHFHGHQW ³7KH ,GHDO ,QYLVLEOH :RUOG´ ³,Q HYHU\ FRXQWU\DQGLQHYHU\DJH´ZULWHV0DQWHOO a belief in the existence of beings invisible to mortal eye has more or less generally prevailed; and their air, the earth, and the waters have been peopled by ideal forms, invested with natures and attributes partaking of the characteristics of the minds from which they emanated. Hence sprang the Gnome of the mine and cavern; the Goule of the charnel-house and the tomb; the beautiful mythology of Fairy-land, and the dreamy creations of the ancient philosophers [«] This faith in the existence of supernatural beings, whose presence is but rarely made manifest to mortals, appears to be innate in the human mind. Its creations have varied with the progress of civilization and refinement, and the inhabitants of the unseen world been invested with higher attributes and subtler natures [«] (1846: 2)

This is the invisible world of yore, not the invisible world revealed by WKH PRGHUQ PLFURVFRSH %XW HYHQ VR DV 0DQWHOO UHPLQGV XV ³WKH beautiful superstition, though modified, still retains its influence, and even yet throws its spell over the imaginings of the poet, and the VSHFXODWLRQVRIWKHSKLORVRSKHUDQGWKHVDJH´ +HUH0DQWHOO H[SOLFLWO\ VHHNV QRW WR UXSWXUH WKH ³UHDO´ LQYLVLEOH ZRUOG UHYHDOHG E\ the microscope from earlier, supernatural notions, but rather to contextualise the former as a kind of realisation and refinement of the latter: yes, the invisible world is real, but not real in quite the same way we have imagined it to be. 7KH IUDPLQJ RI PLFURVFRSLF OLIH ZLWKLQ D GLVFXUVLYH µLQYLVLEOH ZRUOG¶ FRQWLQXHG ZLWK -DPHV &URZWKHU¶V The Microscope and its Lessons. A Story of the Invisible World; with Pictorial Descriptions of its Inhabitants   DQG +DUYH\ +HUVH\¶V Our Friends and Our Foes of the Invisible World (1913). There are doubtless many other examples; the invisible world continued to bleed into the microscopic and insect worlds throughout the nineteenth century. And although not all texts about the invisible world would make explicit reference to the supernatural or the occult, the capricious pairing of the occult and the explicated, the supernatural, and the biological, retained a special currency in contemporary scientific and popular discourse about VXEYLVLEOH DQG LQYLVLEOH DQLPDOV LQFOXGLQJ LQVHFWV DQG WKHLU µKLGGHQ ZRUOG¶

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Fitz--DPHV 2¶%ULHQ¶V PDJD]LQH VWRU\ µThe Diamond Lens¶, SXEOLVKHGLQVWDQGVDVDUHYHODWRU\LQVWDQFHRIWKHPLFURVFRSH¶V tenuous position between science and fiction, fact and fancy. The protagonist describes how, through his first microscope, the dull veil of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments [«] I penetrated beyond the external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they [his friends] beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe of being animated with all the passions common to physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and protracted as that of PHQ2¶%ULHQ

Transcendental descriptions of the microscopic experience such as this one (which were not uncommon during the period) highlight the extent to which the images produced by the microscope shaped nineteenth-century perceptions of worlds within worlds; in this case, the spherical, translucent drop of water comes to stand for the inner, LPDJLQDWLYH ZRUOG RI WKH PLQG¶V H\H :KHQ 2¶%ULHQ¶V SURWDJRQLVW ZULWHVHFKRLQJ%ODNH¶VYLVLRQRID:RUOGLQD*UDLQRI6DQG WKDWKH VHHV ³D XQLYHUVH RI EHLQJ´ LQ D GURS RI ZDWHU UROOLQJ GRZQ WKH window-glass, he is not suggesting that he is watching the drop through a microscope. Rather, his previous microscopic experience promotes a state of consciousness in which he maintains an awareness of the microscopic contents of the drop of water that allows a mental, or imaginative image to form. His observation of nature, post-microscope, becomes an amalgamation of imagined images formed in the mind, and purely optical images formed on the retina of the eye. 2¶%ULHQSODFHVHPSKDVLVRQWKHRPQLSUHVHQFHRIPXOtitudinous life in RQH¶V VXUURXQGLQJV ZKHUH QRQH ZDV SUHYLRXVO\ WKRXJKW WR H[LVW ± an HPSKDVLVWKDWLQPDQ\FRQWHPSRUDU\WH[WVH[WHQGVIURPWKHµLQYLVLEOH ZRUOG¶WKURXJKWRWKHPRUHVDOLHQWµLQVHFWZRUOG¶ The ongoing cooperation of the microscopic and insect worlds ± and importantly, their intersection with the new urban environments of the human world ± FDQEHIRXQGLQ3DXOGH0XVVHW¶V Sufferings of a Click Beetle, illustrated by Grandville (Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gerard, 1803±1847). The story tells of a young click-beetle who is told by a sorcerer capricorn beetle that he will endure suffering all his life, because he sees through social facades too clearly. A june bug

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introduces him to the salons, musicians, painters, and females of doubtful virtue that give the insect city its character, but the clickbeetle prefers the down-to-earth company of ladybirds. In a comparatively complex application of anthropomorphism, Grandville evokes :LOOLDP +HDWK¶V Monster Soup Commonly Called Thames Water (1828) in an image within an image (see Figures 1 and 2). 4 $'HDWK¶Vhead Hawk Moth (bearing the image of an exaggeratedly humanised skull on its back) paints upon a large canvas an image of tribal war between microbes within the microscopic world of a drop of water. The moth-artist is surrounded by insect patrons as he works on the painting. We are reminded that the world of microbes that the microscope reveals within a single drop of water is as distant, invisible, and alien to the insects as it is to us. In a reflection of the nineteenth-century popularity of representing microbes as anthropomorphised monsters (perhaps most famously exemplified by Heath), the insect-artist has arthropomorphised the microbes, portraying them with a combination of insect and generically monstrous qualities. Thus Grandville gives depth to his anthropomorphic portrayal of the insect through reference to a contemporary epistemic truth, one made possible not merely by a new visual technology, but by the representational conventions that accompanied it. In conjunction with de 0XVVHW¶VQDUUDWLYH*UDQGYLOOHFRPPHQWVRQWKHFRQWHPSRUDU\KXPDQ subjectivity within the human world through reference to the subjectivity of insects within the so-called insect world. /RXLV )LJXLHU¶V Les Insectes (1867) was translated to English in 1868 and re-titled The Insect World, yet it absolutely refrains from making associations between insects and more ethereal notions of the RWKHUZRUOGO\ ,Q GHVFULELQJ WKH 'HDWK¶V-head moth (Acherontia atropos), for example, FiguieU ZULWHV WKDW ³,Q VSLWH RI LWV RPLQRXV livery, the Atropos does not come from Hades; it is no envoy of death, bringing sadness and mourning. It does not bring us news of another world; it tells us, on the contrary, that Nature can people every hour; that it was her will to console them for their sadness, to grant to the twilight and to the night the same winged wanderers, which are at once the delight and ornament of the hours of light and of day. This is the mission of science, to dissipate the thousands of prejudices and 4

All figures are to be found at the end of this chapter.

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GDQJHURXVVXSHUVWLWLRQV ZKLFK PLVOHDG LQQRFHQWSHRSOH´±  $SDUWIURPUHIHUULQJWRWZRVSHFLHVRIFDUQLYRURXVEHHWOHDV³WKH VKDUNVRIWKHLQVHFWZRUOG´ )LJXLHUGRHVQRWXVHWKHWHUP µLQVHFWZRUOG¶DWDOO,QWKHFrench original, he does refer at least twice WRWKH³SHWLWPRQGHDLOp´RUµOLWWOHZLQJHGZRUOG¶RIWKHLQVHFWV 101, 388). The decision to re-title his book in its English translation seems to reflect the popularity of the term itself in the second half of the nineteenth century, rather than a rhetorical position adopted by the author. It was during the nineteenth century that the insect world, never having been fixed in space, also began to take on ambiguous atemporal qualities ± it became virtually timeless. Although early paleontological VWXGLHVVXFKDV2VZDOG+HHU¶V Die Insektenfauna der Tertiargebilde von Oeningen und von Radoboj in Croatien (1847± 1853) showed insects to be a very ancient class that has, comparatively, changed very little since the prehistoric past, this archaic quality was contiguous with an accentuation of the unfamiliarity and novelty of the insect world, experienced as if for the first time. In The Tertiary Insects of North America (1890), for example, Samuel H. Scudder seems to be expressing a popular nineteenth-FHQWXU\VHQWLPHQWLQZULWLQJ³7KDWFUHDWXUHVVRPLQXWHDQG fragile as insects, creatures which can so feebly withstand the changing seasons as to live, so to speak, but a moment, are to be found fossil, engraved, as it were, upon the rocks or embedded in their hard mass, will never cease to be a surprise to those unfamiliar with the IDFW´ 6FXGGHU    6FXGGHU UHLWHUDWHG WKLV QRWLRQ E\ ZD\ RI UHIHUHQFHWR(GJDU4XLQHW¶V La Création (1870); Quinet had written, ³VR easy to crush, you would readily believe the insect one of the latest beings produced by nature, one of those which has least resisted WKHDFWLRQRIWLPH´TXRWHGLQ6FXGGHU 7KH³IHHEOH´VKRUW life of the individual insect was compensated for by the demonstrably SUHKLVWRULF OLIH RIWKHVSHFLHV³VRYDULHG LQVWUXFWXUHVRFORVHO\DOVR resembling their brethren of to-day, that nearly or quite every prevalent family-group in the entire range of the insect-world has already been demonstrated to exLVW´6FXGGHU  According to the accumulating story told by the fossil record, insects, like so many aspects of the natural world, predated human consciousness and yet had apparently gone largely unnoticed, or at

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least, unappreciated by Europeans until the nineteenth-century. The shift towards a new appreciation of insect life must be seen as a major consequence of the accessibility and improved quality of microscopes in the nineteenth century. Although the bee had been venerated in Europe for centuries, and the scientific documentation of insects had begun in the final quarter of the sixteenth century, as late as the nineteenth century many entomology books still stressed the underacknowledged diversity of life exhibited by insects in general, and recommended the use of a microscope. This novelty of the ubiquitous and the omnipresent had as much to do with new ways of writing the miniature as it did with new ways of seeing it. As we have seen in the example of Kirby and Spence, in their attempts to validate entomology as a pursuit, authors often began their books by describing the common human ignorance of insect life (excepting instances of annoyance or attack) and, through subsequent statements about the omnipresence of insects, went on to describe in articulate detail the complexities of life in the insect world that existed within, and yet apart from, the everyday world of human affairs. Ants were of particular interest in this regard, as the allegory of a mythical µXQGHUZRUOG¶FRXOGEH HIIHFWLYely illustrated, yet subtly connoted, by cross-sections of underground ant colonies that would later inform the SHUVSHFWLYDOFRQVWUXFWRI8QFOH0LOWRQ¶VEHVW-VHOOLQJ³DQWIDUPV´7KLV generic image, like the layout of the ant farm, is arranged so as to reveal to the viewer the intersection of two coexistent worlds ± in this case, the aboveground and the subterranean, involving ants, bees, and ZDVSV /LNH PDQ\ LPDJHV RI WKH LQVHFW ZRUOG LW LV DQ ³LPSRVVLEOH LPDJH´± a scene no human being could witness first-hand in nature ± and yet is offered as a genuine and informative aid to the advancement of knowledge about insects (see Figure 3). (LOHHQ&ULVWUHIHUVWRWKLVDVSHFWRIQDWXUDOLVWV¶ZULWLQJRI³WKHKHUH DQG WKH WKHUH´ RI WKH ZRUOG DV ERWK SHUVSHFWLYDO DQd shared, as ³LQGH[LFDOO\ GLVWLQFW´ 7KLV PHDQV WKDW WKH VKDUHG FRQFHSWV RI WKH insect and human worlds resound within one another, rather than collapse into each other (Crist 1999: 58). Nineteenth-century naturalLVWV¶ XVH RI µWKH LQVHFW ZRUOG¶ LV RIWHQ Ln this context referring to a µZRUOG ZLWKLQ D ZRUOG¶ WKDW ZKLOH VXVFHSWLEOH WR FRQVLGHUDWLRQ DV DQ µRWKHU ZRUOG¶ LV MXVW DV VXVFHSWLEOH WR FRQVLGHUDWLRQ DV DQ interpenetrating world, sympathetic to our own, that one can become

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immersed within through close, patient observation. Using the H[DPSOH RI *HRUJH DQG (OL]DEHWK 3HFNKDPV¶ Wasps: Solitary and Social (1905), Crist shows how this focus on similarities that are nonidentical allows, for example, the openings of wasp burrows to be GHVFULEHG DV ³GRRUZD\V´ ± based on the common grounds of construction through work and functional usage (1999: 58). The definition of the lifeworld in terms of the actions of the animal actors that inhabit it not only establishes a basis for compelling episodic narratives (a popular literary device in the nineteenth century), but also touches on the anthropomorphic teleology that underpins much natural history of the period, in which examinations and descriptions of the purpose of nature became paramount. In Insects at Home (1872), reverend J.G. Wood provides a vivid example of this approach, articulating the popular entomological concept of distinct yet intersecting worlds defined by the action (or work) that occurs within them, [Entomology] is one of the most fascinating of pursuits. It takes its votaries into the treasure-houses of Nature, and explains some of the wonderful series of links which form the great chain of creation. It lays open before us another world, of which we have been hitherto unconscious, and shows us that even the tiniest insect, so small perhaps that the unaided eye can scarcely see it, has its work to do in the world, and does it. (Wood 1872: 1±2)

On the surface, Wood is repeating a familiar trope of nineteenthcentury natural theology that describes the visual marvels of nature as revealed by the observation of its smallest parts. Upon closer reading we can see how this description effectively contains the ontological notion of manifold worlds resounding within one another. Firstly, Nature is metaphoricalO\ GHVFULEHG DV D PXOWLSOLFLW\ RI ³WUHDVXUHKRXVHV´ RU DV FRPSRQHQW RI GHILQHG HQFORVHG VSDFHV WKDW FRQWDLQV valuable things. Everything within Nature, then, is of value comparable to that of material gain. Entomology is the key that permits entry into these houses, and access to the wealth, and as a pursuit it IXQFWLRQV WR H[SODLQ ³VRPH RI WKH ZRQGHUIXO VHULHV RI OLQNV ZKLFK IRUPWKHJUHDWFKDLQRIFUHDWLRQ´,QVHFWVDUHWKXVVLWXDWHGDVFDWDO\VWV for a theological, materialistic understanding of nature in which the FRQQHFWLRQV RU ³OLQNV´ EHWZHHQ WKLQJV DUH RI SULPDU\ LPSRUWDQFH

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since these links are themselves the very constituents of the entire ³JUHDWFKDLQRIFUHDWLRQ´ Despite this adamant testimony to the material interconnectedness of nature, howHYHU :RRG WKHQ ZULWHV WKDW WKH VWXG\ RI LQVHFWV ³OD\V open before us another world, of which we have been hitherto XQFRQVFLRXV´ $V KH GRHV QRW VSHFLILFDOO\ PHQWLRQ WKH PLFURVFRSH Wood is not referring to another world that has remained invisible to the unaided eye (i.e., the microscopic world), but rather to the insect world that has remained invisible to the conscious mind. He thus frames entomology as a pursuit that, while certainly able to make use of the microscope, is primarily one requiring, or enabling, a transformation of consciousness with experiential consequences that include, but are not restricted to, the visual. In line with both his $QJOLFDQ VHQVLELOLWLHV DQG WKH SHULRG¶V XQGHUFXUUHQW RI WHOHRORJLFDO interpretations of nature, what is revealed to the human observer, upon this transformation of consciousness, is the designated role that every creature ± including those too small to be seen with the unaided eye ± occupies in the grand scheme of the natural world in its entirety. Within the lifeworld such a perspective constructs, meaningless action does not exist, and stasis is only ever the illusion of inaction. 7HOHRORJ\¶V IXQGDPHQWDOO\ DQWKURSRPRUSKLF TXDOLW\ ± its attribution of purpose to nature ± then guides Wood to the assertion that among the insects, too, we find not only instinct, but reason. We find that in these lesser creatures the passions and emotions of humanity have their counterparts. Love, for example, develops itself in many ways, and so does hate; and, indeed, if the whole list of human qualities be examined, there is scarcely one which cannot be found in the insect world. (1872: 2)

Here, Wood has adopted a mode of perception in which all human qualities, including emotional states, can be observed and understood in insects. Insects are then qualified as players in real-life narrative dramas, their activities subject to episodic description. As Wood ZULWHV ³LW LV LPSRVVLEOH FDUHIXOO\ WR ZDWFK WKH SURFHHGLQJV RI DQ\ insect, however insignificant, without feeling that no writer of fiction ever invented a drama of such absorbing interest as is acted daily EHIRUH RXU H\HV WKRXJK WR LQGLIIHUHQW VSHFWDWRUV´    &KDUDFWHULVHG WKXV WKH LQVHFWV¶ VXUURXQGLQJ HQYLURQPHQW EHFRPHV SHUFHSWLEOHDVDµZRUOG¶

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The description of the insect world as a lifeworld brimful of meaningful action and drama reached its zenith in the writings of Jean-+HQUL )DEUH ,Q KLV 3UHIDFH WR )DEUH¶V The Life of the Spider (English translation, 1912), Maurice Maeterlinck writes on this aspect of the increasingly detailed description of insects (as well as extolling )DEUHDV³WKH,QVHFW¶V+RPHU´ GHVFULELQJ)DEUH¶VZRUNDV³WKHPRVW extraordinary of fairy plays that it is possible for the human imagination, not to create or to conceive, but to admit and to DFFOLPDWLVH ZLWKLQ LWVHOI´ )DEUH  LY  7KLV DVVHVVPHQW LV SULmarily a response to the dramatic narratives that Fabre constructs from commonplace insect activities, and is perhaps an unsurprising one from Maeterlinck, himself the author of a successful fairy play, /¶2LVHDX%OHX  5DWKHUWKDQUHJDUGWKH³IDLU\SOD\´TXDOLWLHVRI )DEUH¶V ZULWLQJDV LQGLFDWLYH RID GLVVRFLDWLRQ RIWKHUHDGHUIURPWKH reality described, however, Maeterlinck does quite the opposite, asserting that the human imagination is essential to the admission and DFFOLPDWLVDWLRQ³ZLWKLQLWVHOI´RIZKDWLVEHFRPLQJLQFUHDVLQJO\UHDO± the omnipresence of apparently otherworldly creatures, Indeed, there is no question here of the human imagination. The insect does not belong to our world. The other animals, the plants even, notwithstanding their dumb life and the secrets they cherish, do not seem wholly foreign to us. In spite of all, we feel a certain earthly brotherhood in them. They often surprise and amaze our intelligence, but do not entirely upset it. There is something, on the other hand, about the insect that does not seem to belong to the habits, the ethics, the psychology of our globe. One would be inclined to say the insect comes from another planet, more monstrous, more energetic, more insane, more atrocious, more infernal than our own. One would think that it was born of some comet that had lost its course and died demented in space. In vain does it seize upon life with an authority, a fecundity unequalled here below; we cannot accustom ourselves to the idea that it is a thought of that nature of whom we fondly believe ourselves to EHWKHSULYLOHJHGFKLOGUHQDQGSUREDEO\WKHLGHDOWRZKLFKDOOWKHHDUWK¶VHIIRUWV tend. Only the infinitely small disconcerts us still more greatly; but what, in reality, is the infinitely small other than an insect which our eyes do not see? There is, no doubt, in this astonishment and lack of understanding a certain instinctive and profound uneasiness inspired by those existences incomparably better-armed, better-equipped than our own, by those creatures made up of a sort of compressed energy and activity in whom we suspect our most mysterious adversaries, our ultimate rivals and, perhaps, our successors. (Fabre 1913: vii±viii)

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MaeterlinFN¶V ³RXW RI WKLV ZRUOG´ GHVFULSWLRQ RI WKH LQVHFW VKRXOG perhaps be regarded as an attempt to generate enthusiasm for the subject within the reader, rather than as a sincere evaluation of the place of the insect within the natural world. But it does represent a certain intensification in the popular entomological literature of the otherworldly status of the insect that is intimately tied to improving visual access to insects and their activities. As visualisation methods brought people closer to insects, many differences between insects and humans became increasingly difficult to reconcile as the myriad ways LQ ZKLFK LQVHFWV GHYLDWHG IURP QRUPDO RU HYHQ ³QDWXUDO´ EHKDYLRXU became more apparent. Despite this difficulty, insects were rarely interpreted in a vacuum unencumbered by anthropomorphic tendencies, and indeed it is arguable whether such an interpretation is possible; the truly alien, by definition, is truly unknowable since it UHVLGHV WRWDOO\ RXWVLGH RI ZKDW LV NQRZQ +HQFH HYHQ )DEUH¶V PRVW monstrous portrayals of insects and their behaviour display the basic tenets of anthropomorphic thinking ± and the rhetoric of worldmaking. 4. Concluding remarks: the insect world today Much more could be said about how the insect world has been figured in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries than current space limitations permit. Broadly speaking, however, we can see that as images of insects become more enhanced (that is, of higher PDJQLILFDWLRQDQGUHVROXWLRQ WKHLQVHFW¶VGLVWDQFHIURPRXUGDLO\OLIH and immediate environment is at once extended and contracted. The image brings us visually closer to something that is both close and far away ± and metaphors of the insect world, with all their sciencefictional connotations, become increasingly salient (a point developed IXUWKHULQ/DULVVD%XGGH¶VFRQWULEXWLRQWRWKHSUHVHQWYROXPH 2QHRI the most vivid recent indications of this process is found in the BBC nature documentary series Alien Empire (1995, see Figure 4), in which the so-called alien qualities of insects are made explicit (on British QDWXUH GRFXPHQWDULHV VHH *UDKDP +XJJDQ¶V FRQWULEXWLRQ LQ WKLV volume). In this example, the title of a documentary film about insects is indistinguishable from a science fiction story about imperialistic extraterrestrials. The inside sleeve of the companion volume claims that

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as this book shows, in their looks and behaviour, insects are as close to an alien OLIH IRUP DV DQ\ ZH DUH OLNHO\ WR ILQG LQ WKH VWDUV >«@ :LWK LWV PDQ\ EHDXWLIXO photographs and drawings, and its clearly written text, Alien Empire takes the reader on a spellbinding journey into another world.

As with many contemporary texts, the perceived extraterrestriality or general otherworldliness of the insect is fused with its apparently robotic natuUH ,Q RQH FKDSWHU WLWOHG ³8OWLPDWH 5RERWV´ &KULVWRSKHU 2¶7RROH FXUDWRU RI EHHV DQG ZDVSV DW WKH +RSH (QWRPRORJLFDO &ROOHFWLRQV8QLYHUVLW\0XVHXPRI2[IRUG ZULWHVWKDW³LQVHFWVFDQEH seen as miniature super-computers. Most of what an insect needs to do to survive long enough to produce offspring is hard-wired into the system ± SUHSURJUDPPHGHIILFLHQF\´ 7KLVNLQGRIDVVRFLation of the biological and the mechanical ± a portrayal of animals consistent with the otherwise disbanded model of the Cartesian animal machine ± has become increasingly prominent in representations of the alien (in science fiction) and the insect (in biology) throughout the twentieth century, and makes a neat distinction between popular entomology and science fictional texts difficult to maintain. Such representations may continue to enthral and astound us, yet if a fundamental objective of microscopy and entomology is to reveal an ³XQVHHQRUGHU´VRWKDWZHPLJKWWRUHFDOO:LOOLDP-DPHV ³KDUPRQiously adjust ourselves WKHUHWR´ SDUWLFXODU DWWHQWLRQ PXVW EH SDLG WR ways in which we think about and represent insects ± especially those dependent upon conventions that figure insects as unremittingly otherworldly and alien. For there can be no harmonious adjustment to insects conceptualised in this way ± only fear, apprehension, and LJQRUDQFH µ7KH LQVHFW ZRUOG¶ PD\ IDFLOLWDWH D FRPSUHKHQVLRQ RI insects and their habitats, and perhaps even reflect the ways in which LQVHFWVDUH³UHDOO\VHHQ´EXWLWLVQHYHUWKHOHVVDUKHWRULFDl device that comes with its own set of limitations. While insects do seem to reside on the fringes of our inevitably anthropocentric Umwelt, they need not be characterised as fringe-dwellers in a totalising or alienating fashion. For we know enough about the vastness of space beyond the world of the insect and into the greater cosmos to accept, at any moment, the special intimacy we share with these ancient, and persistently mysterious creatures with whom we cohabit the world called Earth.

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Bibliography Bown, Nicola. 2001. Fairies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brooke, Henry. 1735. Universal Beauty. London: J. Wilcox. Campbell, Mary Baine. 1999. Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Crist, Eileen. 1999. Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 'RGG $GDP µ0LQGLQJ ,QVHFWV 6FDOH 9DOXH :RUOG¶LQ The Management of Insects in Recreation and Tourism (ed. Raynald Harvey Lemelin). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drury, Dru. 1770. Illustrations of Natural History. Wherein are Exhibited Upwards of Two Hundred and Forty Figures of Exotic Insects. London. ². 1837. Illustrations of Exotic Entomology, A New Edition, by J.O. Westwood. London: Henry G. Bohn. Fabre, Jean-Henri. 1912. The Life of the Spider (tr. A. Teixeira de Mattos). New York: Dodd, Mead and Co. Figuier, Louis. 1867. Les Insectes. Paris: Hachette. ². 1868. The Insect World. New York: D. Appleton. de Fontenelle, Bernard. 1803. Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. London: J. Cundee. Gentleman, Francis. 1766. Royal Fables. London: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt. Goodman, Nelson. 1988. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett. Guazzo, Francesco Maria. 2004. Compendium Maleficarum. A Handbook on Witchcraft (ed. M. Summers). San Diego: The Book Tree. Heer, Oswald. 1847±1856. Die Insektenfauna der Tertiargebilde von Oeningen und von Radoboj in Croatien. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. James, William. 1906. The Varieties of Religious Experience. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Kirby, William, and William Spence. 1818. Introduction to Entomology. Volume 1. Third Edition. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. Mantell, Gideon Algernon. 1846. Thoughts on Animalcules; or, The Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope. London: John Murray. Mather, Cotton. 1862. The Wonders of the Invisible World. Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England. London: John Russell Smith. McGavin, George C. 2000. Insects, Spiders and other Terrestrial Arthropods. London: Dorling Kindersley. Nuridsany, Claude, and Marie Pérennou. 1997. Microcosmos: The Invisible World of Insects. New York: Stewart, Tabor, and Chang. 2¶%ULHn, Fitz-James. 1977. The Fantastic Tales of Fitz--DPHV 2¶%ULHQ (ed. M. Hayes). London: Calder. 2¶7RROH &KULVWRSKHU  Alien Empire: An Exploration of the Lives of Insects. London: BBC Books.

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5X\HU 5D\PRQG  µ7KH 9LWDO 'RPDLQ RI $QLPDOV DQGWKH5eligious World of 0DQ¶LQDiogenes 5(35): 35±46. Scudder, Samuel H. 1890. The Tertiary Insects of North America. Report of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories. Vol. 13. Washington: Government Printing Office. Stewart, Susan. 1993. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Uexküll, Jakob von. 2010 [1934]. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans (tr. J.D. 2¶1HLO). Minneapolis and London: Minnesota University Press. :HLVV +DUU\ %  µ,QVHFWV DQG :LWFKFUDIW¶ LQ Journal of the New York Entomological Society 38(2): 127±33. Wood, John George 1872. Insects at Home. Being a Popular Account of British Insects, their Structure, Habits and Transformations. London: Longmans, Green and Co.

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Figure 1. Monster Soup Commonly Called Thames Water, William Heath (1828).

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Figure 2 *UDQGYLOOH¶V LOOXVWUDWLRQ WR 'H 0XVVHW¶V Sufferings of a Click Beetle (early nineteenth century), reprinted in Bizzareries and Fantasies of Grandville (1974).

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Figure 3. Ants, Wasps, and Solitary Bees. In John George Wood, Insects at Home. Being a Popular Account of British Insects, their Structure, Habits and Transformations (1872).

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Figure 4. Cover of the companion volume to the BBC documentary VHULHV &KULVWRSKHU 2¶7RROH Alien Empire: An Exploration of the Lives of Insects (1995).

³%DFNRQWKHPHQX´ Humans, insectoid aliens, and the creation of ecophobia in science fiction Larissa Budde This chapter examines firstly the indebtedness of the aliens to a selection of real world insects, and the use to which these allusions are put to create a gulf between human and alien characters. Secondly, the idea of the hive, which is both an actual place and a phenomenological concept within the films, is analysed. I hope to show that the symbiotic relationship between insectoid alien and hive can be viewed as a metaphor of ecophobia, since the organic chaos of the alien world, though portrayed in abject images, at the same time responds to a sense of inhabiting a more-thanhuman universe. The hive is shown as a miniature ecosystem, and even fulfils the grounding, reconciling function that David Abram located in the phenomenological rediscovery of interconnectedness with a living, planetary environment and specifically in the sense of being organisms enclosed in a larger, meta-hive-like organism.

1. ³:HFDQ¶WWUXVWWKHLQVHFW´ 1 The motif of the insect is widely used in the media and in popular culture. Especially the images of the predatory insect and its social structure the hive are often employed to convey different relationships between humans and their other-than-human surroundings. All these representations reveal a striking similarity in their semiotic production and their meaning: they all serve to underpin the alterity of the otherthan-human, and the insect and the hive as sinister entities become synonymous with ecophobia. The insect signifies not only the ultimate other of the human, but also its abjection and downright negation. It becomes the ultimate adversary of the human by a double process, for 1

Seth Brundle, meditating on insect and human nature in The Fly.

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the biologically observed reality of the insect fuses with the humanimposed semiotic structures that depend on and perpetuate a dialectic relationship between insect others and human selves. This binary opposition of self/other, human/animal, civilisation/nature that still gives meaning and identity to modern humanity is especially obvious in the representation of the abject human/insect hybrids that form the most common enemy in popular culture media, such as the Aliens of the Alien-saga and the Wraith of Stargate Atlantis. The insect-heritage of the aliens not only exemplifies and justifies their moral destitution and inhumanity; it also allows the equation of inhumanity and non-humanity, so that the statement becomes ethical rather than political. The organic other-than-human is equated with a hostile and chaotic other that threatens to devour the isolated human, and elements that constitute the insect and the hive are conveyed as distinctly gendered. Through the abject depiction of processes like feeding and reproduction, both of which symbolise an elemental openness of the body, the insects and those who bear their PDUNDUHH[FOXGHGIURPSHUVRQKRRGDQGVHOIKRRG7KHKLYH¶VDSSDUHQW denial of individual meaning on the one hand confirms the notion of the closed human self, and on the other reveals a covert longing for a more-than-human2 environment. While the imagined ultra-technological future creates the insectoid alien as a representative of the organic world, the hive emerges as synonym of the ecosystem: it externalises, others, and finally eliminates both the organic in general DQGµQDWXUH¶DVDV\VWHPRIPRUH-than-human relations.

2

,UHWDLQ$EUDP¶VWHUPµPRUH-than-KXPDQ¶WRLQGLFDWHWKHLQFOXVLYHQHVs of a varied, multifarious environment co-inhabited by different organisms, whereas the term µRWKHU-than-KXPDQ¶ FRQYH\V DQ H[FOXVLYH VHSDUDWLQJ SHUFHSWLRQ WKDW TXDOLILHV organisms on the basis of being (not/partly/fully) human. A short time after completion of this paper a new book by David Abram was published through Vintage Books New York, Becoming Animal. An Earthly Cosmology. Please note that the additional material contained in that book was not available for reference at the time of writing. The general approach and a number of details covered would have profited IURPWKHVHQHZILQGLQJVHVSHFLDOO\WKHFRQFHSWRIµVSDFHVKLS(DUWK¶WKHUHODWLRQVKLS of children to insects, and the importance of depth perception in relation to flat screens. In the light of this new publication, there is room for expansion of the discussion.

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³,W¶VDEXJKXQW´3 The focus will be on the Aliens from the Alien-saga and the Wraith from the TV series Stargate Atlantis. The Alien films, each produced by a different director between 1979 and 1997, are well-known as milestones in sci-fi design and plot-lining, and the Aliens have served as templates for countless other alien creatures since then (not least for the Wraith/iratus bug hybrids of the SGA-episode Vengeance [3.19]).4 Stargate Atlantis, originally broadcasted between 2004 and 2008, is a five-season spin-off to the original ten-season TV series Stargate SG1, which in turn is believed to have been spawned by Roland Emmerich¶V  full-length film Stargate. The main adversaries in the Atlantis-universe are the Wraith ± named so for their telepathic ability to plant visions into human mind ± who are a highly aggressive collective-based enemy. Both the Alien and the Stargate enterprises address not only a standard sci-fi and horror audience, whose tastes are well satisfied by the screen-work, but also offer something to viewers interested in character development and interaction. While Alien was revolutionary in featuring Lt. Ellen Ripley, the first strong, gun-wielding female hero who also possessed motherly inclinations (as exploited in the second and fourth instalments of the saga), SGA is firmly embedded in an era when most series have one or more strong female characters on board. In that respect, Teyla Emmagan of SGA is cast very much in the tradition of Ripley, (transgressive) soldier as well as (conventional) mother. The films and series share a basic plot, which can be described as a more or less complicated and thematically fleshed-out ³EXJ-KXQW´ DV +LFNV FDOOV LW LQ Aliens: humans encounter strongly insectified, aggressive aliens, and enter into a long stalk-and-shoot competition with them, where nothing less than the existence of µKXPDQLW\¶ LWVHOI VHHPV WR EH DW VWDNH ,Q Whe end, the heroes either chuck the alien nuisances out of the airlock, as reliably happens in each Alien film, or find themselves forced to try and deal with the 3

Hicks, stating the mission in Aliens. As 6WDUJDWH$WODQWLV¶V executive producer Brad Wright reveals, the directing team of SGA was very well aware of and indebted to the Alien-enterprise as well, designing the episodes Submersion (3.18) and Vengeance (3.19) DVµWULEXWHV¶WRAlien and Aliens respectively (cf. Gosling 2007: 94). 4

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stubbornly enduring species. The latter situation drives the unfortunately prematurely cancelled SGA series, which ends with the defeat of a Wraith hive about to attack the richly populated Earth, but which does not resolve the future threats posed by the hundreds of remaining hives in the Pegasus galaxy (SGA ± Enemy at the Gates [5.20]). Despite the different times of creation and release both the Alien saga and SGA therefore address similar concerns by presenting comparable alien opponents: each predator is in many ways similar to humans, at the very least in genetic make-up, so questions of otherness, kinship, and human superiority become a prominent issue, with µJHQRFLGH¶ DV D SUHGRPLQDQW WKHPH LQ HDFK ILOP RU HSLVRGH.5 Both Aliens and Wraith are highly mobile. The Aliens appear more like a highly infectious virus without a home base and higher culture whereas the Wraith are the resident, dominant species of the Pegasus Galaxy. There, as well as on the colony-planet Acheron in Aliens, the Earth-based humans are effectively aliens themselves. The territorial conflict therefore arises from visceral rather than socio-political issues: in the Alien films the crux lies in the need of the predator to use humans as hosts, while the Wraith of SGA simply need humans as food. The biggest difference, ironically, lies in the fact that the Alien films locate a strong human villain at the core of the conflict. The greedy terra-forming company Weyland-Yutani seeks to use the Aliens for profit and is willing to sacrifice many marines and other crew members to get hold of an Alien organism. In contrast, the SGAteam is a coherent and very American unit that goes out to fight villains in the Pegasus wilderness and make it safe for human habitation. They have an almost completely politically unified Earth behind them, and the members of their own expeditions tend to be faithful. 5

This is an important mark of the aliens in question, since their relationship to humans is essentially one of predator and prey, and not concerned with political power-relations, as many alien races in, for example, Star Trek are, such as the Klingons and Romulans. Thus, there exists no possibility of political, territorial negotiation and the conflict becoPHV µHVVHQWLDO¶ D TXHVWLRQ RI VXUYLYDO UDWKHU WKDQ power. This is also underlined by 6*$¶V supervising producer Damian Kindler, who SRLQWV RXW WKDW LW ZDV ³D QR-brainer to make the Wraith dependent on human lifeIRUFH´VRWKDWLWZRXOGEH³GLIILFXOWWRILnd a peaceful solution to the threat of their H[LVWHQFH´*RVOLQJ 

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Since their time of release, both the Alien films and the SGA series have acquired a strong and enduring fandom made up of people of all ages and professions, as a glance at the many online forums shows. These forums, and the adjacent fan-produced fiction, offer many insights into the critical issues raised by both films and series, but for obvious reasons this chapter can only focus on what is provided by the officially published material. In favour of the cinematic releases, the tie-in novels which form part of both official canons will by necessity also be left out. 2.1. ³,WV VWUXFWXUDO SHUIHFWLRQ LV PDWFKHG RQO\ E\ LWV KRVWLOLW\´ 6 ± Aliens, Wraith, and ecophobia The predatory, parasitoid insect is a widely-used feature in popular horror and sci-fi-films that shows how the fear of a primitive, highly invasive organism endures in the human imagination, and thrives even (or especially?) in scenarios of a hyper-technologised future.7 In the insectoid alien, however, the microscopic threat is enlarged into a generous-sized aggressive species whose component organisms become even more dangerous ± and alien ± through their hive-based nature. The threat of the individual is multiplied enormously, for the hive is ever present behind each encounter with a single creature. By thus opposing the societies of individuality-cherishing humans and insectified hive-aliens, science fiction achieves an ultimate sense of alterity for the insectoid creature: their insectness makes the aliens at once extremely familiar and threatening while at the same time defines them as a distinctly other continuum. This strategy has a long tradition, as Adam Dodd shows in this volume in which he traces the HQWRPRORJLFDO UKHWRULF RI WKH LQVHFW ZRUOG 7KLV LPDJLQDWLYH µFRQ6

Ash, admiring the facehugger in Alien. $V0F,QWHHULJKWO\SRLQWVRXW³WKHJHQUH>RIVFL-fi and horror] has expanded upon disease in the same way that it has expanded upon paUDVLWHV´ H[SORLWLQJ WKH IDPLOLDU IHDUV RI FDQFHU DV ZHOO DV RI LQWHUQDO SDUDVLWHV VR WKDW WKH ³WDSHZRUP´ EHFDPHWKH*RD¶XOGV\PELRWHRISG-1,QFLGHQWDOO\WKHUHSWLOLDQDQGµZRUP\¶TXDOLW\ of the aliens in question would be another feature that deserves attention, for just as different insect species are merged in the aliens, so are mammalian, reptilian, and insectoid traits. Specific reptile-allusions play a similar othering role as do the insecttraits, but for reasons of space they will not be examined in detail here. 7

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struFW¶ RI DQ DOLHQ ZRUOG WHQGV WR IDEULFDWH D GRZQULJKW RFFXOW VWDWXV for insects,8 and a similar, albeit popularised and highly contextualised, frame of reference can be detected in the futuristic rhetoric of WKH ILOPV :KLOH 'RGG VKRZV WKDW WKH WHUP µLQVHFW ZRUOG¶ FDQ DOVR connote a world parallel to and in interaction with the human one, thus conveying a sense of co-habitation, the films use the insect as an umbrella concept that includes and explains everything that is abject in the alien species. And whereas the entomological insect world is marked by its quality of invisibility, which can often be cured by the use of a magnifying glass and then engenders fascination with the hitherto unknown reality, the insect world of sci-fi is condensed into the hive, which provides a similarly unknown, invisible sphere of existence, only here the forays are not microscopic examination but an action-ULGGHQHQWHULQJRIWKHDFWXDO³XQGHUZRUOG´RIWKHKLYHWKHKHDUW of otherness, and what is revealed engenders horror rather than fascination. As a rule, the other world of the hive appears fundamentally organic, chaotic, and opposed to the geometric, technological worlds RIKXPDQLQIOXHQFH$QGWKRXJKWKHRSHQQHVVRIWKHLQVHFWRLGDOLHQV¶ bodies literally screams co-inhabitation of environments, its depiction as a predatory, parasitoid relationship, filmed in garish scenes of feeding and reproduction, effectively precludes the potential of a UHFRQFLOLDWRU\LPDJLQDWLRQ7KHDOLHQV¶KRVWLOLW\DQGWKDWRIWKHLUKLYHenvironment is foregrounded: both by the incompatibility of the alien value-systems with human ones and by constructing a repugnant organicity of the symbiotic relationship between the hive and its inhabitants. Much of what is perceived as abject in real-world insects is transferred to the alien species: they are defined by the principle of openness, which is cinematically represented through the motifs of hunger, feeding, and reproduction. These three motifs convey a strong sense of ecophobia, focusing on images of violent and exceedingly organic death. Endowed with the ability to reproduce in masses and the need for human prey, the aliens possess the potential to exterminate the human species: thus they are not only fully apart from the human sphere but placed in a fatal opposition to it, for even a hunter/prey relationship that would be possible with the Wraith within 8

One need only think of Beelzebub, the lord of the flies.

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the Stargate universe is unacceptable to the human state of mind. This RSSRVLWLRQLVSRUWUD\HGRQOHYHOVRWKHUWKDQWKHYLVXDOIRUWKHDOLHQV¶ methods of communication become representative of their relationship to their environment: while the humans are characterised by their linear verbal speech, which reflects their distance from their surroundings, the aliens use immediate, telepathic communication that ties them into the collective network of the hive-mind. Ironically, WKRXJK WKH DOLHQ VRFLHW\ LV SHUVLVWHQWO\ FUHDWHG DV µWKH HQHP\¶ XQGHU the patina of cocooned or rotting human bodies, their on-screen representation and that of their environment also reveal a covert longing for a unity with the environment and with each other that the human characters do not possess. While the aliens literally merge with the environment of the hive and are perfectly fitted to their way of life, the humans appear out of place both in their own, sterile surroundings and in the hive of their enemies. In the appearance of both Aliens and Wraith the insect-elements are not immediately visible, but are revealed as determining factors during the film/series. The organic hives of these species are ruled by powerful queens, and they need humans either for hosting their young, as in the case of the Aliens, or as food, in the case of the Wraith. 9 Both species thus appear to increase in numbers at the cost of the humans, whose bodies become either hosts or nourishment in scenes with distinctive sexual overtones: the reproduction of the Aliens exploits the horrors of interspecies rape and birth, and the feeding of the

9

Aliens use mammalian bodies as incubators: the facehugger that emerges from an $OLHQ HJJ LQVHUWV D WXEH LQWR D KXPDQ¶V WKURDW DQG SODFHV DQ HPEU\R LQ WKH OXQJV where it is kept alive by the bodily functions of the host. After a period of gestation the Alien embryo kills the host when bursting forth from the chest in a violent, birthlike hatching process. The Wraith do not need humans for purposes of reproduction but as food, so that the Wraith/human relationship is rather one of predator and prey than of parasite and host. Wraith can feed only on human life force, which they obtain by placing the energy-sensitive feeding organ on their palms to the chest of their prey. 7KHKXPDQERG\YLVLEO\µDJHV¶DVWKH:UDLWKIHHGV\HWWKLVVXEWOHUSRUWUD\DORIGHFD\ in the end transmits the same message that a gory Alien hatching does. The struggle is portrayed as uneven, there is no concern for host or prey involved, and the human remains are shown in abject imagery. Thus the purely biological dimension is merged ZLWKDDQWKURSRFHQWULFPRUDOFRQFHUQDOVRRQDYLVXDOEDVLVZKLOHWKH³LQKXPDQLW\´ of the aliens is repeatedly spelled out by human characters as well.

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Wraith is also depicted as a violently sensual process. 10 This process is augmented by the fact that the hermaphroditic appearance of the aliens creates a strong, albeit mainly subconscious, anxiety about the blurring of crucial human boundaries, especially those of gender and of species. Thus, and most importantly, both Aliens and Wraith are genetically hybrid with merged human and alien DNA. This brings a strong issue of miscegenation into the bargain.11 As a highly mutable species the Aliens incorporate large portions of various host-DNA into their own make-up, while the Wraith have evolved from the iratus bug after the insect absorbed human DNA while feeding (SGA ± 38 minutes [1.4]).12 Thus they infiltrate the human body on the subtlest possible level, and erode the human claim for exclusive sentience. Their very existence as a powerful and assertive culture challenges the elitist notion of the human status, for they are humanoid insects rather than insectoid humans. Their respective mammalian traits, like the $OLHQTXHHQ¶VXQGHUVWDQGLQJRIKHUVHOIDVWKHPRWKHURIWKHKive or the :UDLWKV¶ RYHUDOO KXPDQRLG DSSHDUDQFH KHLJKWHQ WKH DSSDUHQW WUDQVgressiveness of their nature. The most basic boundary that is seen as 10 Like the AliHQVWKH:UDLWKZHUHH[SOLFLWO\GHVLJQHGWRFRQYH\DVH[XDOµGHPHQWHGURFNVWDU¶-LPDJH RQ VFUHHQ DV LV UHYHDOHG LQ WKH IHDWXUH PLVOHDGLQJO\ WLWOHG ³:UDLWK GLVFULPLQDWLRQ´ RQ WKH WKLUG VHDVRQ '9' ZKHUH WKH DFWRUV VZDS MRNHV UHJDUGLQJ :UDLWKV¶VH[XDOSURZHVVDQG7RUUL+LJJLQVRQTXLSV³,¶GGRD:UDLWK´ 11 The films of the Alien VDJDDUHUHSHDWHGO\VDLGWREHDERXW³VH[´DQG³UHSURGXFWLRQ by non-FRQVHQVXDO PHDQV´ Gosling 2005: 43), but more specifically it is about interspecies rape (Alien DVD audio commentary). As for the sexual imagery of the Alien bodies and the conceptual assault on gender roles, Gallardo and Smith note in Alien WomanWKH$OLHQV¶KHDGVPD\EHSKDOOLF\HWWKHLUH[WHQGDEOHLQQHUMDZVUHFDOO the vagina dentata and their use of the human as host for their young makes them not the ultra-male but that which destroys the very notion of the male (2004: 60). 12 The series gives conflicting explanations regarding the exact evolution of the Wraith; the episodes cited above suggest an evolution from the iratus bug, whose QDPHWHOOLQJO\ PHDQVµDQJU\EXJ¶DQGVHHPVPRUHORJLFDOVLQFHLWLVWKHLQVHFWWKDW absorbs DNA and then produces changed offspring. However, episodes like Condemned (2.5), Instinct (2.7), and Conversion (2.8) would also allow the assumption that Wraith evolved from humans, since they have retained the ability of feeding by mouth and tend to enjoy it as a non-nourishing pastime, and since Col. Sheppard transforms into a Wraith-like creature after being infected with the retrovirus. Additionally, there is a theory that states that the Ancients, a highly developed race that preceded human evolution on Earth, accidentally created the :UDLWK ZKHQ µVHHGLQJ¶ SODQHWV LQ WKH 3HJDVXV JDOD[\ FI Gosling 2006: 40, 50; 2005:30).

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demarcating the human is taken away, and the insecurity that results is a driving force both in Stargate Atlantis and in the Alien-films.13 The hive itself replicates this insecurity, for within the hive the firm boundaries between inside and outside are broken down. The aliens themselves flow into one another in the hive they produce out of its own substance as well as in the hive-mind, but the human bodies are also disintegrated, decaying into the hive after their life(force) nourished the alien race. So the cinematic construction of hive and insects in nightmare images of feeding, death, and reproduction caters to the modern phobia of the organic environment, deriving the greatest threat of the aliens from their elemental physical openness. The general oblivion to the openness of any living body, and especially the popular and assuring re-affirmation of the closedness and separateness of the human self, the human body, is the main impulse behind the films. Though it is a basic need of incarnate organisms, feeding is used as the link between the increase in number of the aliens and the decrease of the humans, which prevents the use of hunger as a potentially reconciling feature that transcends genders, species, and even selves. Instead, hunger becomes the negation of the human and feeding is represented as a transgressive sexual act and a destructive, anti-human power: the osmotic nature of the insectoid alien threatens the physical and mental closure that defines the human species within clear, firm boundaries. 14 7KHQRWLRQWKDW³ZHDUHDOOHGLEOH´EHFRPHVDQXQFRPfortable, ever-present threat of annihilation, and WKRXJK WKHUH ³LV QR GHDWK WKDW LV QRW VRPHERG\¶V IRRG QR OLIH WKDW LV QRW VRPHERG\¶V GHDWK´DV*DU\6Q\GHUSXWVLQ The Practice of the Wild (1990: 184), the conventional view of life as a struggle between vicious hunter and unfortunate prey prevails in the films. Through its cinematic pendant the hive, nature, the ecosystem, is shown as a fleshy, unclean, organic 13

The SGA characters tend to ascribe anything distasteful about the Wraith to the fact WKDWWKH\DUH³PRUHLQVHFWVWKDQKXPDQV´DV0F.D\SXWVLWLQ Spoils of War (4.12). And when the Aliens cut off the power-VXSSO\ RI WKH FRORQ\ +DGOH\¶V +RSH WKH humans are dumbfounded DWWKHLUDSSDUHQWO\XQH[SHFWHGFOHYHUQHVV³+RZFRXOGWKH\ FXWWKHSRZHUPDQ"7KH\¶UHDQLPDOV´+XGVRQH[FODLPVLQAliens. 14 Though the humans eat and breathe, the substances they live on have neither face nor name in the films, and their origin usually lies in worlds light-years away from the place of eating (cf. for example Stargate SG-1: Unending [10.20]).

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chaos totally opposed to the artificial, clean, and geometric environment of the humans. ³,WVRXQGVGLVJXVWLQJ´ 15 The films use the insectRLG DOLHQ WR H[SUHVV WKH KXPDQ FKDUDFWHUV¶ relation to the organic world in terms of power. The role of the insect in this is crucial, and it is two-fold. On the one hand the insect is a biological reality, a creature that appears intrinsically ambiguous. It is at once a closed, armoured organism protected by an exoskeleton, and a horribly open creature whose brood comes in vast swarms and feeds excessively. A single insect usually reproduces in masses, and this KDSSHQV RXWVLGH RI WKH LQVHFW¶V ERG\ DQG RIWHn in parasitoid or otherwise troubling ways: eggs, cocoons, and especially maggots that hatch in rotting flesh invite human disgust and probably also added to the demonic association with which the insect was endowed, as Dodd points out in his chapter. On the other hand, the symbolic content of the insect expresses power relations between self and other, between individual and collective. According to Christopher Hollingsworth, the insect even embodies the principle of power relations. Hollingsworth gives a psychoanalytical explanation of this: from childhood onwards, he says, the basic western relationship to insects is defined by issues of otherness and power. By parental example children are usually ³HQFRXUDJHGWRUHJDUGDVYDOXHOHVV´WKHWLQ\FUHDWXUHVWhat make up the KLYH7KHLQVHFWVRFLHW\SUHVHQWVD³SHUIHFWLRQRIRUGHU´DQGD³IULJKWHQLQJ VWUHQJWK LQ QXPEHUV´ EXW LW LV DOVR PDUNHG E\ D ³IDVFLQDWLQJ YXOQHUDELOLW\´ +ROOLQJVZRUWK  ±196). Presumably this vulnerability is not shared by any other small animal to that extent, so it is the insect on which the child mainly focuses its concerns with domination and inferiority. In its smallness the insect appears at once as the ultimate other, fully under the power of the child to decide whether to kill it or leave it be, but at the same time it also speaks to WKH FKLOG¶V VHOI E\ UHPLQGLQJ LW RI ZKDW LW LV OLNH WR VXIIHU IURP uncompromising power (Hollingsworth 2001: 195±196). This constellation explains the ambiguous status of the insect in psychoanalytical 15

McKay, describing the insect-descended Wraith and their reproduction methods; SGA ± Spoils of War (4.12).

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terms, and shows that ± and why ± the insect can be a disintegrating force both internal and external to the human.16 Thus the dualistic image of the insect incorporates its biological reality, the symbolic association humans have attached to it, and its potential to affect humans on a basic, psychological level. The insect combines self and other through the motif of power relations, and it combines hunger and reproduction through the act of feeding: thus it can be invested with the potential of annihilating the human.17 In the ILOPV WKHUHIRUH WKH DOLHQV¶ UHVHPEODQFH WR UHDO-world insects is depicted in horrible images which are abject distortions of actual insect appearances and habits. This representation relies on insects that are predatory and viciously hive-based, so ants, long branded as WKH RQO\ LQVHFWV WKDW PDNH µZDU¶ DQG WDNH µVODYHV¶ SURYLGH WKH PDLQ blueprint for both Aliens and Wraith and their hives. Parasitoid wasps, ironically solitary rather than hive-based, strongly infuse the Alien representation. In the following sections I will point out a few parallels between actual insects and their alien counterparts, and look at 16

An example of the insect as eroding the defining boundaries of the human from ZLWKLQ WKH VHOI LV 'DYLG &URQHQEHUJ¶V The Fly (1986), where the fly-DNA disintegrates the restraints and social ties that presumably made Seth Brundle human. The insect, he says, has no politics and cannot be trusted, for it is ruthless and uncompromising. Brundlefly becomes antisocial and self-centred in his desire for Veronica, but the climax of his transformation is marked by eating: like a fly, he now spits a digestive enzyme over his food, in an abject combination of eating and YRPLWLQJWKDWSUHVHQWVWKHIO\¶VKXQJHUDVWRWDOO\LQKXPDQ 17 While the first three films use clearly delineated us/them-constellations and provide no insight into the utterly alien, distant organism, Alien: Resurrection (1997) shows an exceedingly complex intermingling of Alien and human bodies and lives. Throughout the movie, Ripley the human/Alien clone finds her understanding, her loyalties, and her longings divided, especially when the Alien queen gives birth to an Alien/human hybrid FDOOHG³WKH1HZERUQ´ ZKRERQGVWR5LSOH\LQVWHDGRILWV$OLHQ PRWKHU7KH³SXULW\´WKDW$VKDVFULEHGWRWKH$OLHQVLQWKHILUVWPRYLHKHUHEHFRPHV VSHFLILHGLQWRXQIDOWHULQJIDLWKIXOQHVVWRDQGFRPSOHWHQHVVZLWKLQRQH¶VRZQVSHFLHV (cf. Crispin 1997: 232 ,QWKHQRYHOLVDWLRQE\$&&ULVSLQ5LSOH\¶VDQGWKH$OLHQV¶ mutual purity is expressed in a clever interplay and merging of similar phrases, in ZKLFKERWK$OLHQVDQG5LSOH\DUHIXOILOOHGE\³WKHVWUHQJWKDQGVDIHW\RI>WKHLU@RZQ NLQG´ DQ RIWHQ UHSHDted catch-line in the novel (1997: 230) Unfortunately, the complex issues of genetic, mental, and emotional hybridity presented by Resurrection, DQG&ULVSLQ¶VDSSURDFKWRSRUWUD\LQJWZRQHDU-equal species and societies, cannot be adequately examined within the frame of this chapter.

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the way their (assumed) behaviour is used to make moral statements about the alien society. 18 3.1. Ants Firstly, like ants, Wraith and Aliens dwell in dark, humid mazes rather than in neatly honeycombed structures. Like ants, they are icons of relentless advance and aggression, dark swarms of predators that, unlike bees, accumulate prey only for themselves. Hollingsworth VWDWHVWKDWEHFDXVHWKHDQW³PDNHVIUHTXHQWZDURQLWVRZQNLQG´LWKDV EHFRPH ³WKH OLYLQJ LPDJH RI WKH SLWLOHVV DQG UDYDJLQJ DUP\ DQG WKH RSSUHVVLYH DQWLKXPDQ RUJDQL]DWLRQ´    Thus the Aliens are reduced to bio-machines bent on reproduction, and the systematic ³FXOOLQJ´ RI SUH\ E\ WKH :UDLWK EUDQGV WKHP DV WKH EUXWDO XWWHUO\ corrupt enemy. Though both reproduction and feeding are basic biological functions and neither species exhibits undue enjoyment of cruelty in pursuing either, the films equate their actions with moral corruption;19± the characters of Stargate Atlantis regularly term the :UDLWK ³PXUGHUHUV´ FI Spoils of War [4.12]). A more differentiated view is usually only granted to characters closely connected to the aliens or expressed behind scenes by the respective actors. Thus Aliens provides Ripley20 with a comment on human corruption, expressing 18

This is intended as a selection of possible insect templates, since many more could EH FLWHG DQG H[DPLQHG LQ GHWDLO VXFK DV WKH VFRUSLRQ WKDW LQVSLUHG WKH $OLHQV¶ appearance, and the tick behind the iratus bug concept. In respect to morality, it must be noted that while the Aliens are repeatedly seen in terms of some sort of animal ³SXULW\´ DQG DV EHLQJ EH\RQG KXPDQ PRUDOLW\ in Alien $VK VWDWHV ³, DGPLUH LWV purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusionVRIPRUDOLW\´ WKH Wraith are judged by human morality: in Rising (1.1) Teyla even likens their periodic ³FXOOLQJ´RIKXPDQSUH\WRJHQRFLGHFDOOLQJLWD³KRORFDXVW´ 19 Additionally, unlike the Aliens, Wraith are fully capable of managing the numbers of feeders and food: prior to the events of the series, the Pegasus galaxy has existed for centuries in a perfect balance between hunters and prey, with the Wraith keeping to regular hibernation cycles that allowed the human population to thrive and replenish their numbers until the Wraith became active again (for example Rising [1.1], The Queen [5.8]). 20 Ripley is marked as a transgressive character throughout the saga, not least through 6LJRXUQH\ :HDYHU¶V LQVLVWHQFH on retaining a less one-sided, biased view of the Aliens in her character (cf. Gosling 2005    7KRXJK 5LSOH\¶V VXFFHVVIXO incursions into a male-dominated sphere have been criticised as insidious pretence

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WKH YLHZ WKDW WKH $OLHQV DUH QRW WKH RQO\ PRQVWHUV ³, GRQ¶W NQRZ ZKLFK VSHFLHV LV ZRUVH´ VKH VD\V UHIHUULQJ WR WKH FRUUXSWLRQ RI WKH Weyland-@,¶OOKXUW\RXLI\RXVWD\´ 

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into a potentially new organism but totally annihilates it. Since the facehuggers impregnate the hosts through the mouth they actually invert the motif of hunger, for the forced rape-meal will not nourish EXWUDWKHUREOLWHUDWHWKHKXPDQ7KH$OLHQV¶XVH RIWKHPRXWK DV³WKH SRUW RI HQWU\ LQWR WKH KXPDQ ERG\´ QRW RQO\ ³XQGHUVFRUHV WKH XQVSHDNDEOHRSHQQHVVRIWKHKXPDQERG\´Gallardo and Smith 2004: 95) but also enhances the feeding connection. This is exaggerated by the scene in Alien in which the young Alien bursts IURPWKHRIILFHU¶V FKHVWGXULQJOXQFKDQG.DQH¶VERG\OLWHUDOO\³UHSODFHVWKHPHDORQWKH WDEOH´ 7KHVHJURWHVTXHDOOXVLRQVWRELUWKFDQQLEDOLVPDQG even the Last Supper make the insect appear violently subversive, for it grows on the human before destroying it. Additionally, the merging of the solitary parasite, who either impregnates freely moving caterpillars or creates single nests that contain a paralysed caterpillar as food for the young wasps, shows that the hive functions here as a kind of multiplying device. While Alien presents a solitary creature laying up human supplies, its successor Aliens enlarges this threat into a fully-fledged nest, where hundreds of Aliens collect suitable inFXEDWRUVIRUWKHLUTXHHQ¶VRIIVSULQJ 3.3. Locusts Thirdly, the obsession with feeding suggests that the overarching imagery of the aliens is derived from the locust, which according to Hollingsworth embodies the principle of hunger (2001: 21). Their cinematic representation indeed evokes locusts through their hissing and rasping sounds, but also in the way their vastly mobile swarms ZLOO OHDYH GHVRODWHG KXPDQ KDELWDWLRQV ³:KDW ZH IHDU LV WKHLU QXPEHUV´ DV +ROOLQJVZRUWK ZULWHV 2001: 21). Especially the scenes that show Wraith darts shooting forth from the hive implicate the inexorability of attacking insect swarms. Interestingly, in both Aliens and Wraith the fangs are exaggerated, though neither of them actually needs to masticate solid food:24 apart from their requiring mammalian 24

Both Stargate Atlantis and Alien, however, hint that the younger stages of their UHVSHFWLYH DOLHQ VSHFLHV GR IHHG LQ D µPDWHULDO¶ ZD\ EHIRUH WXUQLQJ WR OLIH-force or ceasing to need nourishment. In Instinct (2.7), the young Wraith female Ellia lives on human food until reaching a certain age and beginning to need life-force; likewise, the novel-adaptation of the Alien-saga, written by Alan Dean Foster, mentions Ripley

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hosts, the Aliens appear not to need any nourishment in the further stages of their life, and even though the Wraith retain the ability to ingest food (SGA ± Condemned [2.5]), they can draw no nourishment from it and subsist exclusively on human life-force (SGA ± The Queen [5.8]  7KHUHIRUH WKH IDFW WKDW WKH DOLHQV¶ WHHWK DUH VXFK SURPLQHQW features focuses on an abstract kind of hunger, as something that collapses the boundaries of the human exclusively from the outside rather than from the inside. This expresses an elementary fear of becoming a component of the organic cycle, in which hunger becomes more of a symbol of organicity rather than a prerequisite to the continuation of life. 25 As pointed out by McIntee, sci-fi delights in playing on the (modern) fears of the organic bRG\DQGWKH³LFNLQHVVRI ERGLO\IOXLGV´DQGWKXVOLWHUDOO\SXWVKXPDQV³EDFNRQWKHPHQXIURP WKHLQVLGHRXW´  3.4. Spiders Lastly, like spiders (arthropods rather than insects, strictly speaking), both Wraith and Aliens cocoon their prey. Thus the hives bear strong resemblances to spider webs, where the stored humans and their mummified remains reinforce the image of nature as a raw and bloody existence that surrounds and strangles the human. The spider web conveys the helplessness of the (human) prey, and crystallises the notion of slow subversion and annihilation into one cinematically fertile image. The sticky, strangling web that is a secretion of the Alien itself and of the Wraith hive respectively immobilises the human prey and aids itV GLVLQWHJUDWLRQ ,Q WKH$OLHQ TXHHQ¶V ODLU WKH FRORQLVWV DUH cocooned with their arms spread so that the chestbursters can hatch encountering a food locker presumably raided by the freshly hatched and rapidly growing Alien (2007: 171), and the joint Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem contains a shot of an Alien warrior actually using its extendable jaws to rip bits out of its freshlykilled human prey. 25 This notion is intensified by the fact that neither Aliens nor Wraith possess individual names: the Aliens remain an unapproachable, foreign life-form without known origin, whose fundamental alienness is conveyed in their simple name that is also their quality, and the Wraith refuse to reveal names, if they have any. The very terms that are applied to them turn the races of Aliens and Wraith into true spectres of hunger, of the human fear and suppression of any kind of physical or mental openness.

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easily, while the supply decks of the Wraith ships contain webbed humans that are held in stasis until needed. The webbing is characteristic of the hive as an environment of its organic, devouring chaos and of its perpetually rising and rotting nature, whose aliveness strongly contrasts with the sterile human environment and synthesised food. 7KURXJK LWV ³ZHEELQHVV´ WKH KLYH SLFtures the organic as an insidious and devouring threat to the human. Lastly, the devouring otherness of the Alien queen is enhanced by her spidery walk and her intensified insectoid appearance. While the Alien warriors are bipedal and have two human-like arms, the queen possesses four front limbs, with the smaller, secondary pair looking VLPLODU WR D SUD\LQJ PDQWLV¶V DUPV +HU IRFXVHG SXUVXLW RI 5LSOH\ HFKRHV D VSLGHU¶V VXUH QDYLJDWLRQ RI LWV RZQ ZHE ZKLOH KHU IUDQWLF digging for Newt in the hangar pits evokes the swift but slightly chaotic movements of an ambushing wolf spider (family Lycosidae). The queen thus presents a disturbing combination of awkwardness and agility that makes her difficult to assess as an opponent: her overwhelming organicity can only be overcome by Ripley when she DVVXPHV WKH TXHHQ¶V PHFKDQLVHG FRXQWHUSDUW DQG XWWHUO\ KXPDQ creation), the power loader. The Ripley versus queen fight is usually seen in the context of the combatants¶ respective, mutually exclusive motherhood ± one neHGRQO\UHFDOO5LSOH\¶VHQUDJHG³*HWDZD\IURP KHU \RX ELWFK´ EXW LW DOVR PDNHV DQ H[SOLFLW VWDWHPHQW DERXW WKH human idea of otherness: fatally organic, hence its insectoid form, it can only be overcome by superior power, in its archetypal image of technology. 4. The hive as tool and environment In his book The Poetics of the Hive (2001) Christopher Hollingsworth examines the hive as a literary structure and defines it as a tool of ordering the world, a tool that expresses power relations between self and other in insect imagery (2001: xix). In the films, the hive fulfils this function on an ideological basis (the morals of the aliens are vastly different from the human ones), but also on a structural one (the hive is a closed system characterised by the nature of its location underground or within a hiveship). The Alien queen makes her nest on WKH ORZHVW OHYHO RI WKH FRORQ\ IDU EHORZ WKH SODQHW¶V VXUIDFHDQG LWV

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vicinity is transformed into an explicitly alien environment. The steel walls are clad in webby fabric, the ground is slimy and littered with eggs, dead face-huggers, and human remains. The entrance to the nest is marked by a rise in temperature. In regard to the Wraith hiveship, a VLPLODUO\µFORVHG¶DWPRVSKHUH LVLQYRNHGDQG HYHQ PRUHSURQRXQced: the hiveship itself is not a nest built into human environments but an independent organism; it possesses a roundish, spear-headed shape, and when grounded for hibernation it sinks into the earth and can be overgrown by trees, thus becoming an almost indistinguishable part of its resting planet (cf. Rising 1.1, 1.2). However, the hive is also an actual place, a living structure that surrounds and permeates its inhabitants. It can therefore be viewed as a system that is defined by openness within its structure through feeding, communication, and reproduction. Through its openness the hive stands in opposition to the human world, which is defined by closed, self-generated identities, DQG LW EHFRPHV DQ H[SUHVVLRQ RI PRGHUQ KXPDQLW\¶V HVWUDQJHPHQW from, horror of, and simultaneous longing for the organic, more-thanKXPDQHQYLURQPHQW7RFODULI\WKLV,UHODWH+ROOLQJVZRUWK¶VFRQFHSWRI WKH KLYH WR WKH LGHDV 'DYLG $EUDP GHYHORSV LQ KLV HVVD\ ³0HUOHDXPonty and the voice of the EDUWK´ LQZKLFKKHGLVFXsses how Merleau-3RQW\¶V Phenomenology of Perception (1962) applies to the VXEMHFW¶VLQKHUHQFHLQDPRUH-than-human world, and suggests a kind of meta-hive that is indeed the ecosystem, the earth. 4.1. ³:K\LVLWWKDW,ILQGHPSW\KLYHVHYHQFUHHSLHUWKDQ ones that DUHIXOORI:UDLWK"´26 This section deals with the use of the hive as tool. Hollingsworth defines the hive as a literary device that can be traced back to Homer and Virgil, as a mental and spatial structure that expresses the social power relations between the individual and the collective (2001: 20).27 The PHQWDO VWUXFWXUH WKDW ³KLYHV´ DQG WKHUHE\ FRQWDLQV DQG H[FOXGHV WKH 26

McKay, feeling on edge in a hive in SGA-Infection (5.17). More correctly, Hollingsworth states, while Homer used the image of the swarm to GHVFULEHDUPLHV9LUJLOµKLYHG¶WKDWVZDUPDQGGHYHORSHGWKHVHWWOHPHQWWKHSROLVDV the ideal of the empire/state. The positive connotations of the Virgilian hive are displaced in the films, however, for the stored knowledge and riches of the empirehive are converted into the abject stores of cocooned and mummified prey. 27

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other depends on the distance between an individual observer and an observed collective, and is expressed in insect metaphors because it arises from the human perspective on the insect world. One tends to look down upon masses of tiny creatures and the mind generalises the discrete components of the hive into one coherent organism and ascribes likenesses and especially differences between the self and the collective (Hollingsworth 2001: 4). The hive therefore functions as a tool mainly through distancing and separation of self from other, but since the individual always stands in relation to the collective, it also includes the perception of the insect as both an expression of the self and of the other. Thus, an expression of the traditional, formal hive FDQ EH IRXQG LQ $HQHDV¶V YLHZ DQG GHVFULSWLRQ RI &DUWKDJH Hollingsworth 2001: 10±14), a plentiful, hive-like city he wishes to claim: this version pictures the hive from outside. Another very different YHUVLRQFDQEHIRXQGLQ.DIND¶V Metamorphosis, written in 1912 and published in 1915, where the hive of society is rather conspicuous by its absence: it is a distant, oppressive collective that alienates the individual from itself (Hollingsworth 2001: 207). The focus here is on the insect as self, but it is an estranged self that is no longer part of the hive, of society: Gregor Samsa becomes a bug, but one who does not even have the loose form of a hive, a colony.28 4.2. ³7KH\¶UHFRPLQJRXWRIWKHJRGGDPQZDOOV´ 29 This section addresses the hive as an environment. In order to construct the hive as a metaphor of the ecosystem, I relate +ROOLQJVZRUWK¶V KLYH WR 'DYLG $EUDP¶V WDNH RQ 0Hrleau-3RQW\¶V Phenomenology. Abram describes earth and sky as two leaves that 28

.DIND¶V XVH RI WKH WHUP ³8QJH]LHIHU´ ZKLFK URXJKO\ WUDQVODWHV DV µYHUPLQ¶ LV ambiguous as to the exact species of the transformed Gregor, whether he is a beetle µ.lIHU¶ DEXJµ:DQ]H¶ RUDURDFKµ6FKDEH¶ ZKHUHDVEXJVDQGEHHWOHVWHQGWREH VROLWDU\URDFKHVZRXOGOLYHLQFRORQLHV0RUHVLJQLILFDQWO\6DPVD¶VDFFHSWDQFHRIKLV bug-IRUPLVFRPSOHWHGZKHQKHEHJLQVWRWDNH³FUHDWXUHO\HQMR\PHQW´: 207) in his new body, begins to feed according to its needs. As a human, he loved milk, but as insect he desires its curdled form. Though this presumably signifies his desire to become child-like again, it is also significant that the insect is also defined by its way of feeding, which is very different from the human one: it thrives on decay and rot, and is thus figured as fundamentally inhuman. 29 Apone, discovering that the walls are formed by Alien bodies; Aliens.

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open before the subject and close again behind it as it moves forward, toward the horizon. While Hollingsworth emphasises distance, Abram focuses on the dimension of depth, for perception unfolds only into depth (cf. 1988: 103). The perception of everything being enclosed within the unity of earth and sky, surrounded by shared air, engenders WKHQRWLRQRI³DVHFUHWNLQVKLSEHWZHHQWKHJURXQGDQGWKHVN\´ 105), and by extension also between both human and other-thanhuman subjects. This concept of earth and sky as one organism, I think, suggests the image of a kind of meta-hive that is indeed the ecosystem. What Merleau-3RQW\ FDOOHG ³WKH IOHVK RI WKH ZRUOG´  108) thus has a dim echo in the very material fleshiness of the film KLYHVZKLOH+ROOLQJVZRUWK¶VKLYH-version can be seen as an abstracted and localised form of that basic awareness of enclosure and interrelation. Living beings are surrounded by, connected with, and part of the earth/sky organism that is the world, but they reduce the intuition of this enclosure to a structuring tool which relegates anything outside the closed self to the region of the other, where discrete things become an amorphous mass. ³*UHDWVRZH¶UHIO\LQJDURXQGLQDJLDQWWXPRU´30 This section examines the hive as a metaphor of the ecosystem. As visualised in figure 1, the hive is a two-fold concept.31 Firstly, the hive derives from a real place, from a given state inherent to incarnate existence, which is the enclosure of the subject by both earth and sky. The frame of reference here is the visible horizon around the subject where earth and sky meet. Within this system, all components are 30

Sheppard, realising the hiveship organism was infected just as the Wraith were; the disease transmitted when the Wraith sought refuge in hibernation; SGA ± Infection (5.17). 31 The resemblance to the form of a Wraith hiveship is, at least in this context, remarkable, since the hiveship exemplifies the functions that Abram locates in Merleau-3RQW\¶V SKHQRPHQRORJLFDO GHVFULSWLRQ RI HDUWK DQG VN\ DV D WZR-leafed organism. Structurally (roof and ground) and phenomenologically (enclosing, symbiotic relationship of inhabitants and environment) the hiveship can be seen as corresponding to a miniature planet. 7KHLGHDRIµVSDFHVKLS(DUWK¶FRPHVWRPLQGDV well, a context that underlines the irony of situating a fundamentally planetary SHUFHSWLRQDVSUHVHQWHGE\$EUDP¶VGLVFXVVLRQRI0HUOHDX-Ponty, in the completely detached sphere of a spaceship.

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interconnected and essentially equal. Secondly, the hive is a reduction of that encompassing notion to a localised tool, something that structures the world into small hives and ranks them according to their distance from the (human) subject. The subject/observer generalises the observed collective, which can be a teeming city or street as well as an actual insect society like a beehive, into a coherent organism whose constituents lose their individuality. The frame of reference here is the restricted field of vision of the subject, which is guided by a visual axis that allows the subject to distance itself from what it observes. The hive as a tool, as an approach to the other, thus reveals a potential, inherent myopia: it can only frame the visible outside, and the actions of individuals, whereas the inner dimension of the hive cannot be expressed with certainty. 32 The hive as such is therefore experienced from outside and is the objectifying agency of an observer, whereas the meta-hive is experienced from inside, by the enclosed subject. The representation of the alien species as symbiotic can be seen as an attempt to express the sublime phenomenological experience of enclosure (which in sci-fi is feared as organic chaos) and at the same time as the desire to objectify and expel the reality of that state, by shunting it off to a less developed, primitive other, the hivedwelling insectoid alien. And while Wendy Wheeler speculates in her chapter that an ecology is also a kind of hive-mind made up of the diverse individual minds and bodies of all organisms, something that might be likened to the reciprocity David Abram postulates among incarnate, perceiving bodies, the sci-fi hive reduces this overarching ecological mind to the more bounded hive-mind of a particular alien species. I come back to this in the section on communication below.

32

For example, in the history of entomology the beehive was long thought to be ruled by a bee king, before the well-hidden queen was discovered, as Frederick Prete notes LQ KLV HVVD\ ³&DQ IHPDOHV UXOH WKH KLYH"´ 2QH RI WKH ILUVW ERRNV VWDWLQJ WKH LPSRUWDQFHRIWKHTXHHQEHHZDV&KDUOHV%XWOHU¶V Feminine Monarchy, published in  ZKLFK EURNH ZLWK WKH WUDGLWLRQ RI FRS\LQJ WKH DQFLHQW¶V FRQFHSWLRQV RI EHH society (Prete 1991: 119).

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Figure 1 3HUFHSWLRQ RI WKH ZRUOG DV D µPHWD-KLYH¶ GHULYHG IURP Abram), and the hive as a structural/optical tooO RI +ROOLQJVZRUWK¶V definition. In regard to the use of the hive as a tool, Stargate Atlantis utilises the concept of the hive to express the moral and racial otherness of the Wraith through spatial and ideological distance. The first makes the silhouette of the hiveship representative of all that is hostile in the Wraith, and the latter defines the biological necessity of hunting and feeding on humans as crimes. However, the hive is even more important as an actual place. The organic structure of the hive encloses the aliens, it is created from their own substance as a spider weaves cobwebs or a silkworm produces its own cocoon, and they depend on it for their nourishment and reproduction. Thus the Wraith hiveship is grown from the body of a living Wraith, whose body and self are absorbed into the new organism, and during hibernation there is a continual exchange of fluids between Wraith and hive (cf. Infection [5.17] and Pathogen [2.4]  7KURXJK WKH KLYH¶V SK\VLFDO LQVHFWLILHG characteristic of openness the alien society is set apart from the human one, and that separation is expressed on three levels: feeding, reproduction, and communication.

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³$OOOLYLQJWKLQJVPXVWHDW,QWKLV,¶PVXUHZHDUHVLPLODU´ 33 Firstly, the hive is defined by hunger and feeding, for it contains the hungry swarm and its prey, and is itself an organism not wholly separated from the individual. The feeding of the Wraith, for example, both on human prey and on one another in their battles, makes the hive a place where growth and decay are grotesquely interwoven, where organisms flow into one another and fierce competition prevails. The fleshy interior of the hive itself is diametrically opposed to the controlled, artificial surroundings the humans live in, such as the clinically sterile and brightly lit city of Atlantis or the angular corridors of the Nostromo. Thus in terms of what I have called $EUDP¶V PHWD-hive the alien hives provide a much stronger visual floor/earth±roof/sky-analogy by adding a sensuous depth through water and fog and winding corridors which is absent from the human settings. The hive, which almost appears to be breathing, resembles a starkly reduced ecosystem beyond human control, in which Aliens and Wraith are organically tied to their environment. The viewers are informed of this through a representation that addresses visual and auditory involvement directly, and hints at other senses. Vision as the main cinematic sense is invoked through the dimness which marks both Alien nest and Wraith hive as opposed to the glare of human lamps ± the muted hive-light especially in the Wraith hive even appears as a harmonious interblending of greenish, bluish, and warm orange glows. Hearing becomes important when the hive is depicted as extremely silent, free from the bleeps of human machinery or the babble of voices. The organic walls and winding corridors also suggest that the echoes that can be witnessed in the human surrounding are prevented by the hive environment. Finally, the variously stringy, smooth, rubbery, or shiny appearance of the hive walls invites imaginative touch, while the presence of humidity and warmth (in the Alien nest) and of fog (in the Wraith hive) suggest shifts in temperature and hence some sort of smell (not to mention the smell suggested by the decaying bodies). In comparison to the human environment, the alien hLYHV DQG HVSHFLDOO\ WKH :UDLWK¶V RUJDQLF technology appear soiled and contaminated. In their hives, technology 33

Wraith Keeper, stating the basics in SGA ± Rising (1.1).

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and organicity exist and flourish in chaotic interpenetration, while the starship and the city are static and draw firm boundaries between µKXPDQLW\¶ DQG WKH µQRQ-KXPDQ¶ EHWZHHQ LQVLGH DQG RXWVLGH :KLOH the hive-based aliens are shown feeding or reproducing in visceral images, and their hives actively partake in their storing of food/prey, the food within Atlantis and onboard the Nostromo comes in neat portions or is wholly replicated by a computer, fully removed from any organic origin. In respect to the gendered aspects of feeding, it was already mentioned that the feeding slits of the Wraith have a vaguely vaginal VKDSHZKLOHWKH$OLHQV¶MDZVare at once phallic and reminiscent of the vagina dentata. The function of these organs emphasises how the act of feeding transcends the conventional boundaries between male and female. The Aliens turn humans of both sexes into mobile wombs, and the feedinJRUJDQRQWKH:UDLWKV¶SDOPVGLVWLQFWO\UHVHPEOHVDYDJLQD The hermaphroditic appearance of both creatures directly links feminine characteristics, the insect, and feeding and death. Though all male Wraith possess the same shape of feeding slit and are distinguished from the human characters not only by the inevitably uniform outfit but mainly by their androgynous clothing and long silky hair, this link is most obvious in the character of the Wraith queen. While her Alien counterpart is hugely monstrous, the Wraith queen is obviously female, dressed in seductively cut skirts and high heels. Through her and her autocratic rule, enabled and enforced by the hive concept, the shape of the feeding slit in each feeding male becomes synonymous with a devouring female at the top of the hierarchy. This association is furthered by the way Wraith feeding scenes are structured, for the camera always lingers on the significantly shaped feeding organ on their palms before switching to the faces of the characters. Additionally, the starship is a benign, feminised object at PDQNLQG¶V VHUYLFH D PRWKHUVKLS WKDW LQ $OLHQ LV HYHQ QDPHG ³0RWKHU´ ZKLOH WKH KLYH LV D IHUDO FKDRV LQ WKH SRZHU RI WKH DOLHQ queens. Unlike the artificial starship, the Wraith hiveship is fully removed from human control by its own alien sentience. Thus, while the starship resembles the romantic image of an endlessly nourishing Mother Earth, the representation of the hive and the hiveship echoes the idea of nature as a wilful feminine power. Therefore the films

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enhance the idea that civilisation is achieved, as Marti Kheel puts it in KHU HVVD\ ³)URP KHURLF WR KROLVWLF HWKLFV´ ³E\ GULYLQJ RXW RU NLOOLQJ WKH%HDVW´ $VLPDJHVRIWKH%HDVW:UDLWKDQG$OLHQVDUH V\PEROV RI DOO WKDW LV ³HYLO LUUDWLRQDO DQG ZLOG´ DQG WKH JHQHWLF hybridity of these hostile species 34 echoes the continuing human DWWHPSWV WR³REOLWHUDWH WKH NQRZOHGJH WKDW ZH DUH DQLPDOV RXUVHOYHV´ (Kheel 1993: 245). ³6KH¶OOEUHHG\RX¶OOGLH´35 Secondly, and in strong connection with the issue of feeding, the hive is defined by reproduction and becomes an explicitly feminised environment.36 The queens have insectoid methods of propagation that necessitate direct connection with the hive. Thus the Alien queen is bound to the nest by her vast ovipositor, and the Wraith queen in Spoils of War (4.12) is absorbed into the tentacles of her throne while she secretes genetic material for the creation of warrior drones. Queen DQG KLYH KDYH QR ILUP ERXQGDULHV EHWZHHQ WKHP DQG WKH KLYH¶s humid, flesh-like walls resemble the tissue and bone-structures within a living body. Thus, in Aliens WKH ³QHVW LV DOVR DQ H[WHQVLRQ RI WKH $OLHQ TXHHQ¶V ERG\´ DQG WKH VROGLHUV HQWHU ³D PRQVWURXV ZRPE´ (Gallardo and Smith 2004: 92), and the Wraith queen becomes very 34

Wraith and Aliens in their genetic hybridity could also be referred to as races: species are by definition unable to interbreed, yet it seems that both Wraith and Aliens can successfully produce offspring with humans. Rather than specific difference there is suddenly the more or less obvious threat of racial connection (even if Alien reproduction is not entirely sexual in the mammalian sense, the imagery of the films and the statements of the producers leave no doubt that it is intended to be understood in terms of sex and rape). In the episode The Gift (1.19), Teyla mentions that through unknown experiments Wraith DNA entered the human genetic outfit and produced mixed-µEORRG¶ KXPDQV ZKR FDQ WDS LQWR WKH :UDLWK KLYH-mind. The nature of these experiments is not specified, yet again the depiction of most Wraith/human interaction involves strong sexual allusions on the part of the dominant Wraith. 35 Ripley, also stating some basics in Alien Resurrection. 36 ,QUHVSHFWWRWKHµVSDFHVKLS(DUWK¶LVVXHZKLFKFDQQRWEHH[DPLQHGKHUHSDUDOOHOV could be drawn to the faulty concept of a Mother Earth and the idea of the mothership WKH 1RVWURPR¶V FRPSXWHU QLFNQDPHG 0RWKHU ZRXOG RQO\ EH WKH PRVW REYLRXV connection). The hive(ship) would also present an abject inversion of the romantic Mother Earth image, for here the surrounding and nourishing mother has been reduced to an almost mechanised womb in which humans have no place at all.

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much part of the hive as well.37 Therefore the hive is presented as a beastly womb-world which is marked by predatory feeding, violent death, and inhuman birth. The insect-characteristics of this transgressive self/other hive-womb deny the valLGLW\ RI WKH FROOHFWLYH¶V dependence on a larger, enfolding organism, by creating that organism not only and correctly as other-than-human, but also as the negation of WKH KXPDQ 7KH DOLHQV¶ IRUFHG LQWHJUDWLRQ RI WKH KXPDQ being into a thoroughly organic and more-than-human process is depicted as destroying both the life and the individuality of the human, as a hostile disintegration. Thus the films can also be seen as patriarchal creations, for their depiction of the organic figures it as the monstrously open feminine, which it can only be when the proper human self is conceived of as masculine and closed.38 However, the gender issues of the Alien-saga have already been well-documented, for example in %DUEDUD &UHHG¶V DQDO\VLV RI WKH DEMHFW PRWKHU LQ The MonstrousFeminine (1993). Therefore they will not be further explored here. ³7KH\FDQJHWLQ\RXUKHDG´ 39 Finally, the hive is defined by its special method of communication that is at once sensory and mental and includes both viewers and characters. TKH ODWWHUSURSHUW\DOVRUHYHDOVWKH KLYH¶VLQGHEWHGQHVVWR phenomenological realities, for not only is the viewer sucked into the continuum of the hive by all his senses, the aliens themselves are extraordinarily sense-oriented, much more so than the human characters. Firstly, both Aliens and Wraith possess senses that are very 37

This fluidity between queen and hive is also addressed by production designer -DPHV5REELQVZKRVWDWHVWKDWWKHRULJLQDOGHVLJQIRUWKH:UDLWKTXHHQ¶VDSSHDUDQFH ZKHQVHDWHGLQKHUFKDLUZDVHYHQ³OHVVZDUGUREHDQGPRUHSDUWRIKHUHQYLURQPHQW´ EXWLURQLFDOO\ WXUQHG RXW WR EH ³WRR UHYHDOLQJ IRU DQ HSLVRGLF VKRZ´ Gosling 2008: 69). 38 Consequently, the mammalian and very un-insect-like understanding Ripley and the Alien queen share in Aliens is based on the female experience of motherhood, which is granted the power of transcending the species and allowing an impaired communication with the Aliens. Thus, females and Aliens are equally excluded from SHUVRQKRRGDQG5LSOH\¶VKRQRXUDSSHDUVWREHµVDYHG¶RQO\EHFDXVHRIKHUEHFRPLQJ the surrogate mother of Newt and, at least visually at the close of the movie, entering LQWRD³SURSHU´IDPLO\-threesome with Newt and Hicks. 39 McKay referring to Wraith telepathic skills; SGA ± Vegas (5.19).

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different from human ones. The Wraith have viper-pit-like secondary nostrils and slit pupils, as well as infrared-like vision (Sateda [3.4]), and Andee Frizzell, who played the Wraith queens, asserts in an interview with David Read of the Stargate Magazine that her ³FKDUDFWHU VQLIIV DQG VPHOOV D ORW DQG UHDOO\ XVHV KHU VHQVHV WR VKDSH KHU ZRUOG´ Read 2007: 21±25). They presumably perceive pheromones, while the Aliens, though they possess no obvious sensory openings, nevertheless seem to be guided by senses of smell, sight, or sound, as they strike their prey with unfailing aim. Secondly and most importantly, however, Wraith and Aliens are connected with their respective hive-members in the hive-mind, which is a telepathic continuum that allows instant, inclusive, and non-linear communication, independent from the arbitrary signifier/signified dualism of human words (Aliens, SGA ± The Gift [1.15]). This agrees with the overall feminisation of the hive, for while rational, linear speech is traditionally attributed as a masculine quality, music and singing, equivalents of the hive-mind, are seen as irrational, feminine qualities. 40 And while the linguistic boundaries that demarcate the human mind are dissolved in the hostile hive, the humans are excluded from the hive-mind.41 This actually underlines the idea that physical 40

This motif of unification by communication is not restricted to explicitly insectoid hives either. In The 13th Warrior the bear-imitating Wendol dwell in a womb-like ODE\ULQWKRIFDYHVZKLFKKRXVHVWKHLU³0RWKHU´DQDUFKHW\SDOUHSWLOLDQZRPDQZKR produces and controls the whole colony in a queen-bee-like manner; the Wendol community is shown as humming and chanting, in a quasi-religious unison. Likewise, Avatar FRQWDLQVD VFHQH RI WKH 1D¶YL FRQGXFWLQJ WKH ULWXDOWR WUDQVIHU D KXPDQ VRXO from its dying body into the avatar-body, through the medium of the earth mother. They are shown chanting and swaying rhythmically, with the glow of the mother tree pulsing correspondingly. Possibly, this connection of the feminised environment of the hive to instant collective and often musical communication can be related to the general equation of the musical and the feminine that arose in the late sixteenth century in England (cf. Austern 1993). 41 The fact that the hybrid nature of the aliens, especially in the case of the Wraith, would afford possibilities of imagining an interspecies communication between mammalian and insectoid creatures is not considered by the films at all. Of course the series/films contain interaction and some sort of communication, but in the Alien-saga this is marginal or explicitly a gendered interaction, and in Stargate Atlantis the boundaries of communication are clearly outlined by the war to which humans and Wraith are tied: the clearest and most empathic SGA ever gets might be 0LOOHU¶V Crossing   LQ ZKLFK 0F.D\¶V VLVWHU -HDQLH LV LQIHFWHG E\ QDQLWHV WKURXJK

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and mental separation is the proper human state, and that human LGHQWLW\ JHQHUDWHV IURP µLQVLGH¶ DV D XQLTXH SDUWKHQRJHQesis, independent from the non-human in the development of its shape and nature. It is precisely this idea that is refuted by Abram in The Spell of the Sensuous (1996), where he assumes that the western conception of an isolated, inner self that is psycholRJLFDO UDWKHU WKDQ SK\VLFDO ³origiQDWHV LQ WKH ORVV RI RXU DQFHVWUDO UHFLSURFLW\ ZLWK WKH DQLPDWH HDUWK´ (1996: 10). The detached, unnatural language seals the modern ³VSHDNLQJVHOI´ LQWRLWVRZQVHOI-referential interior (1996: 256). And though Abram argues that the essence of being human lies in interaction with what is not human (cf. 1996: 22), in which case language is a connecting device that is carried by air, the element all beings are most intimately immersed in, the films continue the treasured notion of the coherent, sealed human self and attribute the inclusive hive-mind to the alien enemy. 42 Rather than locating communication in the shared air, it is situated in the hive-mind and is used as a boundary by excluding the human characters from it. Those ZKR SRVVHVV WKH µJLIW¶ RI VHQVLQJ WKH :UDLWK DUH WHUULILHG E\ LW RU attempt to use the ability to seclude humans even further from Wraith influence; and Ripley, who is temporarily very close to the Aliens in Resurrection, eventually turns ± or returns ± to the human sphere. The visual framing of the hive as a closed system whose interior is invisible is thus also augmented by language, not only by means of the us/them rhetoric43 of the human characters but also by the concept of the hive-mind.

0F.D\¶V IDXOW +H DVNV D FDSWXUHG :UDLWK VFLHQWLVW IRr help in saving his sister by reprogramming the nanites, and must first realise that appealing to familial bonds VLPSO\LVQRWSDUWRID:UDLWK¶VQRQ-mammalian hive-nature. 42 ³,QGHHG IRU PDQ\ RUDO LQGLJHQRXV SHRSOHV WKH ERXQGDULHV HQDFWHG E\ WKHLU languages are more like permeable membranes binding the peoples to their particular WHUUDLQVUDWKHUWKDQEDUULHUVZDOOLQJWKHPRIIIURPWKHODQG´Abram 1996: 256). 43 The marines oI$OLHQVIUDPHWKHPDV³EXJV´DQG³DQLPDOV´ZKLOHWKHUKHWRULFRI Stargate Atlantis H[SUHVVHV WKH FKDUDFWHUV¶ FRQFHSW RI WKH VXE-human status of the :UDLWKWKURXJKWKHWHUPµLQVHFW¶

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³,@W ZDV WKH PHDQLQJ RI WKH ZRPDQ ZKR KDG XVHG WKHP >WKH SKUDVH@´ 1DWVXPH    PRUH WKDQ WKH ZRUGV WKHPVHOYHV WKDW eluded him. When they reach a mud puddle, Mineko cannot jump over it. She falls forward against SaQVKLUǀ DQG JUDVSV KLV DUPV DV VKH PXUPXUV³VWUD\VKHHS´ 7KH QH[W GD\ WKH SKUDVH ³VWUD\ VKHHS´ DSSHDUV DJDLQ LQ WKH FRQYHUVDWLRQEHWZHHQ6DQVKLUǀDQGKLVIULHQG6DQVKLUǀ¶VQRWHERRN@ ZLOO\RX",PLVVHGDIHZWKLQJV´ KRXVH@2QFHKHKDGVDWE\DOLWWOHVWUHDPLQWKHILHOGV+HKDG not been alone that time, either. Stray sheep. Stray sheep. The cloud had taken the form of a sheep. (Natsume 2010: 223)

Then, Mineko comes out of the church. She receives the money 6DQVKLUǀ RZHV KHU DQG SXWV LW LQ WKH EUHDVW SRFNHW RI KHU FRDW 6KH holds a white handkerchief and pushes it to his face. It is perfumed with heliotrope, which he always associates with her. ³+HOLRWURSH´VKHVDLGVRIWO\ 6DQVKLUǀ MHUNHG KLV KHDG EDFN 7KH ERWWOH RI +HOLRWURSH 7KH HYHQLQJ LQ 7]he new pioneers of advertising were carving a PHDQVWUHDNGHHSLQWRWKHFRXQWU\´Murakami 2003: 213). The main character and his partner are well aware of the growing power of advertisements and utilise this power. ³'R\RXKDYHDQ\LGHDZKDWLWPHDQVWRKROGGRZQDGYHUWLVLQJ"´ ³,JXHVVQRW´ ³7RKROGGRZQDGYHUWLVLQJLVWRKDYHQHDUO\WKHHQWLUHSXEOLVKLQJDQGEURDGFDVWLQJ LQGXVWULHV XQGHU \RXU WKXPE7KHUH¶V QRW D EUDQFK RI SXEOLVKLQJ RUEURDGFDVWLQJ WKDWGRHVQ¶WGHSHQGLQVRPHZD\RQDGYHUWLVLQJ,W¶GEHOLNHDQDTXDULXPZLWKRXW water. Why, ninety-five percent of the information that reaches you has already EHHQSUHVHOHFWHGDQGSDLGIRU´Murakami 2003: 58)

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When the new industrial world was emerging, the purpose of sheep in Japan changed. The sheep were no longer regarded as domestic animals that produce dairy products; instead, they became animals associated with the peace and enjoyment in the leisure industry. As the concept of leisure spread during the era of economic growth, as mentioned above (see 2.4.), stock farms changed their main function from dairy production to sightseeing and the leisure industry, which became important to compensate for the slump in livestock markets. They placed their emphasis less on livestock breeding and more on sightseeing by constructing amusement parks and restaurants on their farms. Sheep represent one of the animal attractions that the visitors can touch and feed. When Murakami was asked in an interview about why he wrote about sheep, he answered as follows, $VDPDWWHURIIDFW,GLGQ¶WHYHQNQRZZKDW sheep had to do with our life. There are also people who believe that there are no sheep in Japan. But, of course, there are, and if I have to tell you where, they exist in places like Mother Farm and HokkaidǀDQGWKH\GRQ¶WLQWHUYHQHLQRXUGD\-to-day life. From long back, I had been thinking about the significance of the existence of this creature. I am sure WKDW \RX KDYH QHYHU DFWXDOO\ VHHQ DVKHHS KDYH \RX" µ%RRN ,QWHUYLHZ¶  8)15

0XUDNDPL¶V UHPDUk demonstrates that sheep have lost their material value as wool or meat; they are now a symbol of a wealthy lifestyle given which one can afford to enjoy leisure and relaxation. With the increasing popularity of leisure and the development of public transport from cities to rural areas, the numbers of people who visit farms has increased. In A Wild Sheep ChaseWKHSURWDJRQLVW¶VVKHHSFKDVHVWDUWVZLWKDQ advertisement poster. He creates a poster for a life insurance company using a photograph. The picture is of a herd of sheep in a peaceful meadow. Here, these sheep become a symbol of pastoral peace and safety, which the life insurance company presents to the consumers as phenomena associated with their services, rather than colonial aggression, a symbolism that the sheep possessed during the war. 15

The translations are mine. Mother Farm is the most famous entertainment farm in the metropolitan area, Chiba Prefecture, established in 1962 (see µ0RWKHU )DUP¶  +RNNDLGǀLVWKHQRUWKHUQPost prefecture in Japan.

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Sheep are one of the symbols of the huge economic power that Japan had at that time. 4.3. Sheep and Japanese modern colonial history However, Murakami uses the representation of sheep not as a congratulatory emblem of the economically developed Japanese society, but as an animal that reflects the malady of the process of modernisation in Japan. Although the animal represents the emerging economic power, which seems to be different from its violent colonial history, it also embodies the inefficiency of Japanese society, which, according to Murakami, led to the Japanese aggression in Asia. The history of sheep is described in the novel through the individual stories of Sheep Professor and the Boss, both of whom led Japanese colonialism in Asia, and whose bodies and souls are possessed by the legendary sheep. Sheep Professor was a pioneer in Japanese agricultural administration in Asia during the 1930s. He developed a unified scheme of large-scale agriculturalisation of Japan and its colonies. He was part of the elite in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In 1934, a young army officer asked him to establish a IUDPHZRUNIRUUDLVLQJVKHHSLQ0DQFKXULDDQG0RQJROLDIRU³WKHELJ LPPLQHQW 1RUWK &KLQD FDPSDLJQ´ Murakami 2003: 180). He embarked on a site-observation tour in Manchuria, where he was possessed by the legendary sheep. Boss, on the other hand, is a right-wing politico. When he was imprisoned in the 1930s on charges of complicity in a plot to assassinate a key political figure, the legendary sheep started to possess him. Since then, he obtained political FKDULVPDDQG³WKHDELOLW\WRVWHHUVRFLHW\E\XVLQJWKHZHDNQHVVRIWKH PDVVHVIRUOHYHUDJH´Murakami 2003: 117). After his release, he was sent to Manchuria, where he hoarded a lot of money by dealing drugs and by providing information to the upper echelons of the Kanto Army. He came back to Japan after the war with huge economic and political power. Like the worldwide conqueror in the twelfth century, Genghis Khan, whom the legendary sheep is told to have possessed as well, those two persons had the ambition to invade larger Asian countries. By explaining the history of sheep in Japan through these individual stories, Murakami shows the colonial relationships between

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the modernisation of Japan and the sheep. He identifies the Japanese process of modernisation with the history of sheep in Japan. For him, the process of sheep raising in Japan represents inefficiency and irrationality. In the following passage, Murakami talks about the reason why he focuses on the existence of sheep in his novel, I learned that there had not always been sheep in Japan. They had been imported as exotic animals early in the Meiji period. The Meiji government had a policy of encouraging the raising of sheep, but now sheep have been all but abandoned by the government as an uneconomical investment. In other words, sheep are a kind of symbol of the reckless speed with which the Japanese state pursued a course of modernization. When I learned all this, I decided once and for all that I would ZULWHDQRYHOZLWK³VKHHS´ as a key word. (Rubin 2005: 91)

In A Wild Sheep Chase, to write the history of sheep is to look back to the history of the nation from pre-war to post-war while criticising -DSDQ¶VUHFNOHVVSURFHVVRIPRGHUQLVDWLRQWKDWLVWKHSURFHVVRIDEDQdoning uneconomical activities and pursuing violent colonialism in $VLD0XUDNDPL¶s words unequivocally show that the history of sheep is connected with the modern wars in Japan, sheep representing the unfavourable aspects of the modernisation process: 7KHEDVLFIODZRIPRGHUQ-DSDQLVWKDWZH¶YHOHDUQHGDEVROXWHO\QRthing from our contact with other Asian peoples. The same goes for our dealings with sheep. 6KHHSUDLVLQJLQ-DSDQKDVIDLOHGSUHFLVHO\EHFDXVHZH¶YHYLHZHGVKHHSPHUHO\DV a source of wool and meat. The daily-life level is missing from our thinking. We miQLPL]HWKHWLPHIDFWRUWRPD[LPL]HWKHUHVXOWV,W¶VOLNHWKDWZLWKHYHU\WKLQJ,Q RWKHUZRUGVZHGRQ¶WKDYHRXUIHHWRQVROLGJURXQG,W¶VQRWZLWKRXWUHDVRQWKDW we lost the war. (Murakami 2003: 188) Even today, Japanese know precious little about sheep. Which is to say that sheep as an animal have no historical connection with the daily life of the Japanese. Sheep were imported at the state level from America, raised briefly, then promptly ignored. 7KDW¶V\RXUVKHHSAfter the war, when importation of wool and mutton from Australia and New Zealand was liberalized, the merits of sheep raising in Japan plummeted to zero. A tragic animal, do you not think? Here, then, is the very image of modern Japan. (Murakami 2003: 111)

In the novel, which is set in an efficient economic society, Sheep Man is a remnant of Japanese modernisation and its violent history. He OLYHVLQDZRRGQHDU5DW¶V/RGJHLQHokkaidǀZHDULQJVKHHSVNLQDQG

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eating plants or small animals. The protagonist asks him why he became a sheep. ³:K\¶G\RXWDNHWRKLGLQJRXWXSKHUH"´ ³VLF@´VDLGWKH6KHHS0DQ ³1R , ZRXOGQ¶W ODXJK , VZHDU´ , VDLG , FRXOGQ¶W LPDJLQH ZKDW WKHUH¶G EH WR laugh about. ³VLF@"´ ³,ZRQ¶WWHOODQ\RQH´ ³,GLGQ¶WZDQWWRJRRIIWRZDU>VLF@´ For the next few minutes, we walked on without a word between us. ³:DUZLWKZKRP"´,DVNHG ³'RQQR >VLF@´ FRXJKHG RXW WKH 6KHHS 0DQ ³%XW,GLGQ¶WZDQWWRJR >VLF@ $Q\ZD\WKDW¶VZK\,¶PDVKHHS>VLF@$VKHHSZKRVWD\VZKHUHKHEHORQJVXSKHUH>VLF@´ (Murakami 2003: 263±264)

According to Sheep Man, he becomes a sheep because he does not want to go off to the war. He reminds the protagonist about the ferocious history of wars in Japan, which was almost forgotten during the economic prosperity in the 1970s. As one of the strategic animals, the sheep is deeply connected to the modern history of Japanese militarisation and colonialism in Asia. 5. Conclusion The representations of sheep in these two novels show how the animal has been utilised for colonial and economic purposes in modern Japan. The distinctive history of sheep in Japan after the Meiji era reflects the process of Japanese modernisation and colonialism in Asia. In NatsuPH 6ǀVHNL¶V 6DQVKLUǀ³VWUD\ VKHHS´ DUH SUHVHQWHG DV D V\PERO of the valued English literature and Western culture in Japan. Through LQWHUSUHWLQJWKHPHDQLQJRI³VWUD\VKHHS´LQWKHQRYHOLWFDQEHVWDWHG that the author uses the image of sheep as a metaphor taken from English literature, and brings it to his own work where it functions as RQH RI WKH H[DPSOHV RI ³VHOI-FRORQLDOLVP´ LQ 0HLML -DSDQ 7KH UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI VKHHS LQ 0XUDNDPL +DUXNL¶V A Wild Sheep Chase GHULYHV IURP 1DWVXPH¶V QDUUDWLYH RQ VKHHS DV ZDQGHULQJ \RXQJ people. However, in the 1980s, Murakami shows that sheep keeping in Japan reflects the process of economic growth in post-war Japan and the past colonial history of Japanese expansion to Asia. Thus, the

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semiotics of sheep is a significant material for those who wish to interpret Japanese history and literature. 16

Bibliography Primary references Murakami, Haruki. 1987. Hear the Wind Sing (tr. A. Birnbaum). Tokyo: Kodansha. ².  µ6\GQH\ QR *UHHQ 6WUHHW >*UHHQ 6WUHHW LQ 6\GQH\@¶ LQ Murakami Haruki Zensakuhin [The complete works of Murakami Haruki] 1979±1989. Vol. 3. Tokyo: Kodansha: 177±203. ². 1994a. Yagate Kanashiki Gaikokugo [And then, sorrowful foreign language]. Tokyo: Kodansha. ². 1994b. Dance Dance Dance (tr. A. Birnbaum). Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International. ². 1997. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (tr. J. Rubin). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ². µ1RPRQKDQQR7HWVXQR+DNDED¶>*UDYHRILURQLQ1RPRQKDQ@LQ +HQN\ǀ .LQN\ǀ[Remote region, short distance]. Tokyo: Shinchosha: 161±231. ². 2002. The Sputnik Sweetheart (tr. P. Gabriel). London: Vintage Books. ². µ6XSHU-IURJVDYHV7RN\R¶WU-5XELQ LQ After the Quake. London: Harvill Press: 91±114. ². 2003. A Wild Sheep Chase (tr. A. Birnbaum). London: Vintage Books. ². 2005. Kafka on the Shore (tr. P. Gabriel). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1DWVXPH 6ǀVHNL D Mankan Tokorodokoro [Here and there in Manchuria and Korea]. 6ǀVHNL=HQVKnj [The complete works oI6ǀVHNL@9RO7RN\R,ZDQDPL Shoten: 227±351. ². 1994b. 6DQVKLUǀ. 6ǀVHNL =HQVKnj >7KH FRPSOHWH ZRUNV RI 6ǀVHNL@9RO 7RN\R Iwanami Shoten. ². 2010. 6DQVKLUǀ (tr. J. Rubin). London: Penguin Books. Secondary references µ%RRN ,QWHUYLHZ¶ in *HQVǀ %ungaku [Fantasy literature] 3, 1993: 4±14. Interview with Haruki Murakami. Unknown interviewer 7RN\R *HQVǀ %XQJDNX Syuppankai. Eaglestone, Robert. 2002. Doing English: A Guide for Literature Students. London: Routledge. English Bible: Translated Out of Original Tongues By the Commanding of King James the First, Anno 1661. 1967. Vol. 6. No. 38. New York: AMS Press.

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In the future, I plan to research the representation of sheep as a violent creature in Japanese literature in different eras, such as Ema 6Knj¶V Hitsuji no Ikaru Toki [Wrath of the Lamb] (1924±1925), and the modern images of sheep related to cloning technology.

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FAO 2009. = Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. FAOSTAT. 2009. Online at: http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/world/ranking/sheep.html (consulted 24.09.2011). Fielding, Henry. 2008. Tom Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ,JXFKL .HQ]ǀ  0DQVKnjNRNX QL 2NHUX &KLNXJ\nj WR0HQ\ǀ [Keeping cows and sheep in Manchukuo]. Sapporo +RNNDLGǀ 7HLNRNX 'DLJDNX 0DQPǀ .HQN\njDL >$VVRFLDWLRQ RI 0DQFKXULDQ DQG 0RQJROLDQ 6WXGLHV DW +RNNDLGǀ ,PSHULDO University]. Kawai, Hayao and Murakami Haruki. 1999. Murakami Haruki, Kawai Hayao ni Ai ni Iku [Murakami Haruki meets Kawai Hayao]. Tokyo: Shinchosha. .HL]DL.LNDNXFKǀ>-DSDQHVH(FRQRP\$JHQF\@HG  Gendai Nihon Keizai no 7HQNDL .HL]DL .LNDNXFKǀ 6DQMnj 1HQVKL [Development of modern Japanese HFRQRP\7KLUW\\HDUV¶KLVWRU\E\WKH-DSDQHVH(FRQRP\$JHQF\@7RN\R.HL]DL .LNDNXFKǀ Kimura-Steven, Chigusa. 1995. 6DQVKLUǀ QR 6HNDL 6ǀVHNL ZR $SDVVLYHDGYHQWXUH@ in Tokyo Gaikokugo 'DLJDNX5RQVKnj [Tokyo University of Foreign Studies] 74: 151±152. Tanigawa, Kennichi et al. (eds). 1980. Nihon 6KRPLQ6HLNDWVX6KLU\ǀ6KnjVHL [Life of common people in Japan]. Vol. 28. Tokyo: San-ichi Shobo. Uzawa, Kazuhiro.  µ1LNXVKRNX QR +HQVHQ¶ >7KH KLVWRU\ RI WKH KDELW RI PHDWeating] in Nishimoto Toyohiro (ed.). DǀEXWVX QR .ǀNRJDNX [Archaeology of animal]. 7RN\Ritalics in the original ± W.W.] (Nietzsche 1993: 5). As Gregory Moore notes: ³7KH Dionysian Kuntsttrieb, then, is a kind of sublimation of the libidinous, SULPDO XUJHV RI PDQ WKH µSDQKHWDHULF DQLPDOLW\¶ FHOHEUDWHG E\ SULPLWLYH FXOWV %HFDXVH VXFK DUW RULJLQDWHV LQ DQ µXQOHDVKLQJ RI WKH ORZHUGULYHV¶LWLVDEOHWRUHYHDODQGVLPXOWDQHRXVO\WRWUDQVILJXUHRur shared experience and bestial origins´0RRUH . And beyond this, as Moore also points out, it is clear from his notes written shortly after The Birth of Tragedy that Nietzsche had begun to recognise the µQRQ- or supra-KXPDQ¶DVSHFWVRIWKHKuntsttrieb as

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FRQVLVWHQWZLWKVRPHIRUPRIHYROXWLRQLVP:KDWKHFDOOVµKLJKHUSK\VLRORJ\¶ZLOO reveal, he claims in one note written between 1872 and 1873, the activity of the µDUWLVWLFIRUFHV¶SUHVHQWQRWRQO\LQKXPDQEXWDOVRLQRUJDQLFHYROXWLRQWerden). In other words, Nietzsche views evolution as an artistic process ± just as Haeckel and Bölsche would later. A few notes later, Nietzsche even goes so far as to suggest that the chemical changes which take place in inorganic nature may also EHµDUWLVWLFSURFHVVHV¶± despite the fact that he recognises that to conceive of an µartistic process without a brain¶LVWREHJXLOW\RIWKHFUDVVHVWDQWKURSRPRUSKLVP (Moore 2002: 93±4)

From biosemiotic precursor Gregory Bateson (Hoffmeyer 2008), also, we are familiar with the (increasingly popular neuroscientific and AI) LGHDWKDWµPLQG¶PLJKWEHµVLWXDWHG¶DQGµGLVWULEXWHGLQWHOOLJHQFH¶WKH µPLQG¶ RI WKH KLYH RU WKH QHVW  DQG WKXV LQKHUH LQ VHOI-organised (autopoietic) organic systems. And, last but not least, that other, earlier, precursor of biosemiotics, Jakob von Uexküll, envisaged the causal processes of life as semiotic, not mechanical, and as reflected in the human aesthetic development of music: The harmony of performances is most clearly visible in the colonies of ants and honeybees. Here we have completely independent individuals that keep up the life of the colony through the harmony of individual performances. [...] When we are able to put together a theory of the music of life, these single examples will become the basis. They are like the etudes that a beginner learns to play on the piano with one finger. [...] The processes in the germ cells are not explainable from causal effects of material factors but follow pathways prescribed by their own melody. (Uexküll 2001: 111± 123)

0XVLF FHUWDLQO\ µWKLQNV¶ EXW LW GRHV VR DIIHFWLYHO\ E\ UHVRQDQFH DW least in the affective performance of tonal and temporal differences DQG VSDFLQJV PXVLF µWKLQNV ZLWKRXW FRQFHSWV¶ VLPSO\ E\ UDLVLQJ DVsociative (connotative, not denotative) tones as significant and meaningful. Biological life, we might usefully think, also works by the invocation of resonances: the cell pulsates in orchestration of, and with, both its inter-cellular and also its extra-cellular informants. More recently, systems biologist Denis Noble had invoked both music and DOVRPHWDSKRUDVPRGHOVRIQDWXUDOHYROXWLRQ¶VDHVWKHWLF1REOH 

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3. Living metaphor in Angels and Insects The English novelist A.S. Byatt has long been interested in the relationship between art and science, and culture and nature. In her Frederica Potter tetralogy (The Virgin in the Garden, 1978; Still Life, 1985; Babel Tower, 1997; A Whistling Woman, 2002), a young mathematician, Marcus Potter, experiences spiritually transforming phyllotactic visions of Fibonacci series in an elm tree. 6 (Byatt 1995) These visions reground his psychical wanderings amongst abstract patterns by showing him that these patterns are born of the earth. In between the first two and last two books of the tetralogy, Byatt published Possession (which won her the Man Booker prize) in 1990, several VKRUW VWRU\ FROOHFWLRQV DQ HGLWHG ZRUN RI *HRUJH (OLRW¶V HVVD\V D book on romanticism (Byatt 1989), a collection of her own essays on art and metaphor (Byatt 1991), and Angels and Insects in 1992. Much as George Eliot (one of ByDWW¶VPRVWVLJQLILFDQWLQIOXHQFHV EURNHRII writing The Mill on the Floss (1860) to write The Lifted Veil (1859), in order to understand something about her own thoughts and writing, ZH PLJKW FRQMHFWXUH D VLPLODU XQFRQVFLRXV SURMHFW LQ %\DWW¶V interruption of the tetralogy. It will be interesting to ask what she wanted to know. Possession and Angels and Insects established Byatt as the writer RIDQHZW\SHRIFRQWHPSRUDU\ILFWLRQTXLFNO\LGHQWLILHGDVµ9LFWRULDQ 3RVWPRGHUQLVP¶ :KHUH (OLRW¶V µ/LIWHG 9HLO¶ FRQFHUQHG WKDW µURDULQJ VLOHQFH¶ EHWZHHQ LQGLYLGXDO FRQVFLRXVQHVVHV %\DWW¶V FRQFHUQHG WKH veil thrown between subject and object, and between the humanities and the sciences, during the course of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Yoking together both nineteenth-century past and late twentieth-FHQWXU\SUHVHQWDQGUHDOLVWSURVHDQGSRHWLFIDQWDV\%\DWW¶V RZQµOLIWHGYHLO¶LQAngels and Insects suggested that science and art might be just as intimately connected as supposedly separate human (and non-human) consciousnesses are. In Middlemarch (1871±1872), (OLRW KDG ZULWWHQ KHU µ/LIWHG 9HLO¶ thoughts in another way, as the sensuously overwhelming legibility of 6

A.S. Byatt, Still Life, London: Vintage, 1995 (first published by Chatto and Windus LQ/RQGRQLQ &KDSWHUµ$7UHH2I0DQ\2QH¶$OOVXEVHTXHQWUHIHUHQFHV are to the Vintage edition, and will be given in the text as SL followed by the page number.

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nature: ³,IZHKDGDNHHQYLVLRQRIDOOWKDWLVRUGLQDU\LQKXPDQOLIHLW would be like hearing WKHJUDVVJURZRUWKHVTXLUUHO¶s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence´ (OLRW 1965: 226). In Angels and Insects, Byatt pursues this thought by H[SORULQJ WKH IRUPV ZKLFK WKDW µURDU¶ RQ µWKH RWKHU VLGH RI VLOHQFH¶ might take in the human imagination both of nature and also of the VXSHUQDWXUDO %RWK FDQ µURDU¶ ZLWK VLJQV %\DWW¶V TXHVWion, I shall suggest, is how are we to understand the causal efficacy both of such mind independent (natural) and also mind dependent (poetic and visionary) signs? What is a sign? Angels and Insects FRQVLVWVRIWZRQRYHOODVµ0RUSKR(XJHQLD¶VHW between 1DQG DQGµ7KH&RQMXJLDO$QJHO¶VHWLQ ,Q WKHILUVWWKHµURDU¶RIQDWXUHLVVXSSRVHGO\ VLOHQFHGLQWKHSHUVRQRI the suggestively named Darwinian naturalist William Adamson. The ODWWHU¶VOLIHDQGKLVWRU\EHDUDSDVVLQJUHVHPEODQFHWRWKH experiences of Alfred Wallace, the naturalist who arrived at a theory of evolution at the same time as Darwin. A keen observer of the social insects, Adamson undertakes scientific surveys of Wood Ants (Formica lugubris) and the slavemaker Red Ants (Formica sanguinea) in the grounds of Bredely Hall, where, since he returned from his expedition to the Amazon rain forest, he lives with his patron and amateur naturalist, the Reverend Sir Harald Alabaster, and where he is soon ensnared into a marriage to the laWWHU¶V HOGHVW GDXJKWHU (XJHQLD Adamson can only very vaguely see that his life at Bredely Hall shares uncomfortable correspondences with the life of the ant nests he is studying. This is much more keenly seen both by the reader and also by another of the characters, Matilda Crompton, who acts as a sort of governess to the many younger Alabaster children. With more than an echo of the Reverends Camden Farebrother and (GZDUG&DVDXERQLQ(OLRW¶VMiddlemarch, Sir Harald is attempting to make sense of Christian theology in the light of Darwin. Adamson ILQGVKLPVHOIVWUHWFKHGEHWZHHQVHUYLFLQJ6LU+DUDOG¶VH[SORUDWLRQVRI natural philosophy, scientific naturalism, and theology, and also the quieter, but equally insistent, implicit demand that he service the Alabaster family by courting, marrying, and servicing Eugenia. $GDPVRQ¶V RZQ QDWXUDO ZLOO WRZDUGV UHSURGXFWLRQ OHDGV KLP fatefully to accede to the Will of the Bredely Nest.

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2QWKHVXUIDFH$GDPVRQ¶VVWUXJJOHIRUVXUYLYDOVHHPVWRKDQJRQ fitness: both his owQ SK\VLFDO DQG PDWHULDO µILWQHVV¶ DV D VXLWRU IRU Eugenia, and also his capacity (more fluidly adaptive and convenient) WRµILW¶KLPVHOIWRWKHQHHGVRIWKH$ODEDVWHUIDPLO\7KHODWWHU¶VQHHGV ± never spoken and only very slowly revealed in the novella ± are VKDSHGE\WKH%UHGHO\1HVW¶VNQRZOHGJHWKDW(XJHQLDDQGKHUEURWKHU Edgar have been conducting, since adolescence, an incestuous relationship. But Mattie Crompton offers Adamson (at this point yet to discover his wife in flagrante delicto with her brother Edgar) another strategy for eventual independent survival. This involves his writing and publication of an anthropomorphic account of the ant societies called The Swarming City: A Natural History of a Woodland Society, its polity, its economy, its arms and defences, its origin, expansion, and decline. When this work is subsequently successfully published, LWV SURFHHGV ZLOO EH VXIILFLHQW WR IXQG $GDPVRQ¶V HYHQWXDO HVFDSH from his incestuous wife. $ORQJVLGH WKLV µJLIW¶ RI µWUDQVODWLRQ¶ DQG GHVLJQHG SHUKaps, to make William more legible to himself, Mattie gives him a second µJLIW¶ ZKHQ VKH DVNV KLP WR UHDG D VWRU\ ZKLFK VKH KHUVHOI KDV ZULWWHQ(QWLWOHGµ7KLQJV$UH1RW:KDW7KH\6HHP¶WKLVLVWKHVWRU\ of Seth (named for the younger brother of Cain and Abel), a young sea-traveller who finds himself and his companions wrecked on an enchanted island ruled by a Circe figure named Dame Cottitoe Pan Demos whose feast, set before the hungry sailors, turns them all, save Seth who does not eat, into animals. Aided by ants and by miniaturising magic, Seth escapes to Dame &RWWLWRH¶V JDUGHQ ZKHUH KH PHHWV ERWK ZKDW KH ILUVW PLVWDNHV IRU dragons and also a fairytale creature named Mistress Mouffet. Mistress Mouffet turns out to be a relative of the Elizabethan naturalist, Paracelsian and alchemist, Thomas Mouffet (also Muffet; 1563±1604), the completer of (an unfinished pamphlet by Thomas Penny) Theatrum Insectorum sive Animalium Minimorum (Theatre of Insects SXEOLVKHG SRVWKXPRXVO\ LQ   0RXIIHW¶V PHWKRG RI observation is said to have anticipated Baconian empiricism. 7KH µGUDJRQV¶ WXUQ RXW WR EH FDWHUSLOODUV RI the Elephant Hawk Moth, Deilephila Elpenor, and the Puss Moth, Cerura Vinula (both first named by Thomas Mouffet). What Seth mistook for monstrous features turn out to be protective markings. With biosemiotic

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prescience, Miss Mouffet says: ³7KH\ WHOO WHUULEOH OLHV DERXW WKHPVHOYHV´$, 7 DQGDOVRWKDW³WKHLUQDPHVDUHOLNHGHOLJKWIXOSRHPV´ (AI 131), DWWKHVDPHWLPHQRWLQJWKDWVKHKHUVHOI³JRWLQWRDSRHP´± PHDQLQJ WKH (QJOLVK QXUVHU\ UK\PH µ/LWWOH 0LVV 0XIIHW¶ ZKR ZDV IULJKWHQHGE\³DVSLGHUWKDWVDWGRZQEHVLGHKHU´ 6HWK DVNV KHU WR WHOO KLP ³DERXW WKH SRHWLF QDPHV RI (OSHQRU DQG Vinula [...] For I too come from a country family, where namegiving LVDIDPLO\RFFXSDWLRQ´ (AI 131). 6HWKWRRLVDQ³$GDP¶VVRQ´IURP D IDPLO\ OLNH 0LVV 0RXIIHW¶V ZKHUH WKH QDPLQJ RI DQLPDOV LV ³D IDPLO\RFFXSDWLRQ´ The reader is then treated to a lesson on naming (and nominalism), and, by implication, on language more generally, which turns on the role of metaphor. On this seemingly nominalist view, names (and words more generally) do not wholly identify universal existents but are (nonetheless universalising) abstractions from particular existing instances. Human language does not depend entirely upon the prior identification of universals (or universal truths or meanings, although it may be driven by, or strive towards, them) but upon the evolution of sensate particulars via recognised patterns of similarity and difference. Of course, a cosmic evolutionary view suggests that these patterns may, themselves, be the patterns of universals as teleological causes. In other words, and whatever their Final Causes, the Formal Causes of linguistic evolution are metaphors ± the recognition of iconic (sensu C.S. Peirce and also Paul Ricoeur) similarities which are carried over RUµDEGXFWHG¶LQ3HLUFH¶VFRLQDJH WRIRUP new differences based on recognition of analogic patterns of similarity with difference (Ricoeur 2003: 204±254)8. 7KH DQDORJ µORJLF¶ RI PHWDSKRU RU 3HLUFHDQ DEGXFWLYH LQIHUHQFH  is, thus, not mere (digital) code repetition and replication, but allows that time and circumstance (evolutionary history and environment)

7 All references are to the paperback edition of A.S. Byatt, Angels and Insects, London, Vintage, 1993. The novel was first published by Chatto and Windus in 1992. All further page references are given in the text as AI followed by the page number. 8 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language, London: Routledge, 2003. 6HHFKDSWHUµ7KH:RUNRI5HVHPEODQFH¶SS±254. Originally published in French by Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1975 as La metaphor vive (i.e. living metaphor).

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make new meanings from old codes. As Denis Noble puts it, nature is FUHDWLYHE\LQYHQWLQJ³QHZPHWDSKRUV´9 (Noble 2006: 104) Mistress Mouffet tells Seth that ³(OSHQRU´[...] was the name of a Greek sailor, who was turned into a swine by a relative of Mistress Cottitoe, named Circe, and my father chose this name for him because of the snout-like nature of his ordinary nose [...] And 9LQXOD¶V QDPHLV Cerura Vinula ± Cerura for two Greek words, țȑȡĮȢ (keras) a horn and ȠȪȡȐ (oura) a tail, for his tail, you see, is forked like two horns, and hard into the bargain [...] Names, you know, are a way of weaving the world together, by relating the creatures to other creatures and a kind of metamorphosis, you might say, out of a metaphor which is a figure of speech for carrying one idea into another. (AI 131±132)

The metamorphosis belongs both to William Adamson and to Matilda Crompton who, newly funded by publication, turn together to a new life in South America carried over on the appropriately named steamship Calypso.10 But it is also the larger theme of the two linked novellas, which do indeed, carry one idea into another, via the Calypso and its Captain, across from the Old World to the New and from one story to the other. :H PLJKW WKXV H[SHFW WKH PHWDSKRU¶V OLQNDJH WR ZRUN LQ WKH correspondences (similarities with differences, iconic mirroring GLIIHUHQWO\ FDVW  EHWZHHQ µ0RUSKR (XJHQLD¶ DQG µ7KH &RQMXJLDO $QJHO¶ The clearest link is Captain Arturo Papagay (which is Old French IRU µSDUURW¶ D PLPHWLF ELUG  RI WKH Calypso, whose wife, perhaps widow (Arturo went missing at sea in 1865), Lilias Papagay, we encounter at the opening of the second novella eleven years later, in 1875, in Margate on the south coast of Kent in England. Accompanied by the medium Sophy Sheekhy, Mrs Papagay is on her way to lead a séance at the home of Captain and Mrs Jesse. Emily Jesse is the sister of the Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, and quondam fiancée of 9 1REOH³7KHLGHDRIPHWDSKRULVLPSRUWDQWKHUHWRR$PHWDSKRU changes the applicability of a word or phrase. On that basis, we can say that, as the genome has developed, nature has switched from one metaphor to another. It has plundered the treasure chest of old DNA modules to form new combinations and to give old gHQHVQHZIXQFWLRQV´ 10 Calypso is the name of the nymph who seduces and effectively imprisons Odysseus IRUWHQ\HDUVLQ+RPHU¶VOdyssey.

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$UWKXU+HQU\+DOODPIRUZKRP7HQQ\VRQ¶VJUHDWHOHJ\In Memoriam was written. They belong to a small group of committed Swedenborgians whose regular occupation it is to translate tableWDSSLQJV DXWRPDWLF ZULWLQJ DQG 6RSK\ 6KHHNK\¶V YLVLRQV LQ ZD\V ZKLFKDUHFRPSDWLEOHZLWK6ZHGHQERUJ¶VLQWHUSUHWDWLRQVRIVFULSWXUH +HUH ZH KDYH OLQNHG WRJHWKHU $OIUHG /RUG 7HQQ\VRQ¶V ORQJ agonised elegy to Arthur Hallam, which is also an elegy to faith, ZKRVHµORQJZLWKGUDZLQJURDU¶0DWWKHZ$UQROGKHDUGFORVHE\'RYHU beach, along the coast from Margate, on his honeymoon in 1851, mediumship, and Swedenborg. Published in 1867, Dover Beach, along with Tenn\VRQ¶V In Memoriam (completed in 1849), is widely considered to be a quintessential poetic statement of the Victorian loss of faith caused by the coming to dominance of the scientific world view. And all these ideas and associations we are to understand in light of WKH SUHRFFXSDWLRQV RI µ0RUSKR (XJHQLD¶ WKH FRQWUDVW EHWZHHQ subjective faith and objective science, enchanted stories and Enlightened reason. Tellingly, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688±1772; read both by Tennyson and by Wallace) began his professional life as a scientist. He was remarkably successful, both during his lifetime and after, when several of his intuitions were subsequently experimentally FRQILUPHG ,Q  DW WKH DJH RI  6ZHGHQERUJ¶V ORQJ-standing interest in Christian spirituality intensified. In 1744, when researching for Regnum animale, his book on biology, his dreams and visions entered a phase of intense activity lasting about six months. This culminated in Swedenborg dropping the biological project and turning, instead, to a book on the love of God, De cultu et amore Dei. He is, most famously, the author of the theological doctrine of Correspondences which entail a non-material theory of causation based on faith and caritas, or relationship. For every spiritual or immaterial form tKHUHLVDFRUUHVSRQGLQJPDWHULDOIRUP6ZHGHQERUJ¶VPHWDSKRU for this is marriage. This is the essence of conjugal love, which is, for him, the exemplary medium of relationship. The medium, Sophy Sheekhy, is also named (by the ghost of Arthur Hallam) as Pistis Sophia: bride of Christ and the female aspect of Logos (AI 251 ff.). Pistis Sophia is the name of a Gnostic text dating from as early as the second century A.D. The meaning of the name Pistis 6RSKLDLVXQFOHDUEXWLWLVVRPHWLPHVWUDQVODWHGDVµIDLWK

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ZLVGRP¶ 7KLV SHUKDSV JRHV WR WKH KHDUW RI WKH SDUDGR[ DQG PHWDSKRU  ZKLFK WKH FRQMXQFWLRQ RI µ0RUSKR (XJHQLD¶ DQG µ7KH ConjugiDO$QJHO¶VHHPVWRHQDFWSUDFWLFDOZLVGRPmetis, of the sort asVRFLDWHGZLWK2G\VVHXV¶FXQQLQJZKLFKVXFFHHGVLQUHJDUGWR&LUFH but fails when he is ensnared by his desire for the nymph Calypso) includes something very like the animal knowing of intuition associated with Peircean logic of abductive inference (Peirce 1998: 217±218). Understanding metaphor requires (magical) abjuration of the Aristotelian deductive logic of the Excluded Middle. To make sense of metaphor, we must accept that something both is and, at the same time, is not what it seems. Only in this way can metaphor carry us, and meaning, forward. In The Swarming City LQ µ0RUSKR (XJHQLD¶ :LOOLDP $GDPVRQ entertains the (biosemiotic and zoosemiotic) idea that ants in the nest are like cells in the body, and that neither are, precisely, determinate: Those of us who conclude that the insects have no language, no capacity to think, QR µLQWHOOLJHQFH¶ EXW RQO\ µLQVWLQFW¶ WHQG WR GHVFULEH WKHLU DFWLRQV DV WKRVH RI automata, which we picture as little mechanical inventions whirring about like clockwork set in motion. Those who wish to believe that there is a kind of intelligence in the nest and the hive can point to other things [...] No one who has spent long periods observing ants solving the problem of transporting an awkward straw, or a bulky dead caterpillar through the interstices of a mud floor, will feel able to argue that their movements are haphazard, that they do not jointly solve problems. (AI 110) [...] Much, so much, almost all, depends on what we think this force, or power, or LQGZHOOLQJVSLULWZHFDOOµLQVWLQFW¶LV+RZGRHVµLQVWLQFW¶GLIIHUIURPLQWHOOLJHQFH" (AI 111) [...] We do not wholly know what we mean either by WKH ZRUG µLQVWLQFW¶ RU E\ WKH ZRUGµLQWHOOLJHQFH¶$, [...] Are we to see the actions of the ants and bees as controlled by a combination of instincts as undeviating as the swallowing and swimming motions of the amoeba, or are we to see their behaviour as a combination of such instincts, acquired habits, and a directing intelligence, not residing in any particular individual ant, but accessible by these, when needed? Our own bodies are controlled by such a combination. Our own nerve-cells respond to stimuli and respond very strongly to the excitements of great fear, love, pain or intellectual activity, often arousing in us the possibility of new exercises of our skills previously unheard of. (AI 112± 113)

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[...] Where do the soul and the mind reside in the human body? Or in the heart or in the head? And do we find the analogy with our individual selves more useful, or that with the co-operative cells of our bodies, when understanding the ants? (AI 113)

,Q QRWLQJ WKDW 1HZWRQLDQ GHWHUPLQLVP ³PDNHV µLQVWLQFW¶ D &DOYLQLVW God, aQRWKHUQDPHIRU3UHGHVWLQDWLRQ´ (AI 113), Byatt (via Adamson) prefigures more recent insights offered by the physicist Paul Davies: The orthodox view of the nature of the laws of physics contains a long list of tacitly assumed properties. The laws are regarded, for example, as immutable, eternal, infinitely precise mathematical relationships that transcend the physical XQLYHUVHDQGZHUHLPSULQWHGRQLWDWWKHPRPHQWRILWVELUWKIURP³RXWVLGH´OLNHD PDNHU¶V PDUN DQG KDYH UHPained unchanging ever since ± ³FDVW LQ WDEOHWV RI VWRQH IURP HYHUODVWLQJ WR HYHUODVWLQJ´ ZDVWKH SRHWLF ZD\ WKDW >-RKQ $UFKLEDOG@ Wheeler put it. In addition it is assumed that the physical world is affected by the laws, but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe. No matter how extreme a physical state may be in terms of energy or violence, the laws change not a jot. It is not hard to discover where this picture of physical laws comes from: it is inherited directly from monotheism, which asserts that a rational being designed the universe according to a set of perfect laws. And the asymmetry between immutable laws and contingent states mirrors the asymmetry between God and nature: the universe depends utterly on God for its existence, whereas *RG¶VH[LVWHQFHGRHVQRWGHSHQGRQWKHXQLYHUVH [...] Clearly, then, the orthodox concepts of laws of physics derives directly from theology. It is remarkable that this view has remained largely unchallenged after 300 years of secular science ,QGHHG WKH ³WKHRORJLFDO PRGHO´ RI WKH ODZV RI physics is so ingrained in scientific thinking that it is taken for granted. The hidden assumptions behind the concept of physical laws, and their theological provenance, are simply ignored by almost all except historians of science and theologians. (Davies 2010: 70±71)

V@ RI VXEMHFWLYL]DWLRQ´  pictographically and dramatically, respectively. What is paradigmatic of the prethematised and antiCartesian self as described by Leder may be found represented in a VFHQH IURP :LOOLDP *LEVRQ¶V VHPLQDO  F\EHUSXQN QRYHO Neuromancer. In the last scene of that novel, protagonist Henry Dorsett Case has a serendipitous encounter in cyberspace (an encounter in cyberspace not at the crossroads of head-on collisions; an encounter in the fluid psychological roundabout of the virtual) of another and autonomous version of himself, his own avatar. This autonomous (virtuDO µother¶ RI&DVH¶VVHOIRne that he created but now meets again, is always already a resource for that self. Located outside of the self, &DVH¶VRZQDYDWDUUHSUHVHQWVPLQGDVDQHQYLURQPHQWDOWULDQJXODWHG and distributed phenomenon: mind in terms of what I call µenvironmeans¶. Environmeans that confront us with their own autonomy are VLPLODU WR *LEVRQ¶V µDIIRUGDQFHV¶ LQ WKH ZRUOG *LEVRQ   LQ WKDW they are used to structure our experience, such as pheromones do for a grasshopper. µEnvironmeants¶ are WKHµWHOHRQRPLF¶GLPHQVLRQs of ourVHOYHVWKDWDV(UQVW0D\UZULWHVFRQVWLWXWH³systems operating on the EDVLVRIDSURJUDPRIFRGHGLQIRUPDWLRQ´ . An example of environmeants is a grasshoppHU¶V HQFRGLQJ RI LWVHOI DV '1$ (Figure 1).

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Note here a Peircean WULDGLF PRGHO RI D JUDVVKRSSHU¶V VHPLRWLF RU biovirtual self (after an example in Hoffmeyer 1996). The semiotic structure and the processes represented by the model are general and can be used to show how semiosis, which precedes and even subsumes human language, is a more-than-human endowment. In the particular instantiation of the model on the previous page, a grasshopper is SRUWUD\HG DV DQ ³LQ HIIHFW´ VWUXFWXUH WKDW LV LWV OLIH F\FOH UHSUHVHQWV ³LQ HIIHFW´ WKH WULDGLFLW\ RI WKH ³,±you±PH VWUXFWXUH´ WKDt Norbert Wiley argues forms the definitive reflexivity of the primate self. Numbers 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, 6b represent the emergence of the Dynamic Object, in this case, the locust as other to its grasshopper self. Numbers 1, 2a, 3a, 4a represent the force of µenvironmeants¶, WKH ³WHOHRQRPLF´ GLPHQVLRQV RI OLYLQJ WKLQJV WKDW DV (UQVW 0D\U ZULWHV FRQVWLWXWH ³systems operDWLQJRQWKHEDVLVRIDSURJUDPRIFRGHGLQIRUPDWLRQ´  KHUHHQYLURQPHDQWVVXFKDVDJUDVVKRSSHU¶VHQFRGLQJRI itself as DNA. NumEHUVUHSUHVHQWWKH IRUFHRIµHQYLURQPHDQV¶, those versions of ourselves that we have launched and given independence to but that confront us with their own autonomy, that we use to structure our experience, environmeans such as pheromones for a grasshopper. :LOH\ DQG &RODSLHWUR FRPELQH 3HLUFH¶V DQG 0HDG¶V WKHRULHV RI WKH self to create the triadic model that is represented. Note that the model combines Peircean synechism WKH³GRFWULQHRIFRQWLQXLW\´>&RODSLHWUR 1993]; the belief that between any two supposed phenomena there is always a third, a belief that undercuts essentialism) and tychism (³the GRFWULQH RIDEVROXWH RUREMHFWLYHFKDQFH´>Colapietro 1993]), thereby illustrating the intertwined emergence of Firstness (feeling), Secondness (fact), and Thirdness (law) with the emergence of signs, objects (that which signs stand for), and interpretants (the outcome of signs for someone of thing, outcomes which are themselves signs, and so on). Note also the emergence of the Dynamic Object (DO, a thing or phenomenon as it is experienced and as it grows in response to interpretations; LQ WKLV FDVH D JUDVVKRSSHU¶V ORFXVW VHOI  ZLWKLQ WKH

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,QWHUSUHWDQW³VKHOO´RU³ILHOG´RIDWR-a-large-extent self-engineered set RI HQDEOLQJ LQIOXHQFHV RU ³DIIRUGDQFHV´ (in this case a pheromone secreted by a grasshopper when that grasshopper senses overcrowding, a pheromone that causes the grasshopper egg to interpret its RZQ '1$ DV D ³EHFRPLQJ ORFXVW´  Also, note how the DO (the emerging locust) becomes more and more semiotically powerful (real) and comes to exert a top-down control over various other dimensions of the unfolding sign process. Note further how the grasshopper here LV D W\SH RI WKH ³HYROXWLRQDU\ PHVVDJH´ +RIIPH\HU  RU K\SRWKHVLV about itself that characterizes most all signing structures (entities) LQYROYHGLQVHPLRVLVLQFOXGLQJKRZLQ*UHJ%HDU¶V 'DUZLQ¶V5DGLR, human HERV in our so-FDOOHG ³MXQN DNA´ FRPH WR UHSUHVHQW ³WUDQVPLVVLRQV´ RI WKH KXPDQ VHOI WR WKH VHOI DQG VHUYH DV environmeans and environmeants generated by and out of the self that then EHFRPH SDUW RI WKH VHOI¶V HQYLURQPHQW DQG VHUYH DV DIIRUGDQFHV. By means of the affordances a being, in this case a grasshopper, can call a locust out of itself, that is, bootstrap itself into a new self. See, WKHUHIRUH ZKHUH WKH 5HSUHVHQWDPHQ 5 D ³VLJQ LQ WKH EURDGHVW SRVVLEOHVHQVH´>@QRWHYHQQHFHVVDULO\PHQWDOKHUHJUDVVKRSSHU DNA) is seen to erupt into Firstness at the same time that that sign has DOUHDG\ SURGXFHG DQ ,PPHGLDWH 2EMHFW ,2 ³WKe object as it is UHSUHVHQWHGE\DVLJQ´>@ P51$ PHVVHQJHU51$ genetically FRQVLGHUHG DQGDWOHDVWRQH,QWHUSUHWDQW³WKDWLQZKLFKDVLJQas such UHVXOWV´ >@ ZKLFK LQWHUSUHWDQW GHSHQGLQJ RQ RQH¶V DQJOH RI YLVLRQ FDQ EH WKH FHOO WKDW ³LQWHUSUHWV´ WKH JUDVVKRSSHU '1$ RU WKH SKHURPRQHZKDW,FDOODOVRDQ³HQYLURQmeant´ WKDWFDXVHVWKHFHOOWR interpret its DNA as a locust, the grasshopper now an emergent Dynamic Object (DO) of itself. 1.2. The anti-Oedipal model oI WKH µself¶ may be understood as in opposition to the Freudian psychoanalytic bias. ItV µDXWLVP¶ LWV FRPPLWPHQWPHUHO\WRWKHWHORVRIWKHµLQQHUQHHG¶RUµGHVLUHGVWDWH¶ is clearly represented in the following summary from Deleuze and *XDWWDUL¶VAnti-Oedipus: At its most autistic, psychoanalysis is no longer measured against any reality, it no longer opens to any outside, but becomes itself the test of reality and the guarantor of its own test: reality as the lack to which the inside and outside, departure and arrival, are reduced. (2009: 313).

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,QWKHFRQWH[WRI'HOHX]HDQG*XDWWDUL¶VRXWOLQHRIWKHDXWLVWLFIDLOLQJV of the Oedipal self and its tragic implosion, let me offer two preliminary (and necessarily simple) examples. First, RI WKH VHOI¶V explosion (outward) YLD ³HQYLURQPHDQV´ DQG ³HQYLURQPHDQWV´ LQWR whDW , FDOO WKH ³SRVW-LQGLYLGXDO´ That is, it µRSHQs RXW¶. As Deleuze and Guattari write, ³like a spore case inflated with spores, [it] releases them as so many singularities that [it] had improperly shut off [...] but which now become points-signs [...], all affirmed by their new distDQFH´ (2009: 77). The second example is the potential for the VHOI¶V opening inWRµSUH-LQGLYLGXDOGHVLUH¶, what Leder (1990: 160) calls the ³possibilities of communion which lie implicit in the prethematic structure of the ERG\´. It is a structure that represents the repressed evolutionary palimpsest of Your Inner Fish (Shubin 2008) and the Botany of Desire (Pollan 2001). 1.2.1. The contemporary American baseball player Nyjer Morgan offers a telling example of the paradoxes and struggles of the anti2HGLSDO VHOI¶V DWWHPSW WR EH GLYLGHG IRU VSRUH-like in Deleuze and *XDWWDUL¶VWHUPV DQGQRWDJDLQVWLWVHOI0U0RUJDQMR\IXOO\SUHVHQWV himself as alternately Nyjer Morgan (after his legal name, an amalgamation of his slave-family surname and a culturally inflected first name), Tony Plush (a slick, metro-sexual persona), Tony Gumbo (an earthy, New Orleans creolized character), and now Tony Hush ± as he is refusing to talk in public as a response to the conservative cultural pressure RQ KLP WR EH ³ZKR KH UHDOO\ LV´, to respect the ³JDPH´ DQG LWV WUDGLWLRQV ,Q D UHODWHG WKHPH PHPEHUV RI 0RUJDQ¶V team also celebrate success on the field by going into what Morgan FDOOV ³EHDVW PRGH´. This iconic gesture was first introduced on the SOD\LQJILHOGE\WHDPPDWH3ULQFH)LHOGHULQLPLWDWLRQRIKLVFKLOGUHQ¶V imitation of characters from the movie Monsters, Inc. A headline in the media reads, ³Roenicke [the team manager ± W.J.C.] a tad concerned with µbeast mode¶´. Cary Wolfe writes, ³the power and importance of the animal is almost always its pull toward a multiplicity that operates to unseat the singularities and essentialisms of identity that were proper to the subject of humanism´ (2003: 88). Indeed, the ambivalent reaction to Nyjer Morgan, the tremendous flow RIGROODUVDQGH[FLWHPHQWWKHPRUDOIRUFHWR³+XVK´KLPXSIRUKLm

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to assume a selfsame identity, serves as a clear example of the issues :ROIH RXWOLQHV 6HH /DULVVD %XGGH¶V HVVD\ LQ WKLV YROXPH IRr a discussion of how hybrid identities are denied by contemporary capitalist and humanist ontologies). 1.2.2. Similarly, if ³matter is effete mind´, as Peirce believes, and PDQLIHVWV LWVHOI WKURXJK DOO WKLQJV 3HLUFH¶V PLQG-consciousness distinction is important here), then the co-evolution of plant chemistry AND of human consciousness as well as of the human mind±human brain infrastructure must be considered when looking into the palimpsest (the pre-OedipalisHGDQG³SUHWKHPDWLVHG´ERG\ RIKXPDQ identity. Michael Pollan discusses in The Botany of Desire (2001) the co-evolution of the cannabinoid network in the human brain AND of the chemistry of marijuana. He also discusses the obviously marketbased and logocentric repression of those states of consciousness and modes of being made possible by plant chemistry (not to mention the aesthetics of plant appearance, scent, and taste). 1.2.2.1. Derrida, as Cary Wolfe writes, in his ³formulation of the trace beyond the human´ speaks ³in two senses´. ³First, in evolutionary terms, as the outcome of processes and dynamics not specifically or even particularly human that remain sedimented and at work in the domain of human language broadly conceived´ (quoted in Wolfe 2003: 86±7). To this end, I have demonstrated (19 WKH³LQQHUILVK´ RI1RDP&KRPVN\¶VµXQLYHUVDOSKUDVHVWUXFWXUH¶LQWKH µSUHGDWLRQRI SUHGLFDWLRQ¶ In the context of the predator±prey interaction between a EDUUDFXGD DQG D SUH\ VSHFLHV FDOOHG WKH µURFN EHDXW\¶ Holocanthus tricolor), that fish represents itself indexically, iconically, and symbolically as the visual equivalent of a verbal phrase: ³7KLVILVKEHKLQGD URFN´WKHURFNEHDXW\ KDVDQLFRQ RIDODUJH>FXUYHGHURGHG spherLFDO@URFN³SULQWHG´DVLWZHUHRQLWVERG\VXFKWKDWLWLVDQ³RWKHU´WR itself appearing as a smaller yellow-KHDGHG DQ LQGH[LFDO ³ORRN DW PH´ ILVKEHKLQGDYLUWXDOURFN7KLVYLVXDOV\QWD[LQFOXGHVWKHYLVXDO HTXLYDOHQWRIWKH³KHDGHGQHVV´RISKUDVHVDQGWKHLU5XVVLDQ-doll-like HPEHGGHGQHVV&KRPVN\¶V[-bar theory ± wLWKLWV;´V\PEROLFHIIHFW RIWKHZKROHSKUDVH ;¶LFRQLFURFNLPDJH DQG;LQGH[LFDOKHDG  hierarchical syntax ± represents the way in which the three dimensions of the physical reef habitat get mapped onto the two-dimension

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surface of the rock beauty as a virtual ecological relationship (the virtual fish behind the virtual rock). Then, the two-dimensions of that visual puzzle get mapped onto the digitalised neural circuitry (neurons that fire or do not fire depending on whether a predator solves the complex visual puzzle and eats ± or not) of the barracuda. That neural circuitry represents a prototype of the one-dimensional representations of space in language. Of course, underwater photographers experience the same symbolic economy of language that the barracuda does; and ZKHQ ZH QDPH WKH URFN EHDXW\ µURFN EHDXW\¶ DQG WKHQ VHHN WR SUHserve in legislation these beautiful DUHDVZHWXUQREMHFWV³URFNV´, into OHJDO³REMHFWLYHV´, a kind of writing that has everything to do with the preservation of rocks, rock beauties, and barracudas. 1.2.2.2. 7UDFHVRIDOWHUQDWH PRGHVRIUHODWLRQWR RQH¶V plant self may be found in the musical icons and indices of plant movement, plant morphology, and plant presence as registered in Irish traditional music. A survey of the titles of these vestigial tunes reveals many that reference specific plants (and beasts), plant assemblages, and human± plant arrangements (e.g. µ7KH%XVKLQ%ORRP¶µ7KH%XQFKRI*UHHQ 5XVKHV¶ µ$OO $OLYH¶ DQG µ7KH *UHHQ 0HDGRZ¶  $V will be clear bHORZ WKHQ E\ µhumaQLPDO¶ selves I mean µplantihuman¶ VHOYHV DV well. More importantly, my focus is not on how much consciousness may be assigned to this or that animal or plant species or to this or that assemblage or swarm, or even to humanity. Rather, I honour the Peircean split between mind and consciousness, which distinction allows me to explore the anti-Oedipal subjectivity that links plant, animal, and human and that speaks ultimately for plant and animal democracies (rather than kingdoms). 1.3. This notion of the anti-Oedipal or anti-Cartesian self as always DOUHDG\ GLYLGHG ³IRU´ DQG QRW DJDLQVW LWVHOI DQG RI PLQG DV DQ environmental phenomenon, is represented in )LJXUHµ7KH6WUXFWXUH RIWKH6HPLRWLF6HOI¶7KLVPRGHOLVEDVHGRQWKHµELRVHPLRtic systems LQVLJKW¶DV:HQG\:KHHOHUSKUDVHVLWLQKHUHVVD\LQWKLVYROXPHWKDW ³nature and natural history´ give evidence of patterns of selforganisation, autonomy, and even intentionality (what Peirce calls µPLQG¶  WKDW DUH HLWKHU OLWHUDOO\ VKDUHG Zith or that parallel human patterns. It is simultaneously a model of Peircean semiosis generally

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DQGRIWKHµVWUXFWXUHRIWKHVHPLRWLFVHOI¶7KHVSHFLILFFRQWHQWRIWKH figure is a representation of the possible ontological trajectories of the grasshopper-locust (as described in Hoffmeyer 1996), or, rather, of the ORFXVW DV DOZD\V DOUHDG\ DQ µother¶ to its grasshopper self (an insect version of Jekyll and Hyde). The figure also stands for the ontological WUDMHFWRU\RI&DVH¶VDERYHmentioned encounter in Neuromancer with his own avatar in cyberspace. The grasshopper uses a pheromone which it produces only to encounter it again in its own virtual environment, Umwelt, or cyberspace, to direct its own egg and the eggs of other grasshoppers of its own species to reinterpret its own DNA as the DNA of a locust rather than that of a grasshopper. This relationship of the self to itself through the mediation of signs (here pheromones and DNA) is a triadic structure wherein things in the world (grasshoppers, Oedipus, Case, or Nyjer Morgan, or the rocks in WKH HQYLURQPHQW RI µURFN EHDXWLHV¶  UHSUHVHQW WKHPVHOYHV WKURXJK signs, objects, and interpretants, as follows: 1.3.1. through signs, and at least doubly: WKHµUHSOLFDWLRQ¶ of Figure 1 (replicants of grasshopper DNA and SKHURPRQHV  &DVH WKH µI¶ of Figure 1) and KLV UHSOLFDQW WKH µyou¶ of Figure 1) ± his avatar in cyberspace, an eternal and younger version of himself and a sign of the youngHU&DVHRI ZKDW&DVH ZDVWKHµme¶ of Figure 1), of what Case thinks of when he thinks of who he was; or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These signs both determine and are determined by objects: 1.3.2. through objects (experienced things); first as immediate objects ± WKHRULJLQDOWKLQJVDVUHSUHVHQWHGLQWKHVLJQWKHµWUDQVFULSWLRQ¶of DNA to mRNA (messenger RNA)&DVH¶VXQGHUVWDQGLQJRIZKDWKLV HQFRXQWHUPHDQV'U-HN\OO¶Videa of what Hyde could mean for him AND dynamic objects (DOs, the original thing itself as it [re]emerges or is perceived in new ways, WKH µWUDQVODWLRQ¶ of Figure 1). Second, new DOs are brought along through the mediation of the immediate object, the DO here being the emergent grasshopper OR locust egg. The outcome depends on the presence or absence of pheromones, avatars of the grasshopper (interpretants ± see 1.3.3 below), or the >DQLPDO@³+\GH´>KLGHVNLQ@³RQ´WKHWUDQVIRUPHG-Hkyll/jackal, or the QHZ³&DVH´>FRYHU@RQWKHROG&Dse sitting at his computer deck. The

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SURSHU VLJQLILFDWH RXWFRPH RI DOO WKLV VLJQLQJ DFWLRQ LV WKH µGHVLULQJSURGXFWLRQ¶Rf other signs, interpretants: 1.3.3. through interpretants, both the outcomes of earlier signs for someone or thing AND signs that both determine and are determined by new objects, (in Figure 1, the effects that pheromones have on the first sign [the representamen (R)], the grasshopper DNA), or how Case is transformed, recoded ± like grasshopper DNA is (mis)interpreted as locust DNA (³accidentally on purpose´ as Frost would say) by pheromones that the grasshopper itself introduced into the environment, which is to say the future. Interpretants are the environment understood as the future, an interpretive context of the VLJQ¶VRZQPDNLQJZKLFKLVZK\LQ)LJXUHWKHLQWHUSUHWDQWILHOGRI influence is represented by a sphere. Thus the interpretant field (the environment/future), along with (internal) immediate objects, represents how things come to shape the conditions of their own production, indeed, the natures of the original things. The grasshopper LVSRUWUD\HGDVDQ³LQHIIHFW´VWUXFWXUHWKDWLVLWVOLIHF\FOHUHSUesents ³LQ HIIHFW´WKHWULDGLFLW\ RIWKHµ,±you±PHVWUXFWXUH¶ RIWKH µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶. As Norbert Wiley argues, it forms the definitive reflexivity of WKH SULPDWH VHOI , H[WHQG :LOH\¶V QRWLRQ RI WKH µSULPDWH VHOI¶ WR WKH µJUDVVKRSSHU-ORFXVW¶ QRW EHFDXVH , believe that grasshoppers and locust have a primate kind of consciousness but because primate dialogic WULDORJLF µI±you±me¶  FRQVFLRXVQHVV ZRXOG QRW KDYH EHHQ possible without the kind of triadicity that Peirce shows is general in the universe: the ecology of consciousness existed before consciousness of ecology did. The Peircean distinction between µPLQG¶ and consciousness will be further discussed below. 2. Hybrid oQWRORJLHVDQG1RUEHUW:LOH\¶Vµsemiotic sHOI¶ The anti-2HGLSDOµself¶ will be seen as semiotic precisely because of its anti-foundationalist and anti-essentialising character. As Norbert Wiley tells us, the American pragmatists introduced the concept of the µsign¶ into the North American debate on identity: Human variation into identity groupings and unique individualities was a matter of differing symbols and their interpretations. The social Darwinists were explaining human identities, particularly ethnicity, biologically, by what they ZHUH FDOOLQJ ³LQVWLQFWV´. The pragmatists explained the same differences non-

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biologically and semiotically, as a matter of signs, communication, and interpretation. (Wiley 1994: 10)

The tyranny of social Darwinism (the application of principles derived from biological systems to [human] social and cultural systems and WKRVH ODWWHU WZR V\VWHPV¶ DWWHQGDQW SUREOHPV DV LI WKHUH ZHUH QR qualitative differences between all three) and evolutionary psychology (the view that human behaviour today can be understood and predicted by recourse to a study of the evolution of the brain) shall be lifted from animals, too. What makes my model and topic relevant to the present volume on the semiotics of animal representations is that this anti-2HGLSDO VHPLRWLF µVHOI¶ ZKDW :LOH\ FDOOV ³the irreducible GHPRFUDWLF DJHQW´    ³emerged from the primates, defines our line of primates, [...] and is the common denominator, and therefore the democratizer RI DOO WKH LGHQWLW\ JURXSLQJV´ (1994: 28). Of course, the fact that chimpanzees, orangutans, and the great apes in general are now understood to have had culture for ³at least 14 million years´ (van Schaik et al. 2003: 102) should extend our conception of who must be understood as ³irreducible democratic agents´. Here the GHILQLWLRQ RI µculture¶ is the six-step process-oriented one that both DGKHUHQWVDQGFULWLFVDOLNHXQGHUVWDQGDVµOHDUQHGEHKDYLRuU¶. Outlined by W.C. McGrew (1998) it casts, admittedly, a wide net across species. As Emma Marris writes, ³[c]himps even adopt what >$QGUHZ@:KLWWHQFDOOVµfads and fashions¶ that only persist for a short time, such as a hand flapping behaviour that was hip in some young chimps for a while´ (Marris 2006: 1). With UHVSHFW WR WKH µVHPLRWLF self¶ it is significant WKDWµEHFRPLQJDQLPDO¶VHH'HOHX]HDQG*XDWWDUL 1987: 232±309 and Abram 2010) requires us also to see that the µanimal¶ is not just deep (as in deep ecology) but also delightfully shallow, semiotic, fad-prone, and silly. If chimpanzees can fall prey to µIDGV¶WKHQZHVKRXOGFHOHEUDWHRXURZQH[SHQGLWXUHVRXURZQH[FHVV (see Bataille 1985), and not assume that µconservation¶ or, better, environmentalism, requires a sour retreat inWR VFDUFLW\ WKH µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶ is an economy of abundance. 2.1. )RU :LOH\ WKH VHOI LV D µVWUXFWXUH¶ ³a self-other-self reflexive loop´ (1994: 9±10 DµKDQG-IODSSLQJIDG¶DQµI±you±me VWUXFWXUH¶. It is an open, triadic, reflexive structure by means of which even the future self (the µyou¶, WKH VHOI¶V RWKHU WR WKH VHOI  FDQ Lnfluence the

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SUHVHQWVHOIWKHµI¶) and the past self (the µme¶ VRWKDWWKHµself¶ or the µhuman¶ cannot be reducible tR LWVHOI RU WR µthe animal¶ (so-called µGRZQZDUG UHGXFWLRQ¶) or to some transcendental idea (so-called µXSZDUGUHGXFWLRQ¶ . It can be expressed by WKHWHUP µKXPDQLPDO¶D common coinage today but traceable to a short-lived American television programme RI WKH ³seventies or eighties´ (Mitchell 2003: xiii). Of course, the animal FDQQRWEHUHGXFHGWRWKH³DQLPDO´HLWKHU as Derrida (2008) makes clear with his concept of the animot. &HUWDLQO\ :LOH\¶V 3HLUFHDQ DQG *Horge-Herbert-Mead-based model VKDUHV VRPH IHDWXUHV RI -DNRE YRQ 8H[NOO¶V LPSRUWDQW ELRVHPLRWLF µIXQFWLRQDO F\FOH¶. As Thure von Uexküll points out, the elder von 8H[NOO¶V ³µIXQFWLRQDO F\FOHV¶ OLNH µF\EHUQHWLF V\VWHPV¶ µUHDFW WR their environment only according to their inner needs, that is, their GHVLUHGVWDWH¶´Nöth 1990: 180). In a similar manner, as we see it in positive and negative cybernetic feedback loops, ³[a]s soon as the object is acted upon by the animal in some manner, the perceptual cue is thereby eliminated´ (Nöth 1990:   :LOH\¶V PRGHO DQG P\ PRGHO DWWHPSW WR H[WHQG RU RSHQ XS YRQ 8H[NOO¶V PRGHO RI WKH functional cycle or circle so as to better depict how living things create the perceptual and operational fields themselves. Within these fields, functional cycling takes place so that organisms are understood not only to ³react to their environments only according to their inner needs, that is, their desired state´ but to shape that inner state through shaping the environment ± a way of externalising desire through what ,DPFDOOLQJWKHJHQHUDWLRQRIµenvironmeans¶ and µenvironmeants¶, as Hoffmeyer (1996) writes. By doing this, living things represent themselves to the future and, more importantly, have that future determine a new present, in other words, of haYLQJ WKDW µfuture¶ get itself represented as an µenvironment¶, but one that has been altered in one present so as to serve as the interpretive context to be encountered at some other present moment in time. 2.2. Significantly, Wiley makes an important distinction between this µVWUXFWXUH¶WKHµVHPLRWLFVHOI¶WKHLUUHGXFLEOHEDVLVRIKXPDQHTXDOLW\ DQG IUHHGRP  DQG µLGHQWLW\¶ $V ZH VKDOO VHH µLGHQWLW\¶ LV D VLPSOH G\DGLF IXQFWLRQ DQG µVWUXFWXUH¶ D WULDGLF RQH ZKLFK HQFRPSDVVHV µLGHQWLW\¶ )RU :LOH\ LGHQWLW\ ³usually refers to some long-term, abiding qualities which, despite their importance, are not features of

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human nature as such. >«@. History is notorious with peoples who thought their historically specific identities were universal´ (1994: 1). Therefore, [i]f some part of the structure, some identity, begins to masquerade as the whole VWUXFWXUHLWLVSRVVLEOHIRUWKLVLGHQWLW\WRXVXUSWKHVWUXFWXUH¶VUHIOH[LYHIXQFWLRQ But it can do so only at the cost of a drastically diminished reflexivity, highly limited in range, inaccurate in what it reveals and distorted by the biases of its localism and historical specificity. (Wiley 1994: 37)

As Wiley concludes, ³>W@hese disturbances create monsters [see identity politics; identity cKXUFKHV DQG VRPH RI WKH µLQHYLWDEOH¶ conclusions of evolutionary psychology, social Darwinism, and eugenics] that duplicate all the functions of a self but perform these functions in a distorted, a self-destructive manner´ (1994: 39). Thus, for Wiley, ³[i]f structure and identity are not kept separate, it is easy enough to smuggle traits of the dominating elites into the (alleged) nature of the self´ (1994: 16). Such an analysis fits nicely with 3HLUFH¶V µVHPHLRWLF¶ WKH µLGHQWLW\¶ dyad lacks a key element that defines the triadic structuUHRIWKHµVHPLRWLFVHOI¶7he interpretant, the Peircean third, (see Coletta et al. 2009), keeps object (the µme¶, the past) and sign (thHµI¶, the present) from collapsing into each other. In this context, versions of potential selves (environmeans and environmeants) NHHS WKH SUHVHQW VHOI WKH µI¶, open (not closed as in the collapsed identities of essentialist identity politics). Indeed, as Sebeok writes, ³mind has an inherent capacity to launch ever more developed, enriched interpretants in its three Peircean varieties >«@ on their journey toward infinity´ (Sebeok 1991 [1989]: 48). This launching creates an environment, an interpretant sphere of influence that calls out aspects of the emergent self as it encounters this semiotic environment of its own making. 2.3. :LOH\¶VµVHPLRWLFVHOI¶LVFOHDUO\DQGGHHSO\LQGHEWHGWR3HLUFHDQ µVHPHLRWLF¶ DQG WKHUHIRUH WR WKH µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶ RI 6HEHRN IRU LW ZDV 6HEHRN ZKR GHILQHGWKHµVHPLRWLFVHOI¶ LQWHUPVWKDWZHUHVHHPLQJO\ paradoxically both biological AND anti-essentialist: one cannot say ³where the µLQQHU¶ 6HOI begins and the µouter¶ Other begins, but the boundary is, clearly, beyond the skin´ (Sebeok 1991 [1979]: 39), and thus outside (literally) the Central Dogma of genetic determinism. As

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Timo Maran writes, ³6HEHRN¶V SRVLWLRQ LQ WKLV GHEDWH UHPDLQV however, paradigmatic, i.e. it proceeds from [an] understanding of the contextualisation of semiotic processes that do not allow treating the animal mind as a distinct entity´ (2010: 315) ± mind is, then, an environmental phenomenon. Wiley explores explicitly the self as it is constituted by its social HQYLURQPHQW WKDW LV µWHOHRQRPLF>DOO\@¶ 6HEHRN  >]: 39). In PRUH DFDGHPLF DQG GLVFLSOLQDU\ WHUPV :LOH\ WDNHV 3HLUFH¶V QRtion WKDWµPDQLVDVLJQ¶DQG3HLUFH¶VIRFXVRn the relationship between the µ,¶ DQG WKH µyou¶ (the Other to the self) and fuses it with George +HUEHUW0HDG¶VIRFXVRQWKHµI¶ and the µme¶ (the past self as Other to the present). By combining the work of these two philosophers, Wiley claims to have formulated the above mentioned WULDGLF µsemiotic VWUXFWXUH¶ RI WKH VHOI %XW KRZ LV WKLV µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶ related to the postmodern self with which it shares a cultural space? As summarised by Kenneth Allan: Postmodernism posits a fragmented self that has no essence, only images. Jameson (1984) argues that the simple and indivisible ego-self existed at one time, during the period of classical capitalism and the nuclear family, but has come to an end in the postmodern era. The postmodern self is fragmented and decentered with a kind of emotional flatness or depthlessness. (Allan 1997: 3)

&OHDUO\ IURP 3HLUFH WKURXJK 6HEHRN DQG :LOH\ WKH µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶ seems to enjoy the democracy of a self that has been liberated from social Darwinism (a liberation provided by the American pragmatists). $W WKH VDPH WLPH WKLV µself¶ KDV EHHQ OLEHUDWHG IURP WKH ³emotional IODWQHVV´ of postmodern, socially constructed selves. Peirce, Sebeok, DQG :LOH\ VKRZ WKDW WKH µVRFLDO¶ RI µVRFial construction¶ has not a random but rather a community-based, teleonomic function. As Donald Worster (1977: 156) writes, in summarising 'DUZLQ¶V RYHUarching theory, ³all survival on earth is socially determined´. Indeed, evolution is a signing process wherein things and objects (experienced things), indeed selves, are more economically and powerfully represented as signs of themselves than as themselves. This is the XQGHUO\LQJSULQFLSOHRI:LOH\¶VµVHPLRWLFVWUXFWXUH¶

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3. A further (Peircean) development of the nRWLRQV RI WKH µantiOedipal sHOI¶ DQG RI WKH µsemiotic sHOI¶ including an analysis of some relevant artistic and literary texts ,Q RWKHU WKDQ :LOH\¶V WHUPV KRZ HOVH LV WKLV µVHPLRWLF VWUXFWXUH¶ something real? That is, is it locatable withiQWKHµLQIUDKXPDQ¶ as the human body considered as an evolutionary palimpsest of its own DQLPDO DQG SODQW DQG PLQHUDO  µLQIUDVWUXFWXUH¶ ± WKH µQRQKXPDQ DQLPDO¶DVµLQIUDKXPDQ¶LQ&DU\:ROIH¶VSKUDVLQJ ± that is, as a body that allows access to its own evolutionary constitution and, of course, WKDW HUDVHV PRVW WUDFHV RI WKDW FRQVWLWXWLRQ" 7KLV ³VWUXFWXUH´ ZRXOG VHHP WR OHDYH WUDFHV DOO DURXQG ³WUDFHV´ LQ WKH 'HUULGHDQ VHQVH DV expressed in his The Animal That Therefore I Am (2008) and summarised by Cary Wolfe. Derrida, in his ³formulation of the trace beyond the human´ speaks ³in two senses´: The first sense is quoted above; but as for the second sense, Derrida speaks in terms of how language is traced by the material contingency of its enunciation in and WKURXJK WKH ERG\ LQ LWV ³LQYROXQWDU\´ NLQHVLF DQG SDUDOLQJXLVWLF significations that speak in and through us in ways that the humanist subject of ³LQWHQWLRQ´DQG³UHIOHFWLRQ´FDQQRWPDVWHUZD\VWKDWOLQNXVWRDODUJHUUHSHUWRLUH and history of signification not specifically human and yet intimately so. (Wolfe 2003: 86±87)

WHILQGWUDFHV RIµWKHDQLPDOWKDWWKHUHIRUH ,DP¶ RIWKHµ,±me±you UHIOH[LYHSURFHVV¶ in a number of instances. (a) In the micro-ontologies (remember that there are between ten- and one-hundred-times more bacteria in our bodies than there are our own cells) of Lynn Margulis as dramatised LQ2FWDYLD%XWOHU¶V&OD\¶V$UN (1984, the subject of analysis below), wherein a virus that has infected XVWKHRWKHUWKHµ\RX¶WRWKHVHOIEXWQRw become the self) engages us in what Margulis (see Margulis and Sagan 2003) FDOOV µV\PELRJHQHVLV¶ E\ H[HUWLQJ VLJQLILFDQW FRQWURO RYHU RXU µNLQHVLF¶ ROIDFWRU\ DQG RWKHUµKXPDQ¶IXQFWLRQVWKHµPH¶  ZKLOH OHDYLQJ VRPHURRPIRU human choice and intention WKHµ,¶  (b) IQ&KRPVN\¶VWULDGLF;-EDUWKHRU\KLVµXQLYHUVDOSKUDVHVWUXFWXUH¶ GLVFXVVHGDERYH DQG LQ3HLUFH¶VWULDGVZKLFK PDSRQWR&KRPVN\¶V HVSHFLDOO\3HLUFH¶V µVLJQ±object±LQWHUSUHWDQW¶WULDGWKDWLVUHSUHVHQWHG

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in Figure 1, and represent my attempt to represent and extend GLDJUDPPDWLFDOO\WKHµVWUXFWXUH¶RIZKLFK:LOH\VSHDNV (c) IQ WKH µEUHDNGRZQ RI WKH ELFDPHUDO EUDLQ¶ VHH -D\QHV   DV dramatised LQ1HLO6WHSKHQVRQ¶VYLUDOKLVWRU\RILQIRUPDWLRQLQ Snow Crash (1992). (d) In ShakespeaUH¶V³invention´, according to Harold Bloom (1999), ³of the human´ as a function of learning to ³overhear ourselves´, a GRPLQDWHQDUUDWLYHVWUXFWXUHLQ6KDNHVSHDUH¶VSOD\VDQGWKHUHFXUVLYH model of self, such as Wiley has codified and traces back to the aforementioned primates. (e) In the Aristotelian model of dramatic climax that maps so well onto human sexual climax. (f) In ³'DUZLQ¶V [genetic and epigenetic] radio´ IURP *UHJ %HDU¶V novel of the same name, 1999), whereby the ontogenetic trajectory of humanLW\LVVHHQIURPWKHJHQH¶V-eye DQGYLUXV¶V-eye view of the self WKH µ,¶  DV LW UHFHLYHV ³UDGLR´-like transmissions of genetic and epigenetic information from itself, from its (former) self, its lineage WKH µPH¶), and then helps shepherd its emergent VHOI WKH µyou¶, the other to itself that it may become). In Eva Jablonka and Marion J. /DPE¶V Four Dimensions of Evolution (2006), the authors describe %DUEDUD:ULJKW¶VZRUNLQWKHVHUHFXUVLYHWHUPVWKDWZRXOGVHHPWREH traces of intentionality in the sense implied by Peirce when he GLVWLQJXLVKHVEHWZHHQµPLQG¶DQGµFRQVFLRXVQHVV¶³when starved of a particular amino acid, the bacteria increased the mutation rate in the very gene that might, if mutated, enable the cell to make the amino acid missing from its food´. (Here in µQDWXUDOVHOHFWLRQ¶µQDWXUDO¶LVQR longer an externalisation or erasure of semiosis or agency, and µQDWXUDO¶VHOHFWLRQLVDPDQDJHGSKHQRPHQRQ.) (g) IQ 2FWDYLD %XWOHU¶V µRUJDQHOOH¶ IURP KHU VFLHQFH ILFWLRQ WULORJ\ /LOLWK¶V%URRG (200 ZKLFKRSHUDWHVPXFKOLNHDµJHQRPH¶ZKHQ FRQFHLYHGRIDVDQµRUJDQ¶%DUEDUD0F&OLQWRFNZULWHVDWWKH end of her Nobel Prize address, In the future attention undoubtedly will be centered on the genome, and with greater appreciation of its significance as a highly sensitive organ of the cell, monitoring genomic activities and correcting common errors, sensing the unusual and unexpected events, and responding to them, often by restructuring the genome. We know about the components of genomes that could be made available for such restructuring. We know nothing, however, about how the cell

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senses danger and instigates responses to it that often are truly remarkable. (McClintock 1983: 198)

,Q WKLV YHLQ RQH RI %XWOHU¶V DOLHQV RQH RI KHU 2DQNDOL VSHDNs 0F&OLQWRFN¶V ODQJXDJH LW VSHDNV RI WKH µJHQRPH¶ DV µD KLJKO\ VHQVLWLYH RUJDQ RIWKHFHOO¶,VWKLV QRWD JUDQGDFW RIXQLILFDWLRQE\ McClintock of three key levels of biological organisation?) Kahguyaht says, We acquire new life ± seek it, investigate it, manipulate it, sort it, use it. We carry the drive to do this in a minuscule cell within a cell, a tiny organelle within every FHOORIRXUERGLHV>«] Because of that organelle, the ooloi [the Oankali third sex] can perceive DNA and manipulate it precisely. (Butler 2007: 41)

Indeed, the alien Oankali seem to represent ± with their perceptual integration of the three central levels of biological organisation (cell± organ±genome), with their direct perception (they can see, smell, and WDVWH µJHQHV¶) of the structure of DNA and of the workings of the µUHSOLFDWLRQ±transcription±WUDQVODWLRQ¶WULDGRIKHUHGLW\DQGZLWKWKHLU three sexes (Peirce would be delighted) an embodiment of the 'HUULGHDQ µWUDFH EH\RQG WKH KXPDQ¶. As aliens, they are an embodiment of eYHU\WKLQJ WKDW PRVW KXPDQV GHQ\ WKH IDFW RI ³how language is traced by the material contingency of its enunciation in DQGWKURXJKWKHERG\>WKHSUHFLVHIXQFWLRQRI%XWOHU¶V2DQNDOL³WKLUG VH[´ WKH RRORL@ LQ LWV µLQYROXQWDU\¶ kinesic and paralinguistic significations that speak in and through us in ways that the humanist VXEMHFW RI µLQWHQWLRQ¶ DQG µUHIOHFWLRQ¶ FDQQRW PDVWHU´ Wolfe 2003: 86±87). %XWOHU¶V 2DQNDOL UHSUHVHQW WKHQ D FULWLTXH RI ZKDW :ROIH nicely identifies as WKH µhumanist and speciesist structure of subjectLYL]DWLRQ¶ 3.1. ,QWKLVHVVD\WKHNH\ZRUGLVµVWUXFWXUH¶:LOH\¶Vtriadic structure of the self, which he claims ³emerged from the primates, defines our line of primates´, is an effective bulwark against the identity politics of social Darwinism. :LOH\¶V structure is shared equally by all humans; the structure, argues Wiley, keeps the µself¶ or the µhuman¶ IURP EHLQJ UHGXFLEOH WR µthe animal¶ (so-FDOOHG µGRZQZDUG UHGXFWLRQ¶  7he structure DOVR NHHSV WKH µself¶ or µhuman¶ from being reducible to some transcendental idea (so-FDOOHGµXSZDUGUHGXFWLRQ¶ .

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:KHUH :LOH\ IDOOV VKRUW WKRXJK LV LQ QRW H[WHQGLQJ KLV PRGHO¶V applicability widely enough. However, the dignity and irreducibility that Wiley claims for humans on the basis of the semiotic structure he outlines will ultimately be extended to all living things, perhaps to all things, for, as Cary Wolfe writes in Animal Rites: [A]s long as this humanist and speciesist structure of subjectivization remains intact, and as long as it is institutionally taken for granted that it is all right to systematically exploit and kill nonhuman animals simply because of their species, then the humanist discourse of species will always be available for use by some humans against other humans as well, to countenance violence against the social other of whatever species ± or gender, or race, or class, or sexual difference (8).

:LOH\¶V structure, shared as it is by all primates, is present (may be traced) proto-structurally if not always accessible intentionally (see DJDLQ 3HLUFH¶V GLVWLQFWLRQ EHWZHHQ PLQG DQG FRQVFLRXVQHVV ZKHUHLQ ³matter is effete mind´ and manifests itself through all things) in the relationships of all living things to themselves as boot-strapping phenomena and to the micro- and macro-communities (as described by Bear and Butler) within which living things are said to dwell. Michael 6KDSLUR VSHDNV WR WKH 3HLUFHDQ GLVWLQFWLRQ EHWZHHQ µPLQG¶ DQG µFRQVFLRXVQHVV¶ WKDW P\ PRGHO GHSHQGV RQ LI , KRSH WR H[WHQG LWV IRUFH beyond merely tracing human intentionality and subjectivity: +ROGLQJDVKHGLGWKDWPDWWHULVµHIIHWHPLQG¶3HLUFHLVFRQVLVWHQWLQGHVFULELQJ his concept of teleology as anthropomorphic >«]. But the mental, for Peirce, is continuous with types of teleological process other than those found in the human mind [that is, conscious ones]. Peirce can thus speak of the behavior of microorganisms, biological evolution, and even the growth of crystals as exhibiting mentality. This does not mean that there is something occult callHG ³PLQG´ animating inorganic processes such as crystal formation; rather that there are processes constituting human mentality that are also to be found in simpler form elsewhere throughout nature. (Shapiro 1985: 13)

3.2. 7KH µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶ WKH µ,±me±yRX UHIOH[LYH SURFHVV¶ :LOH\ 1994: 37  DV D WULDGLF µVWUXFWXUH¶ QRW PHUHO\ D G\DGLF µLGHQWLW\¶  LV therefore always subject to whDW,FDOODQHSLVWHPRORJLFDOµparallexis¶, a process whereby the self is never so much itself as when it necessarily generates alternative images of (parallel words for, thus ³SDUDOlexHV´VHH³lexLFRQ´ LWVHOI ± treaGLQJZDWHUMXVWWR³VWDQGVWLOO´, as it were. Indeed, for the self to stand outside the self that generates

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these versions of the self is to provide always a stereoscopic or parallax view (see äLåHN   RI WKH VHOI $V , DWWHPSW WR VKRZ LQ Figure 1, grasshopper DNA, grasshopper identity, and, indeed, grasshopper survival, can only be understood in terms of a grassKRSSHU¶V LQKHUHQW SRWHQWLDO WR XQGHUZULWH WKH VXUYLYDO RI VRPHWKLQJ Other than itself: the locust, the swarm. The ontology depicted in Figure 1, unfortunately, rather than serving as an example of how all identity is multiple, of how the carnivalesque might in fact be the default of being, is really, in capitalist and humanist culture, which in many ways is to say in Freudian culture, merely a diagram of how the self is always already a sign of its own dissolution or abjectness. This ontological problem in capitalist and humanist culture is, as Larissa Budde describes it in her essay in this present volume, made manifest LQ WKDW FXOWXUH¶V UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI LQVHFWV DQG RI KXPDQ±insect hybridisations and assemblages. 3.3. Figure 1 helps establish the biosemiotic underpinnings of the kind of ontological richness of insect identity as described in this volume by Adam Dodd. While a grasshopper is always already a representation of its lineage in terms of the central dogma of replication± transcription±translation, as Jesper Hoffmeyer articulates, a grasshopper also, in response to environmental cues, has the capacity to release pheromones that can cause a fertilised grasshopper egg to interpret its own DNA as something other to itself. As Hoffmeyer writes, ³the same DNA is interpreted in a different way´ (1996: 21); ³it is lineage [living things as the authors of themselves or of the others to themselves ± W.J.C.] rather than Nature as such that carries out the selective processes on which organic evolution is built´ (1996: 22). Indeed, Hoffmeyer illustrates how living things are always interpretive structures, how they invent themselves in terms of two RWKHU WULDGV WKH WULDG RI µ'1$±fertilized egg±RQWRJHQHWLF WUDMHFWRU\¶ (1996:   DQG WKH µHFRORJLFDO QLFKH±lineage±'1$¶    WZR triads outlined in FiguUH  DQG VXSHULPSRVHG RQ WKH µ,±me±\RX¶ VWUXFWXUH RI WKH µVHPLRWLF VHOI¶ RI :LOH\ ,QGHHG if evolutionary biology and genetics teach us anything, it is that what I call ³SDUDOOH[LV´ LV WKH GHIDXOW WKH VHOI±same essentialisms and identity politics of monotheistic religion and humanism are simply not appropriate frameworks within which to view the radical self-othering

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that constitutes life. The proposed model is an anti-representational view of the self, that being a view of the self as an abductive structure, a self that can survive precisely because of its excess, of its constitution in its own dividedness for (not against) itself, of the self as a series of guesses about or enactments of what it might be in the future, versions of the self that that self might in fact one day encounter in its own environment, and alternately ignore or rebuke, respond to, or even incorporate within itself in a kind of psychoV\PELRJHQHVLV 3DUDGLJPDWLF KHUH WKHQ LV QRW 2HGLSXV¶V HQFRXQWHU with his psycho-, onto- DQG SK\ORJHQHWLF VHOYHV DW WKH ³FURVVURDGV´, EXW &DVH¶V VHUHQGLSLWRXV UHFRJQLWLRQ LQ F\EHUVSDFH LQ :LOOLDP *LEVRQ¶V Neuromancer, of another and autonomous version of himself, his own avatar ± and of how that recognition of the DXWRQRPRXV RWKHU RI RQH¶V VHOI LV DOZD\V DOUHDG\ D UHVRXUFH IRU WKH self ± DV WKH JUDVVKRSSHU¶V ORFXVW DYDWDU LV ,QGHHG DV &DU\ :ROIH writes, ³the power and importance of the animal is almost always its pull toward a multiplicity that operates to unseat the singularities and essentialisms of identity that were proper to the subject of humanism´ (2003: 88). 3.4. :LOH\¶VµVWUXFWXUH¶DQGP\PRGHORIWKHVHPLRWLFVHOIPD\DOVREH WUDFHGLQDQGXQGHUVWRRGDV)RXFDXOGLDQµKHWHURWRSLF¶ spatialisations of evolutionary time (see Thomas R. Flynn on Foucault, spatialisation, reasonDQGµKHWHURWRSLD¶±44; 2005: 96±98). By describing as KH GRHV WKH )RXFDXOGLDQ µKHWHURWRSLF¶  spatialisation of time, Flynn has helped me to see evolutionary time as being always already here and distributed synchronically, in the cultural and genomic spatialisations of the present. That is, evolutionary time and µprogress¶ are spatialised, not (and therefore ironically and somewhat paradoxically) temporalized. µPURJUHVV¶is understood here in terms of a non-temporalised time, in terms of the prRJUHVV PDGH WKURXJK ZLGHQLQJ RQH¶V affections, and in terms of various horizontal or synchronic, i.e. spatialised or environmentally realised, changes (symbiosis and Lateral Gene Transfer for example) that occur as a result of non-vertical or non-germ-cell heredity. Evolution, when understood in the context of spatialisation and also in the context of symbiogenesis and Lateral Gene Transfer (LGT), as it is dramatised in the novels &OD\¶V $UN (1984) and 'DUZLQ¶V5DGLR (1999), is best mapped not so much as a

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Tree of Life (TOL) but as what Rivera and Lake (2004) call a µring of life¶. In that case, an organism¶s environment, the ³DURXQG ZRUOG´, rather than its lineage (as in vertical inheritance) plays a significant role. The spatially based metaphor of a ring LVWKHWHFKQLFDO³JURXQG´ for an ethic of the shepherding of being (an evolutionary ethic) that avoids social Darwinistic and other fascist mappings of evolutionary ERGLHV RI NQRZOHGJH VHH .ODXV 7KHZHOHLW¶V Male Fantasies 1987). Peirce (1992 [1868a]: 6) defined ³WKH VLJQ¶s ground as the pure abstraction of the quality in respect of which the sign refers to its object, whether by resemblance or, as a symbol, by imputing the quality to the object´VHH)LJXUH). 7KHµULQJRIOLIH¶RUWKH)RXFDXOGLDQVpatialisation of time can serve as grounds for organisms considered as semiotic selves. 5LYHUD DQG /DNH¶V µULQJ RI OLIH¶ VWDQGV DJDLQVW WKH TOL (³a metaphor based on replication and vertical inheritance´) and the eugenics that are derived from it and represent rather a ³restor[ation of] the dispersive, µDionysian¶ character [of] time´ (Flynn 1994: 43), whereby what was, what might have been, what is, and what might be all exist with an equal say, a synchronic or spatialised time. The time therefore locates counter-hegemonies (and counterselves and alternative futures) as merely elsewhere rather than nowhere (as in utopian literature) (Flynn 1994; 2005). But since the future is the only domain over which organisms can have any real control, not only species (in terms of the variation of individuals in populations) but individuals within populations too have evolved mechanisms whereby they create alternative versions of themselves. This is done either literally, that is, genetically, or virtually in terms of epigenetic, behavioural, or symbolic representations 6SHDNLQJ RI µenvironmeans¶ and µenvironmeants¶ as avatars, I speak of biovirtuality (biodiversity + virtual reality) so as to highlight the way individuals are able to adapt themselves to alternative futures in part of their own creation. 3.5. Evolution is usually thought of as working itself out in a temporal dimension, that is, through the diversity, the variety, that is always already available to us now, at any given moment. Martin Heisenberg, LQ µ,V )UHH :LOO DQ ,OOXVLRQ"¶   JLYHV DQ HYROXWLRQDU\ UROH IRU horizontal space, that is, in spatialisation¶s always already constitution of animal will. While arguing for the precedence of motility over

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response, that is, for a reason why the evolution of the behaviour of organisms would favour pre-emptive motility or assertiveness, say the µUDQGRPZDON¶RIDQE coli bacterium, in which it randomly twitches itself into a new spatial orientation so as to achieve a new point of orientation from which to respond to its environment, Heisenberg states that ³[t]he same [separation of behavioural output from sensory input] may have been true in evolution, as merely being dispersed in space should have been advantageous and should have favoured mobility´ (2009: 165). The selective advantage of being ³dispersed in space´, either at the level of the individual or the population of a VSHFLHV LV EHKLQG WKH NH\ SK\VLRORJLFDO GLIIHUHQFH RU ³VSDFLQJ´ between behavioural output on the one hand and sensory input on the other. Actual space calls out a physiological temporal spacing which then permits organisms to change their spacing or position and thus their environments ± or at least how they orient themselves to their environments. Heisenberg claims that this twofold spacing, as I call it, LV WKH RQWRORJLFDO EDVLV IRU IUHH ZLOO WKDW LV IRU DQ RUJDQLVP¶V proDFWLYLW\ EHLQJ MXVW D ³VWHS´ RU ³WZLWFK´ DKHDG RI LWs receptivity. Indeed, evolution ± understood in the context of spatialisation (rather than in the more familiar terms of temporalisation); understood in the context of a Foucauldian spatial heterotopia ± reveals the existence of an evolutionary and ontological richness always already available all DURXQG XV QRZ )RXFDXOW¶V µKHWHURWRSLDV¶ RU µKRUL]RQWDO¶ KHUHGLW\) compared to the uncertain richness of the far future (the utopian fantasy). It is in this context that we understand, in the origin of the lichen (a symbiotic living arrangement of alga and fungus) for example, the photosynthesisLQJDOJD¶VGLVFRYHU\in its environment, in its Umwelt, in LWVµULQJRIOLIH¶ in the heterotopia distributed around itself in ontological space (not within the long-term temporalities of its genome) of a ready-made bodily infrastructure or fortress (an µHQYLURQPHDQV¶) for itself (a saprophytic fungus), an infrastructure that would have taken generations to evolve out of itself genetically along the long branches of the Tree of Life. Thus living things actualise a (Foucauldian) vision (a heterotopia) of the diversity, the variety, that is always already available to us now, at any given moment ± as we see manifest in the viral infection and manipulation of metazoans (we are metazoans), whereby, for example, solarpowered sea-slugs eat algae and harvest chloroplasts (distributed in

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ecological sSDFH  WKDW DUH WKHQ XVHG RQFH µSKDJRF\WRVHG¶ RU incorporated into cellular functions, to help the sea-VOXJ ³HYROYH´ in the present the ability to photosynthesise. This, however, only happens in part because ³some nuclear-encoded chloroplast proteins are synthesized by the slug cells´ (µenvironmeants¶) and because ³KRUL]RQWDOJHQHWUDQVIHUµHQYLURQPHDQV¶ occurred between the algal nuclear genome and the slug genome (plant-to-animal transfer)´, with ³WKH PRVW OLNHO\ PHFKDQLVP IRU WKDW WUDQVIHU >«] by way of a eukaryotic virus´ (Rohwer and Thurber 2009: 210). (Please note that these just mentioned ways and means, as dramatic as they may seem, do parallel the common biological categories of concurrence, symbiosis, parasitism, and mutualism  ,QGHHG %HDU¶V DaUZLQ¶V Radio  DQG%XWOHU¶V&OD\¶V$UN (1984) are precisely about such ³HQYLURQPHDQLQJ´, about various incorporations of others within the self (symbiogenesis), about viral infection (including self-infection by ancient viruses, retroviruses, in DarwiQ¶V 5DGLR) and about the manipulation of metazoans, humans that is, but with our own agency both invoked and revoked. As Foucault writes, ³>L@t is comforting >«@ to think that man is only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a new wrinkle in our knowledge, and that he will disappear again as soon as that knowledge has discovered a new IRUP´1973: xxiii). 3.6. In 'DUZLQ¶V 5DGLR and &OD\¶V $UN, smells (and of course pheromones) have profound ontological powers. In both novels, pheromones and scent play a profound role in the genetic, epigenetic, behavioural, and symbol dimensions of the shepherding of new species into existence. Further, the models for identity in each novel engage the same bootstrapping structure of self as represented in the pheromone-driven ontology of Figure 1. What is a key in these novels is the extent to which this shepherding engages our will (unlike the trope of the mindless zombie so prevalent in the media) even as the QRYHOVH[SORUHWKHZLOO¶VHPEHGGHGQHVVLQDPicro-ontological ocean RI EHLQJ 2QH¶V VPHOO LV UHWUR-engineered by a virus such that one is attracted to other mates than one would ever have chosen before, but there DUH VWLOO FKRLFHV DQG VR WKH µstructure¶ of the µsemiotic self¶ remains. The many small changes in appearance and scent and taste in 'DUZLQ¶V5DGLR and &OD\¶V$UN, and then the effects that those small

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physiological effects have on mating and feeding behaviour, changing the ecological niches of species spatially or heterotopically rather than through linear, familial descent in the Malthusian struggle for existence, show the tremendous role that symbols (pheromones as olfactory symbols) can have in natural and sexual selection. (Indeed, symbols can be more powerful than the objects they represent). And as we all know from being ill, viruses can change our sense of smell. Viruses in the novels, however, have not only pathological roles to play but ontological ones. Interestingly enough, virologists have studied mostly pathologies, though as Rohwer and Thurber remark, ³this [bias ± W.J.C.] will need to change if we are to appreciate the diverse ways that viruses affect life on earth´ (2009: 211). Bear writes in 'DUZLQ¶V 5DGLR: ³It is possible that viruses originally came from segments of DNA within cells that can move around, both inside and between chromosomes. Viruses are essentially roving segments of genetic material that have learned how to µput on space suits¶ and leave the cell´ (1999: 529). In &OD\¶V$UN (1984), humans are infected with an extra-terrestrial organism that uses human beings as their symbiogenetic space suits and that reprogrammes the human protagonists from the inside out both by altering their chemistry and thus their mating decisions (the band My Chemical Romance captures this idea) and by retro(virally) engineering the human germ cells. Butler anticipates by almost a generation the importance (still today undervalued within the central dogma of genetics) of various horizontal or synchronic, spatialised changes that happen through a non-vertical or non-germ-cell heredity and that represent a view of evolution that is Foucauldian, that is, evolution representing itself not so much as a Tree of Life (TOL) but as what Rivera and Lake call a µULQJRIOLIH¶  By now it must be clear the extent to which any attempt to ³split the Adam´ 3HDUFH\ WRWHDVHDSDUWWKHµKXPDQLPDO¶ZLOOWDNH both a jackhammer and a feather. Support for this study was provided in part by the Center for 21st Century Studies of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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Bibliography Abram, David. 2010. Becoming Animal. New York: Pantheon. $OODQ .HQQHWK  µ7KH 3RVWPRGHUQ 6HOI $ 7KHRUHWLFDO &RQVLGHUDWLRQ¶ LQ Quarterly Journal of Ideology 20(1±2): 3±24. Audubon, John James. 2003 [1827±1838]. $XGXERQ¶s Birds of America: The Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio (ed. R.T. Peterson). New York: Abbeville Press. Bataille, Georges. 1985 [1933]. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927±1939 (eds A. Stoekl, C.R. Lovitt and D.M. Leslie Jr.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bloom, Harold. 1999. Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books. Butler, Octavia. 2007 [2000]. /LOLWK¶V%URRG. New York: Warner Books. ². 1984. &OD\¶V$UN. New York: Warner Books. Bear, Greg, 1999. 'DUZLQ¶V5DGLR. New York: Ballantine Book. Clark, Timothy. 2011. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Colapietro, Vincent M. 1993. Glossary of Semiotics. New York: Paragon Books. ColettD : -RKQ  µ3UHGDWLRQ DV 3UHGLFDWLRQ 7RZDUG DQ (FRORJ\ RI 6HPLRVLV DQG6\QWD[¶LQ Semiotica 109(3/4): 221±235. Coletta, W. John, Dometa Wiegand and 0LFKDHO & +DOH\  µ7KH 6HPLRVLV RI 6WRQH $ ³5RFN\´ Rereading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Through Charles 6DQGHUV3HLUFH¶LQSemiotica 174(1/4): 69±143. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1987 [1980]. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (tr. B. Massumi). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ². 2009 [1972]. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (tr. R. Hurley, M. Seem and H.R. Lane). New York: Penguin Books. Derrida, Jacques. 2008. The Animal That Therefore I Am. (tr. D. Wills; ed. M.-L. Mallet). New York: Fordham University Press. Flynn, Thomas R. 1994. µ)RXFDXOW¶V 0DSSLQJ of History¶ in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (ed. G. Gutting). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ². 2005. Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason, Volume 2: A Poststructuralist Mapping of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, Michel. 1973 [1970]. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Random House. Gibson, James J.  µ7KH 7KHRU\ RI $IIRUGDQFHV¶ LQ Shaw, Robert and John Bransford (eds) Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: 67±88. Gibson, William. 1984. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Paperbacks. +HLVHQEHUJ0DUWLQµ,V)UHH:LOODQ,OOXVLRQ"¶LQNature 459: 164±165. Hoffmeyer, Jesper, 1996 [1993]. Signs of Life in the Universe. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

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International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Online at: http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysisencyclopedia/disintegrationfeelings-anxieties (consulted 12.12.11). Jablonka, Eva, and Marion J. Lamb. 2006 [2005]. Four Dimensions of Evolution: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Jaynes, Julian. 2000 [1976]. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Leder, Drew. 1990. The Absent Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan. 2003 [2002]. Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origin of Species. New York: Basic Books. Maran, Timo. 2010. µ:K\:DV7KRPDs A. Sebeok Not a Cognitive Ethologist? From ³$QLPDO0LQG´WR ³6HPLRWLF6HOI´¶LQBiosemiotics 3(3): 315±329. Marris(PPDµ*UHDW$SHV)RXQGWR%H5ich in Culture: Gorillas, Orangutans and Chimpanzees 3DVV 'RZQ 7UDGLWLRQV DQG )ROORZ )DGV¶ LQ Nature News. Online at doi:10.1038/news060220-3 (consulted 20.02.11). Mayr, Ernst. 1965µ&DXVHDQGHIIHFWLQELRORJ\¶LQ/HUQHU'aniel (ed.): Cause and effect. New York: Free Press: 33±50. McGrew, M.&  µ&XOWXUH LQ 1RQKXPDQ 3ULPDWHV"¶ LQ Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 301±328. McClintock, Barbara.  µ7KH 6LJQLILFDQFH RI 5HVSRQVHV Rf the Genome to &KDOOHQJHV¶2Qline at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1983/mcclintock-lecture.pdf (consulted 12.12.11). 0LWFKHOO :-7  µ)RUHZRUG 7KH 5LJKWV RI 7KLQJV¶ LQ &DU\ :ROIH Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press: ix±xiv. Nöth, Winfried. 1990. Handbook of Semiotics. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Pearcey, Nancy. 2010. Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group. 3HLUFH &KDUOHV 6DQGHUV  >D@ µ2Q D 1HZ /LVW RI &DWHJRULHV¶ LQ The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings: Volume 1 (1867±1893). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ². >E@µ4XDOLWLHV&RQFHUQLQJ&HUWDLQ)DFXOWLHV&ODLPHGIRU0DQ¶LQ The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings: Volume 1 (1867±1893). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ².  >@ µ,PPRUWDOLW\ LQ WKH /LJKW RI 6\QHFKLVP¶ LQ The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings: Volume 2 (1893±1913). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pollan, Michael. 2001. The Botany of Desire. $3ODQW¶V-Eye View of the World. New York. Random House. 5LYHUD0DULD&DQG-DPHV$/DNHµ7KH5LQJRI/LIH3URYLGHV(YLGHQFHIRU a Genome Fusion 2ULJLQRI(XNDU\RWHV¶LQNature 431: 152±155.

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5RKZHU )RUHVW DQG 5HEHFFD 9HJD 7KXUEHU µ9iruses Manipulate the Marine (QYLURQPHQW¶LQNature 459: 207±212. Sagan, DorioQµ,QWURGXFWLRQ¶Ln Uexküll (2010): 1±34. Sebeok, Thomas A. 1991 [1979] µ7KH 6HPLRWLF 6HOI¶ LQ A Sign Is Just a Sign. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 36±40. ². >@µ7KH6HPLRWLF6HOI5HYLVLWHG¶ in A Sign Is Just a Sign. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 41±48. 6KDSLUR0LFKDHOµ7HOHRORJ\VHPHLRVLVDQGOLQJXLVWLFFKDQJH¶LQDiachronica 2: 1±34. Shubin, Neil. 2008. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Vintage). New York: Random House. Stephenson, Neal. 1992. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam Books. Theweleit, Klaus. 1987. Male Fantasies, Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. YDQ6FKDLN&DUHO3HWDOµ2UDQJXWDQ&XOWXUHVDQGWKH(YROXWLRQRI0DWHULDO &XOWXUH¶LQScience 299(102): 102±105. Uexküll, Jakob von. 2010 [1934]. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, with A Theory of Meaning WU -' 2¶1HLO  3RVWKXPDQLWLHV  . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Wiley, Norbert. 1994. The Semiotic Self. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wolfe, Cary. 2003. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Worster, Donald. 1977. 1DWXUH¶V (FRQRP\ $ +LVWRU\ RI (FRORJLFDO ,GHDV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. äLåHN 6ODYRM  >@ The Parallax View. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.

The (proto-)ethical significance of semiosis: When and how does one become somebody who matters? Ralph R. Acampora This chapter explores and assays the theoretical and experiential relevance of semiosis to animal ethics and to interspecies morality. Proposed herein is that the fact or activity of semiosis may be taken normatively as a crucial element in the definitional framework of ethical considerability and/or that it may also be taken descriptively as a significant part of the proto-ethical ontology out of which interspecies morality arises.

1. Introduction In this paper I would like to explore and assay the theoretical and experiential relevance of semiosis to animal ethics and to interspecies morality. Zoosemiotics is here taken as a theory or inquiry about the meaning-structures found in the animal kingdom. From the vantage of disciplinary history, it has been associated with cognitive science and ethology as well as philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Lately, as in the work of Jesper Hoffmeyer, the broader conception of biosemiotics has been developed with affinities for somatic studies and philosophy of body. Animal ethics ± at least in its first-wave instantation among analytic/Anglophone philosophers ± has usually been understood to offer (or contest) criteria that widen the scope of moral standing to include (some/many/most/all) animals other than humans. Recently, a number of alternative (Continental European, feminist, and postmodern) approaches to the field have tried to lay bare the axiological and/or ontological presuppositions for the

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intelligibility and practicality of relating to other animals as moral beings (patients mostly, but sometimes as agents too). 1 What I would like to propose ± in an experimental vein, on a trial basis as it were ± is that the fact or activity of semiosis may be taken normatively as a crucial element in the definitional framework of ethical considerability and/or that it may also be taken descriptively as a significant part of the proto-ethical ontology out of which interspecies morality arises. One way to conceive of these gambits is to think of them as attempts to straddle an inherent ambiguity in the very concept of meaning, which can carry at least two senses (at least as conveyed in the English language): 1) that of linguistic (or otherwise semantic) significance ± HJWKHZRUGµVLVWHU¶W\SLFDOO\means µIHPDOH VLEOLQJ¶DQG WKDWRISUDFWLFDOLPSRUWDQFH RU HYDOXDWLRQDO HVWHHP ± HJDVLQORFXWLRQVVXFKDV³VKHmeans DORWWR[´ZKHUH x refers to some person, process, or system). In general, the phenomenon that could serve as a bridge between these two senses of meaning is that of salience, inasmuch as both signs and values literally or figuratively ³VWDQGRXW´LQRUIURPDQRWKHUZLVHundifferentiated field of function or experience. Likewise, in both cases there is always an effectively interpreting entity to or for whom any salient phenomenon appears. And (only) when a saliency makes a felt difference to or by a fleshly interpreter, the emergent meaning matters morally ± because it is experienced in or through a corporeal condition of finitude (which is essential to constituting the vital needs and exposure to harm/demise that ground the very intelligibility of ethical standing). In a nutshell, what I here venture is that all and only those beings who are both somatically vulnerable and semiotically generative ought to be considered moral patients within the sphere of ethical concern, and that those live bodies who consciously control their interpretive 1

,QWKHSDUODQFHRISKLORVRSKLFHWKLFVDµPRUDODJHQW¶LVDEHLQJZKRFDQGHOLEHUDWH decide, and take/make actions/judgments in ethical terms (i.e. a first-person subject of PRUDOLW\ DQGDµPRUDOSDWLHQW¶LVDEHLQJZKRVKRXOGFRXQWRUPDWWHUPRUDOO\LHD third-person object of moral consideration whose interests ought to be taken into account when they are affected by any exercise of moral agency). Traditionally, the scope of these sets was seen to be coincident (i.e. all agents deemed patients and vice versa); however, developments in trans-human moral theory have made it generally (yet not universally) recognised that though all agents are patients, some patients are not (nor need be) agents.

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activities can be thought of as candidates for membership in the community of moral agency (i.e., if they show signs of volitional selfguidance and interest in fellowship). 2. The semiotic-somatic criterion of moral standing Elsewhere, against the psychocentric grain of most animal ethics, I have argued that (some state or property of) mental consciousness as such does not ground the concept of moral standing; rather, the presence of a live body (Leib) is an essential feature of any ethically considerable being (Acampora 2006: chapter 4). 2 Yet I admit this feature, though necessary, is not by itself enough to explain moral standing ± another aspect should enter the picture, namely some structure of (spontaneous) semiosis. The notion of semiosis I have in PLQGKHUHLVEDVLFDOO\-HVSHU+RIIPH\HU¶VDFFRXQW³$FFRUGLQJWRWKH biosemiotic perspective, living nature is understood as essentially driven by, or actually consisting of, semiosis, that is to say, processes of sign relations and their signification ± or function ± in the bioORJLFDOSURFHVVHVRIOLIH´+RIIPH\HU  3 To better understand the genesis of the ethical claims animate bodies present to moral agents, we need to consider how meaning (difference that makes a difference) orients living existence. 4 Because the orientation of OLIHVW\OHUHIOHFWVWKHYDOHQFHV RIDQRUJDQLVP¶VWHOHRORJ\ZHZRXOG be able to track the presence of (welfare-)interests in various entities and thereby get a handle on the distribution of ethical considerability at large. My tentative claim, then, would be that existential 2

For contrast to philosophy of mind, cf. DeGrazia 1996 and Steiner 2008. The botanical and microscopic reaches of this model are still somewhat unsettled ± and so I concentrate more on meso-level zoo-semiosis. Cf. Dario 0DUWLQHOOL¶VDQDO\VLV of semiosis as signification (interpretation without sender), or representation (portrayal without reception), or communication (mutual exchange) ± (2010: 265). The term µVHPLRVLV¶FDQEHWUDFHGEDFNWR&KDUOHV6DQGHUV3HLUFHZKRXVHd it to designate the process of meaning-making via his triadic structure of representamen (signifier or sign vehicle), interpretant (sense of sign), and object (signified, referent); see Chandler 2011 (glossary). 4 Mark Johnson relies on the pragmatist tradition of philosophy and characterises DQWKURSR VHPLRVLV WKXV ³*UDVSLQJ PHDQLQJ >L@V D PDWWHU RI VHOHFWLQJ RQH RU PRUH qualities or patterns within a situation as pointing toward some different qualities or patterns, either in that situation or in some RWKHUVLWXDWLRQ´  3

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FRQVWLWXWLRQDVDVRPDWLFVHPLRVLFWKHODWWHUWHUPGHQRWLQJµPHDQLQJJHQHUDWLYH¶ FRPSOH[LVQHFHVVDU\DQGVXIILFLHQWIRUDEHLQJWRKDYHD good of its own (on the basis of which it becomes intelligible and DSSURSULDWHWRVSHDNRIWKHEHLQJ¶VZHDORUZRHEHQHILWRUKDUP  5 Which kinds of entity would this picture of moral standing rule in and which would it rule out? The class of moral patients on this account would turn out to be fairly biocentric, including almost all human beings, most non-human animals, and perhaps some other forms of life as well. Kinds of entity that would not be recognised as having non-derivative moral standing would include mountains and minerals (at least at the spatio-temporal scale on which moral agency is exercised, terrains and chemicals appear not as somatic (leiblich) and semiosic but rather as corporeal (körperlich) and causal respectively);6 typical machines (including even artificially intelligent computers, so long as they are operating as non-sentient assemblages); laboratory tissue and cell-cultures generated and controlled directly by means of first-order (non-recursive/a-cybernetic) technological contrivance (such semiosis as exists therein is derivative not spontaneous, nor is there present organismic sentience); and angels and gods (if there are any transcendent entities, they would rate as non-ILQLWH ³VXSHU-VHQWLHQW´ EHLQJV DERYH DQG EH\RQG UDWKHU WKDQ beneath or below the bounds of moral sense; in other words, because of their peculiar metaphysical status, immortal/invulnerable spirits on this model would not call for moral recognition because they have no needs).7 The listing of illustrations and series of corresponding ex5

&I-RKQVRQ¶VHFRORJLFDOH[SDQVLRQRILQWHUHVWV  Taborsky, offering a cosmic account of semiosis, defines µVLJQ¶DV ³WKH PHDQVE\ which free energy is transformed by codification into constrained matter or informatiRQ´DQGSRVWXODWHVWKDW³FRGLILFDWLRQLVWKHIRUPDWLRQRIRUJDQL]HGFRQQHFWLRQVRU UHODWLRQVZLWKRWKHUIRUPVRIHQHUJ\RUJDQL]DWLRQ´ KRZHYHU,ILQGWKDWVXFKD universal view of semiosis stretches the concept so far it appears vacuous for lack of a contrast class of phenomena ± DQGVR ,UHPDLQSDUWLDOWRVWDQGDUGSKHQRPHQRORJ\¶V ur-VHQVHRIPHDQLQJDVHVVHQWLDOO\LQWHQWLRQDOFKDUDFWHULVHGE\µDERXWQHVV¶  7 Though see Wenders 1987 for a curious portrayal of angelic figures who yearn for finitude ± my own interpretation would be that these characters are possible only as fiction via suspension of disbelief and could never be instantiated in reality (because their very constitution is incoherent). At the other end of the ontological spectrum, regarding merely material rather than putatively spiritual beings, Llewelyn has ventured that stalactites (e.g.) are moral patients with need of integrity (1991); for my 6

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planations just given are not exhaustive, but should suffice to provide the gist of applying the relevantly exclusionary criteria at stake. 8 Examples of entities in a grey area of quasi- or semi-ethical status could include (somewhat controversially) totally stultified humans: truly anencephalic individuals, say, or those fallen into persistent vegetative states might not be considered genuinely semiosic beings. Artificial animals or other bionic life-forms also present difficulty for ethical classification ± relevant questions to ask on a case-by-case basis would include: how sensitive is this creature? Does it interpret stimuli by and for itself? Perhaps most intriguingly, plants in general pose challenges to moral ontology. One wonders whether botanical ³LUULWDELOLW\´ EHVSeaks full-fledged semiosis or if it is only protoVHPLRWLF" +HUH -DNRE YRQ 8H[NOO¶V [1982] ambivalence is noteworthy: he seems to indicate a pan-biotic scope for the phenomHQRQ RI PHDQLQJ DQG \HW PDNHV D GLVWLQFWLRQ EHWZHHQ WKH DQLPDO¶V living environment [Umwelt] DQG WKH SODQW¶V UHVLGHQWLDO HQYHORSH RU dwelling-case [Wohnhülle] that would appear to introduce gradations of semiosis [whereby the latter form of habitat involves only liminal or borderline sign-exchange]. Likewise yet more recently, Kalevi Kull [1998] has implied that wherever we find a biologically functional circle there too is an Umwelt ± yet I would hesitate to go so far if a given Funktionskreis were [shown] to be attained via algorithmic mechanism alone, and indeed Kull himself displays a similar reluctance when he allows that semiosis [taken to be coextensive with Umwelten] ³FRXOG EH GHILQHG DV WKH DSSHDUDQFH RI D FRQQHFWLRQ EHWZHHQ WKLQJV ZKLFK >«@ GR QRW LQWHUDFW RU FRQYHUW HDFK RWKHU WKURXJKGLUHFWSK\VLFDORUFKHPLFDOSURFHVVHV´ 9) As Michael Marder (2011: 89)10 SXWV LW ³WKH SODQW VHHPV WR PXGGOH FRQFHSWXDO GLVWLQFpart, I confess to viewing this illustration rather like a reductio ad absurdum of an overly expansive moral ontology. 8 Why have any exclusionary criteria? As intimated above (in note 6), definitional criteria provide the core of intelligibility precisely by articulating sameness and difference via conceptual inclusion and exclusion. 9 Ultimately, of course, the issue at stake awaits a longer-term decision about which meta-theory of biology (or at least theory of cytology) proves more successful ± the semiotic or the molecular. 10 Indeed he explains (or just re-describes?) vegetation as a figure operating in the IRUP RISKHQRPHQRORJLFDOWULFNVWHU³9HJHWDWLYHDFWLYLW\HQFU\SWVLWVHOILQLWVPRGHV

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tions and to defy all established indexes for discerning different FODVVHVRIEHLQJV´. On the one hand, Kull (2000) has argued persuasively on the basis of vegetative needs that phytosemiosis is a reality at the botanical level; on the other hand, few if any botanists would be prepared to recognize in plants felt needs.11 Similarly, with respect to fungi and prokaryotic/eukaryotic life forms, Kull (2000) alludes to µPLFURVHPLRVLV¶ DW WKH FHOOXODU OHYHO RI HQ]\PH DQG PHPEUDQH PDQagement while Günther Witzany (2005: 70) charts multicellular/interorganismic sorts of communication based on allegedly sign-mediated formation of microbial colonies; and yet the experiential dimension of living bodiment,12 which would make these examples clearer candidates for inclusion as moral patients, seems absent to most observers. Lastly, viruses have notoriously troubled ontological categorisation for biologists and others: expertly efficacious in the molecular de- and re-codings necessary to function as (ersatz?) parasites and proliferators of disease, they nonetheless do not ordinarily reproduce on their own; so are they alive or not, somatic or corporeal? 3. Comparative analysis How might the view I have sketched compare to some of the standard DFFRXQWVDOUHDG\DYDLODEOHLQWKHDQLPDOHWKLFVFDQRQ")LUVWOHW¶VORRN DW3HWHU 6LQJHU¶V XWLOLWDULDQ SRVLWLRQ RI DQLPDO OLEHUDWLRQ 7KH YLHZ , have adumbrated above would be congenial with, yet give a different spin to, his focus on sentience as the operative criterion for moral standing. Flat-footedly, it may seem that I have simply re-described sentience as somatic vulnerability and then added another criterion in the form of semiotic spontaneity. However, what I should like to say instead is that sentience typically has another face than the familiar one of passive sensation ± when an entity suffers or feels pain, it GRHVQ¶W PHUHO\ XQGHUJR DQ H[SHULHQFH RU VLPSO\ UHJLVWHU D JLYHQ feeling; rather it must interpret certain stimuli as negative, and so of appearance by always presenting itself in the guise of passivity, which is to say, by QHYHUSUHVHQWLQJLWVHOIDVVXFK´  11 Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (1973), notwithstanding (due to difficulties in replicating their experimental results). 12 , DYRLG µHPERGLPHQW¶ EHFDXVH OLNH µLQFDUQDWLRQ¶ LW LQYLWHV PHWDSK\VLFDO connotations of dualism (such as supernatural ensoulment) that I wish to leave behind.

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sentience itself can be seen as shot through with semiosis. This semiotic aspect can figure on different levels ± perceptual, emotional, imaginative ± in different kinds of being. From this perspective, then, it might be best to speak of sensibility, a term that already carries at once desired connotations both of somatic receptivity and semiotic construal. Of course, these connotations could fade when we have occasion in colloquial parlance to use the associated adjective µVHQVLEOH¶ RIWHQ GHVLJQDWLQJSUDFWLFDOLW\ DQGVR LQ HWKLFDO GLVFRXUVH ZHZRXOGKDYHWRWDNHFDUHWRXQGHUVWDQGµVHQVLEOHEHLQJV¶DVIOHVKHG makers of meaning (whether or not they are reasonable by disposition or capacity). Tom ReJDQ¶V GHRQWRORJLFDO SRVLWLRQ RI DQLPDO ULJKWV LV DQRWKHU prevalent view it may be worthwhile to compare with. His approach is based on a criterion of subjectivity, according to which rights-bearers KDYH PRUDO VWDQGLQJ MXVW LQ YLUWXH RI EHLQJ µVXEMHFWV-of-a-OLIH¶ :KR are subjects in this sense? When speaking informally, Regan has sometimes been heard to say that subjects-of-a-life are not merely biological creatures but biographical ones as well. This characterisation sounds as if it may overlap a zoosemiotic portrait ± after all, it might be argued, any animal who is a generator of meaning must ipso facto have a perspective from which an intelligible story could be WROG RI LWV OLIH 0RUH IRUPDOO\ KRZHYHU 5HJDQ¶V VWDQFH RFFXSLHV D position intermediate between the views of zoosemiotics (as I have rendered that above) and of what might be called narratological anthropocentrism (according to which the horizon of moral standing encircles only auto-biographical beings, whose life-stories can be told not merely about them but also by themselves). By technical definition, subjects-of-a-life for Regan have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychological identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others, and logically independently of their being WKHREMHFWRIDQ\RQHHOVH¶VLQWHUHVWV 

In this more detailed account, a sense of the psychic richness and fairly robust sapience intended by Regan comes through. It becomes

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understandable why it is that he applies this criterion unambiguously only to mammals (though he believes birds probably belong also, and reptiles/amphibians should be given a benefit of doubt in virtue of their uncertain status). From the vantage I am scouting out here, 5HJDQ¶V VWDQGDUG SXWV DQ XQGXH HPSKDVLV RQ PHQWDWLRQ DV VXFK DQG hence expresses a sufficient yet unnecessary condition for ethical considerability. 4. Transition to an alternative approach Whether or not my hypothesis could be validated in the context of recent or contemporary analytic ethics, however, I would also like to venture the proposal that the phenomenon of semiosis set in somatic experience is at least a very helpful hint at (if not a definitive hallmark of) value-generation ± and so it can be seen as a primary aspect of the phenomenological grammar peculiar to the evolution of ethics (as regards interspecific morality in particular). I turn in this direction because I have misgivings about the whole objectivistic enterprise of fixing a single, specific property of individual entities that would putatively require ± from the perspective of abstract rationality ± certain ethical norms in respect of them. If we think of moral significance as itself a kind of semiotic valence, then the holy grail of objectivist normativity would be figured as the notion that reality has some builtin ethical code according to which natural signs of ethical import could be read off by any being with sufficient sapience to engage the requisite activities of interpretation. The problem for me with this vision of an inherently morally meaningful universe is that, by my lights, no rendition of it has withstood trenchant critique. In the continental traditions of European thought, the project of universalist morality was cut loose from its axiological anchors by Nietzschean scepticism; in the methodology of Anglophone philosophy, normative ethics was capsized if not sunk by J./0DFNLH¶VHWKLFDOQLKLOLVP 13 7KH FORVHVW DQ\RQH ,¶P DZDUH RI KDV FRPH WR establishing an objective foundation for morality is David Gauthier, who argues that 13

7KHIRUPHUFDQEHIRXQGWKURXJKRXW1LHW]VFKH¶VFRUSXVZLWKSHUKDSVLWVFOHDUHVW manifestation occurring in his Beyond Good and Evil (1989); the most ample account of the latter is Mackie (1977).

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conative intentionality ipso facto constitutes evaluative activity that logically must respect similar activities conducted by others and that a full-blown contract theory of ethics can be built on this basis (1986, HVSHFLDOO\ FKDSWHU   , XVHG WR WKLQN *DXWKLHU¶V SRVLWLRQ FRXOG EH refuted by appealing to the contingency of goal-directed behaviour, most radically that there is no necessity of engaging such whatsoever (i.e &DPXV¶ SRLQW WKDW RSWLQJ RXW RI OLIH DOWRJHWKHU LV DOZD\V DQ option for autonomous beings). Yet I have come to recognise that even inaction entails some sort of conative exercise of intentionality ± for instance, enacting the will power to veto animal instincts of hunger and self-SURWHFWLRQ 6WLOO , GR QRW VHH WKDW *DXWKLHU¶V DUJXPHQW succeeds: though he may have demonstrated that any rational agent must enter into at least a minimal framework of morality, he leaves the supposition of rationality itself as an undischarged assumption. In other words, the decision to continue operating in accord with the reasoning conventions to which one has been acculturated is a non- or a-rational choice not entailed by the application of those conventions to the fund of publicly available knowledge. Nor can it be held selfevident that we must be rational because otherwise the world would make no sense and our very survival would thus be forsaken ± since, to mix Shakespearean and Kantian allusions, it may well be the case WKDWOLIHLVLQGHHGVRXQGDQGIXU\VLJQLI\LQJQRWKLQJDQGWKDW+DPOHW¶V suicidal query cannot be settled within the bounds of pure reason DORQH8OWLPDWHO\WKHSRVWXODWHVRIWKHZRUOG¶VLQWHOOLJLELOLW\DQGOLIH¶V desirability are surds (non-rational properties) that cannot be objectively justified: to exist and orient themselves, autonomous beings possessed of self-consciousness must make meaning and set values (and so exercise conative intentionality) ± but their most originary gestures herewith are radically underdetermined by (because prior to) inferences from facts. 5. Moral phenomenology and interspecies ethics Against the background of these reflections, if not precisely by consequence of them, my hunch is that morality has more to do with a felt awareness of responsibilities that emerge from actual and potential relationships; it is primarily a somato-psychic phenomenon or experiential process, not a metaphysical proposition in the first place

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and only later a matter of logical argument. So now let us look at the existential context of ethical valuation from a phenomenological and hermeneutic perspective. In the lifeworld of beings who are concerned and discourse about such things, then, the concept of morality centrally refers to a positive or benign regard for others ± what we can name loosely altruism. Granting this conception as a definitional given, we may then ask how does such a regard come to be? One of WRGD\¶V OHDGLQJ ELRVHPLRWLFLDQV -HVSHU +RIIPH\HU VSHFXODWHV WKDW LW arises from recoJQLVLQJ D OLIH¶V LUUHSODFHDELOLW\ ± and that this recognition is itself rooted in the intercorporeal dialogics of semiotic individuation (2010). To put it succinctly, I constitute myself in somatic transaction with the other, who in the process becomes for me somebody who must be acknowledged as sharing a physical exposure that calls for care similar to my own (Hoffmeyer 2008: 325). To flesh out the workings of this sympathetic transactivity, it will be helpful for us to consider the nature of animacy as such ± and for this the work of another leading light in biosemiotics can serve as a launching pad. ,Q WKHRULVLQJ ZKDW KH UHIHUV WR DV µVHPLRWLF HPERGLPHQW¶  467), Claus Emmeche takes the position that meaning-laden automotion is at the heart of animacy: A living being that is not simply an organism but is also an animal, is HPSKDWLFDOO\³DQLPDWHG´WKDWLVLWUHDOL]HVDVSHFLILFIRUPRIPRYHPHQWZKLFKLV not reducible to pure physical change or basic biologic processes (like metabolism). Movement, understood as living change and as semiotic, when realized by self-moving organisms (i.e., animals), crucially depends on mediating DOOWKHHOHPHQWVRITXDOLW\SK\VLFDOIRUFHDQGLQWHUSUHWDWLRQ>«@ (2007: 465)

To spotlight the relevance of motility (the ability to move spontaneously and actively) for understanding live bodiment continues a concern in Continental thought that goes back at least to Merleau-Ponty (1962) and Hans Jonas (1966). What these thinkers wished to underscore was that being self-mobile holds greater signifLFDQFHIRUDQRUJDQLVP¶VPRGHRIH[LVWHQFHWKDQVXSHUILFLDODWWHQWLRQ to mere locomotion might indicate: beyond obvious changes in location (conceived as quantitative alterations of spatial coordinates), auto-mobility affects qualitative sense of place and effects a generative locus of semiosis. For that latter upshot especially, we will now take our cues from Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, a contemporary

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hermeneut of body whose independent work deserves more recognition than the usual run of academicians has been wont to grant; as we shall see, her insights are consonant with the embodied cognition models of human psychology and animal ontology lately rising from the neurosciences, linguistics, and eco-phenomenology. Two Husserlian phenomenologists, Javier San Martin and María Luz Pintos-3HQDUDQGD REVHUYH WKDW DQLPDOLW\ HQWDLOV DQ ³RULJLQDU\ PDWHULDO LQWHUUHODWLRQ ZLWK WKH ZRUOG´ ³%HLQJ D ERG\ >Körper-Leib] implies, for every animal subject, that her or his own experience of reality means being open to something that is beyond herself, open to something that is not herself, to the experience of the other-than-PH´ (2001: 357)14. Maxine Sheets-Johnstone goes a step further when she affirms the fundamental place of motile bodiment in the lives of social animals such as human beings ± LQ UHVROYLQJ SKLORVRSK\¶V VR-called SUREOHP RI RWKHU PLQGV VKH QRWLFHV WKDW ³PRYLQJ ERGLHV DUH WKH foundational dynamic channel by which we forge understandings of others, coming to know their beliefs, judgments, and values through WKHLU PRYHPHQW´   15 Moreover, Sheets-Johnstone extends this insight in an ethical direction when she links animacy to fellowfeeling: [O]ur spontaneous capacity to move ourselves and to be both kinesthetically aware of the dynamics of our own movement and kinetically aware of the dynamics of the movement of others is the foundation of our interanimate sensemakings. That capacity generates the possibility of affect attunement, and in turn, the possibility of empathy. Animation thus indeed holds the key to understandings of intersubjectivity. (2008: 212)

In this way, following Sheets-Johnstone, we can appreciate the importance of a pre-OLQJXLVWLF µERGLO\ ORJRV¶ WKDW EXLOGV RQ WKH HYROXtionary basis of species-typical patterns of motion, gesture, sound, and SRVWXUHWKDWIXQFWLRQDVPXWXDOO\UHFRJQLVDEOHµFRPVLJQV¶ 14

This Fremderfahrung LV VXFK WKDW ³HYHU\ DQLPDO VXEMHFW >«@ H[SHULHQFHV ERWK D FRPPRQZRUOGDQGDVRFLDOKRUL]RQRIKHURZQVSHFLHV´  15 0RUHVSHFLILFDOO\³WKHERG\,IHHOLVOLNHWKHPRYLQJERGLHV,VHHDPRYLQJYLVXDO form, an animate form for others, the locus of intentionalities, of topologically distinctive postures, movement patterns, orientations, spatial relationships, and so on; correlatively, the moving bodies I see are, like my felt body, dynamic centres of movement DQGPHDQLQJRIVHQWLHQFHDQGDQLPDWLRQ´Sheets-Johnstone 2008: 294).

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ff.).16 Because it departs from the heretofore dominant models of language-based identity and sociality, this account constitutes a sea change in self-understanding and the semiology of community. Neopragmatist philosopher Mark Johnson frames the shift as moving from an objectivist theory of meaning to an em-bodied/experiential view. In the former, meaning is borne by arbitrarily conventional symbols (words and sentences) which are grounded by propositions representing literalistic concepts that mentally mirror states of affairs in the external world (2007: 272). According to the latter scheme, meaning ³DULVHV WKURXJK HPERGLHG RUJDQLVP±environment interactions in which significant patterns are marked within the flow of experience >«@ DV ZH HQJDJH WKH SHUYDVLYH TXDOLWLHV RI VLWXDWLRQV DQG QRWH GLVWLQFWLRQV WKDW PDNH VHQVH RI RXU H[SHULHQFH DQG FDUU\ LW IRUZDUG´ (2007: 273). The process of semiosis involves not only formalistic operations of discursive logic but also imaginative and felt dimensions of experience ± and it remains body-EDVHG WKURXJKRXW ³EHFDXVH WKH semantic and inferential structure of [even] abstract concepts is drawn from our sensorimotor interactions, typically by cross-domain mapSLQJVFRQFHSWXDOPHWDSKRUV ´Johnson 2007: 273).17 What is most interesting for the purposes of our present discussion is that a lifeworld mediated by the affect attunement embedded in such patterns of semiosis is already pregnant with socio-ecologic growth into moral community ± LQVRIDU DV³>W@KHVH EHJLQQLQJ HPSDthic associations that develop among like creatures, these intercorporeal sense-makings WKDW DULVH VSRQWDQHRXVO\ >«@ GHVFULEH DQ intersubjectivity that is in actuality a thoroughgoing intercorporeality D ZD\ RI OLYLQJ WRJHWKHU LQ KDUPRQLRXV XQGHUVWDQGLQJV´ (Sheets-Johnstone 2008: 294).18 How is it that this intercorporeality brings forth proto-ethical significance? I have written a book on this matter myself (Acampora 2006), but here I will defer to Sheets-RKQVWRQH¶VFRPSDFW H[SODQDWLRQWKDW³ZKDWLQ IDFWJURXQGV PRUDOLW\ DQGPDNHVLWIXOO\UHDOLVIRXQGDWLRQDOO\RQH¶VRZQERG\RQH¶VRZQ physical ERG\ZKLFKLVYXOQHUDEOHDQG>«@DIIHFWLYHO\H[SHULHQFHGas 16

In a similar vein Merleau-3RQW\DOOXGHGWRD³OH[LFRQRIWKHRUJDQLVP´  )RUGHWDLOVVHHµ7KH&RUSRUHDO5RRWVRI6\PEROLF0HDQLQJ¶-RKQVRQFKDSWHU 7). 18 $V -RKQVRQ SXWV LW PHDQLQJ LV ³DOZD\V VRFLDO EHFDXVH LW ZRXOG QRW H[LVW Ln its IXOOQHVVZLWKRXWFRPPXQLFDWLYHLQWHUDFWLRQV´  17

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H[SRVHGDVVDLODEOH RSHQWRSDLQ GLVHDVHVXIIHULQJDQG GHDWK´WKLV experience, coupled with an acknowledgment that other live bodies (with whom I am semiotically acquainted via similarity of physiognomy and comportment) are also physically exposed and existentially vulnerable, can carry self-regard into concern for others (2008: 299). To be clear, Sheets-Johnstone (2008: 298) insists that a temporally expansive consciousness of bodily vulnerability is XQLTXHO\ KXPDQ RWKHU DQLPDOV¶ VHQVLWLYLWLHV LQ this respect being limited to here-now contexts (just as nonhumans may seek in the moment to escape potentially lethal circumstances but not yet have a mentally anguished, dreadful prospect of their entire lives being subject to temporal finitude or mortality). However, I would say that such a delimitation is relevant only to attribution of moral agency, not to defining the boundary of moral patients as a class of its own ± which may well extend considerably past the set of our conspecifics; and Sheets-Johnstone herself would appear to admit as much when she alludes to animate sympathy developing into a sensibility of ³FRPPRQFUHDWXUHKRRG´EH\RQGKXPDQLW\DVVXFK  19 That semiotics could have ethical import is not an unprecedented proposition. Jonathan Beever is working on a doctoral dissertation (in philosophy at Purdue University in the United States), the theme of which is to draw out implications of the Peircean approach for animal ethics (2013). Dario Martinelli, in his overview of the field, claims that zoosemiotics has a latent moral agenda on behalf of animal welfare or protectionism (2010, chapter 5). Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio inflate semioethical regard to the scope of biosphere and EH\RQG ³:H EHOLHYH WKDW VHPLRHWKLFV LV WKH ZLGHVt perspective possible that human beings may now reach in their role as semiotic animals and, therefore, as cosmically UHVSRQVLEOHDJHQWV´  The reason for this is rooted in human nature ± according to Petrilli   ³7KH FDSDFLW\ WR µDQVZHU IRU¶ WR µDFFRXQW IRU¶ VWUXFWXUDO WR KXPDQEHLQJVLPSOLHVUHVSRQVLELOLW\IRUOLIHRQHDUWKLQLWVJOREDOLW\´ Yet somewhat curiously, though this theorist thinks that semioethics is influenced by biosemiotics and bioethics, she nonetheless yokes the 19

/LNHZLVHVKHZULWHV³6HQVH-makings that build on this foundation [of intercorporeal comsigns and analogical apperception] have the possibility of opening upon everdeepening understandings of the vast world of Nature and awakening the attitudinal DIIHFWRIFDULQJ´Sheets-Johnstone 2008: 299).

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semioetKLFDO SURMHFW WR D K\SHUEROLF KXPDQLVP ZKHUHLQ ³WKH ZKROH SODQHW¶V GHVWLQ\ LQ WKH ODVW DQDO\VLV LV LPSOLHG LQ WKH FKRLFHV DQG EHKDYLRURIKXPDQEHLQJV´ ,WLVDVLI3HWULOOLDQG0DUWLQHOOLDV well) are so impressed by the anthropogenesis of semioethics that they risk sliding back into anthropocentrism ± hence their predilections toward a kind of stewardship ethos. My approach diverges from this thrust, inasmuch as I wish to highlight the ethico-political aspect of solidarity with other creatures ± we are not so much their caretakers as their partners in the terrestrial drama of semiotic evolution. 20 6. Extensions and implications It remains to be seen how the horizon of common creatureliness grows beyond the rather limited set of just those beings ZLWK ZKRP ,¶YH actually had semio-somatic congress. Here there is a role for imaginative cognition and reasoning: having had the experiences discussed above, I can then think through a process of argumentation by which I realise that there are indefinitely many similarly constituted entities with whom I and others could come into like relations. This activity itself should not be allowed to devolve into fanciful abstraction, and so it is best conducted with a grounding in the kind of participatory observation practiced by trans-species researchers in the OLQH RI -DNRE YRQ 8H[NOO D PHWKRG ZKLFK DWWHPSWV ³UHFRQVWUXFWLRQ of the Umwelt of another living being [via] the ratification of the decoding processes in its behavior after the enumeration of the signs the living being is capable of receiving, as well as the code by means of ZKLFKLWLQWHUSUHWVWK>RV@HVLJQV´7KXUH8H[NOO  21 It is important to understand that neither Umwelt analysis, nor the ethical reasoning based upon it, ever stray far from bodily experience. This is because sensorimotor sensations are linked to abstract cogitation via image schemas that allow for cross-modal perceptions to function as conduits for intellection. Johnson defines image VFKHPDV DV ³G\QDPLF UHFXUULQJ SDWWHUQ>V@ of organismȂenvironment LQWHUDFWLRQV´ WKDW V\QWKHVLVH ³WKH PRVW IXQGDPHQWDO VWUXFWXUHV RI 20

7KLVGLIIHUHQFHPD\EHGXHWRWKHRWKHUVHPLRHWKLFLVWV¶IRFXVRQPRUDODJHQF\LQ contrast to my own emphasis on receptivity to the moral patient as such. 21 For updated methodology and applications, see Kull and Torop (2003) and Witzany (2005).

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perception, object manipulation, and bodily movement, given that human bodies share several quite specific sensorimotor capacities that are keyed to the size and constitution of our bodies and to the common FKDUDFWHULVWLFV RI WKH YDULRXV HQYLURQPHQWV ZH LQKDELW´  ± 137). As I see it, at least two such schemata are salient to the development of morality: the CONTAINER schema, which is based on our handling and management of tangible holders; and the CENTRE±3(5,3+(5«@but also in our subjection to and constitution in the materiality and technicity of a language that is always on the scene before we are, as a precondition of our subjectivity´LWDOLFVDGGHG ± R.A.). 27 As Wolfe notes of our finitude vis-à-vis conventions of PHDQLQJ³WKLVSDVVLYLW\DQG subjection are shared by humans and nonhumans the moment they begin to interact DQGFRPPXQLFDWHE\PHDQVRIDQ\VHPLRWLFV\VWHP´ 

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The two-tiered bridge between ontology and morality is built of epistemology and axiology, and it spans a sea of scepticism about animal representations: can we really portray animal beings and their interests with enough cognitive confidence to validate the ethical and political positions we may take up in respect of them? It seems to me that a responsible answer to this kind of query must avoid both the complacency of naively realistic scientism and the cynicism of hyperironic constructivism. I have addressed this issue at length elsewhere, and so I will repeat only my provisional conclusion in the present context: Obviously and unavoidably, our representations of other organisms are socially constructed ± yet, recognition of that does commit us automatically to believing animals themselves (or any natural entities) are created by us. One cannot, of course, express anything about the bare world of nature without dressing it up in linguistic or artistic clothing; nonetheless, the postulate that another reality ± besides myself or us ± is a subject and party to (not merely an object in or construction of) my/our discourse and deeds is more plausible than the idea that ,ZH PDNH WKH ZRUOG HQWLUHO\ RXW RI ZRUGV DQGRU DFWLRQV >«@ ³WUDQVOXFHQW´ mediation of cognition [can] represent nature sufficiently well for us to arrive at value-laden yet non-arbitrary views of animals as they are ± QRW³LQWKHPVHOYHV´ but in relation to their human, organic, and geographic environments. (Acampora 2001: 302)28

Indeed, the rigorously representational contributions found in this very volume may be read as exemplary efforts or object lessons in just that kind of enterprise. Finally, and to end now on an ethical note explicitly yet unabashedly normative, the point should be emphasised that the intellectual process by which the class of moral patients is enlarged does not have to be mutual to secure its status; this is very important to recognise, because insisting otherwise would leave us, in the words RIDQRWKHUPRUDOSKLORVRSKHUZLWK³DIRFXVRQPRUDODJHQWVWKDWLVDW best unwarranted, as it blurs the distinction between the possibility of morality and the object of morality, and at worst sinister, as it sanctions, via the ideas of reciprocity and contract, lesser protection for the ZHDN´&DYDOLHUL ± which is to say, that a semio-generative 28

Cf. Rothfels (2002). For further philosophic details of ontology/epistemology, see Acampora (2008).

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creature is still somebody who counts ethically even if not possessed of intelligence sufficient to enact moral agency. There is a crucial respect in which any body that enacts signification is alive, because the dialogic play of semiosis is a (perhaps even the) structural dynamic that animates an otherwise inert object; consequently, it makes sense ± literally and figuratively ± to converse with suchlike ERGLHVDVIHOORZµSHUVRQDOLWLHV¶who matter morally. The author would like to express gratitude and appreciation for helpful and patient guidance from his editors, especially Morten Tønnessen.

Bibliography $FDPSRUD5DOSK5µ5HSUHVHQWDWLRQ&XEHG5HYLHZLQJ5HIOHFWLRQVRQ$QLPDO ,PDJHU\¶LQSociety & Animals 9(3): 299±307. ². 2006. Corporal Compassion: Animal Ethics and Philosophy of Body. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ²  µ$QLPDO &RQVWUXFWV DQG 1DWXUDO 5HDOLW\¶ LQ Humana Mente 7. Online at: www.humanamente.eu/Issues/Issue7.html (consulted 14.09.2011). %HHYHU -RQDWKDQ IRUWKFRPLQJ  µ=RRVHPLRWLFV DQG %ULGJLQJ WKH 9DOXH *DS¶ 7R appear in Semiotica (Special issue on zoosemiotics). Buchanan, Brett. 2008. Onto-Ethologies: The Animal Environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze. Albany: SUNY Press. Cavalieri, Paula. 2009. The Death of the Animal: A Dialogue. New York: Columbia University Press. &KDQGOHU'DQLHOµ6HPLRWLFVIRU%HJLQQHUV¶2QOLQHDW http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem-gloss.html (consulted 14.09.2011). DeGrazia, David. 1996. Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (PPHFKH &ODXV  µ$ %LRVHPLRWLF 1RWH RQ 2UJDQLVPV $QLPDOV 0DFKLQHV Cyborgs, and the Quasi-$XWRQRP\RI5RERWV¶LQPragmatics & Cognition 15(3): 455±483. Gauthier, David. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hoffmeyer, Jesper. 2008.[2005 in Danish] Biosemiotics: An Examionation into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs (tr.J. Hoffmeyer, D. Favareau, ed. D. Favareau). Scranton: University of Scranton Press. ². 2010. Lecture given at International Seminar on Social and Ecological Ontology (Pieve Tesino, Italy, July 9, 2010). Johnson, Lawrence. 1991. A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance and Environmental Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, Mark. 2007. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Jonas, Hans. 1966. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. New York, NY: Harper & Row. .XOO.DOHYLµ2Q6HPLRVLVUmweltDQG6HPLRVSKHUH¶LQSemiotica 120(3/4): 299±310. Online at: http://www.zbi.ee/~kalevi/jesphohp.htm (consulted 29.09.2011). ²µAn Introduction to Phytosemiotics: Semiotic Botany and Vegetative Sign 6\VWHPV¶LQSign Systems Studies 28: 326±350. .XOO.DOHYLDQG3HHWHU7RURSµ%LRWUDQVODWLRQ7UDQVODWLRQEHtween Umwelten¶ in Petrilli, Susan (ed.) Translation Translation. Amsterdam: Rodopi: 313±328. Llewelyn, John. 1991. The Middle Voice of Ecological Conscience. London: Palgrave-Macmillan. Mackie, John Leslie. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Viking Press. 0DUGHU 0LFKDHO  µ3ODQW-6RXO 7KH (OXVLYH 0HDQLQJV RI 9HJHWDWLYH /LIH¶ LQ Environmental Philosophy 8(1): 83±99. Martinelli, Dario. 2010. A Critical Companion to Zoosemiotics. People, Paths, Ideas (Biosemiotics 5). Dordrecht: Springer. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception (tr. C. Smith). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ². 1968. Resumes de cours, College de France, 1952±1960. Paris: Gallimard. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1989. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (tr. W. Kaufmann). New York: Vintage. 3HWULOOL6XVDQµThe Responsibility of Power and the Power of Responsibility: FroP WKH µ6HPLRWLF¶ WR WKH µ6HPLRHWKLF¶ $QLPDO¶ 2QOLQH DW ZZZVXVDQpetrilli.com (consulted 15.05.2011). 3HWULOOL 6XVDQ DQG $XJXVWR 3RQ]LR  µ%RGLHV 6LJQV DQG 9DOXHV LQ *OREDl &RPPXQLFDWLRQ¶LQ3HWULOOL6XVDQ (ed.) Approaches to Communication: Trends in Global Communication Studies. Madison: Atwood Publishing. Regan, Tom. 1983. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rothfels, Nigel (ed.). 2002. Representing Animals. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. San Martin, Javier and María Luz Pintos-Penaranda.  µ$QLPDO /LIH DQG 3KHQRPHQRORJ\¶ LQ Crowell, Steven, Lester Embree and Samuel J. Julian (eds) The Reach of Reflection. Online at: www.electronpress.com (consulted 15.05.2011). Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 2008. The Roots of Morality. University Park: Penn State University Press. Singer, Peter. 2011. The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Steiner, Gary. 2008. Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status, and Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press. 7DERUVN\ (GZLQD µ7HUPLQRORJ\¶ LQ SEE: Semiosis, Evolution, Energy. Online at: www.library.utoronto.ca/see/pages/semiosisdef.html (consulted 20.09.2011). Tompkins, Peter and Christopher Bird. 1973. The Secret Life of Plants. New York: Harper & Row. 8H[NOO-DNREYRQ>@µ7KH7KHRU\RI0HDQLQJ¶LQ Semiotica 42(1): 25± 82.

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Uexküll, Thure von. µ0HDQLQJDQG6FLHQFHLQ-DNREYRQ8H[NOO¶V&RQFHSWRI %LRORJ\¶LQWURGXFWLRQWRVSHFLDOLVVue of Semiotica 42(1): 1±24. Witzany, Günther. 2005. µ)URP %LRVSKHUH WR 6HPLRVSKHUH WR 6RFLDO /LIHZRUOGV¶ LQ Triple C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation 1(1): 51±70. Wolfe, Cary. 2010. What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Film Wenders, Wim. 1987. Wings of Desire. Berlin and Paris: Filmproduktion and Argos.

List of contributors Ralph R. Acampora is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hofstra University, College of Liberal Arts & Science. He is the author of Corporal Compassion: Animal Ethics and Philosophy of Body (2006), editor of Metamorphoses of the Zoo: Animal Encounter After Noah (2010), and co-editor of A Nietzschean Bestiary (2003). He is a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, associate editor for Humanimalia, and review editor for Society and Animals. Larissa Budde is a graduate student at the University of Siegen. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis, which examines the representation and function of trans-species hybrids in popular culture. Her research interests are the various forms of animal representation, especially in fantastic literature, as well as ecofeminism, ecophenomenology, environmental writing, and deep ecology. W. John Coletta is Professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, USA. He has been President of the Semiotic Society of America (2010) and a System Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2010±2011). He publishes on the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, on topics in bio- and ecosemiotics, postmodern ecology, and ecocriticism. Adam Dodd took his PhD in Media and Culture at the School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland, in 2009. From 2010 to 2012 he was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo. His research interests are focused on the role that visioning technologies and representational conventions have played in developing conceptions of insects from the early modern period onward. He is the author of Beetle (Reaktion, forthcoming) and numerous articles on insects and culture. Maki Eguchi is currently part of the Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan. The title of her master thesis defended in 2011 is 5HSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI ³6WUD\ 6KHHS´LQ0RGHUQ-DSDQHVH/LWHUDWXUH. During the academic year of 2012±2013 she was teaching Japanese at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in the USA, supported by the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program. Graham Huggan is Professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures in the School of English at the University of Leeds. His recent publications include Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (co-written with Helen Tiffin, 2010), Extreme Pursuits: Travel/Writing in an Age of Globalization (2009), and a collection of essays, Racism, Postcolonialism, Europe (co-edited with Ian Law, 2009). Huggan is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies (estimated publication date 2013), a founding co-editor of the book series µ3RVWFRORQLDOLVP DFURVV WKH 'LVFLSOLQHV¶ DQG D PHPEHU RI WKH HGLWRULDO ERDUG RI numerous journals in the postcolonial field. Huggan is a member of the English

364

List of contributors

Association (UK) and the MLA (USA). His research spans the entire field of comparative postcolonial literary/cultural studies, but also in the areas of travel writing, ecocriticism, short fiction, and film. Taija Kaarlenkaski received her PhD in Folklore Folklore Studies at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu campus, in 2012. In her doctoral dissertation, she investigated the construction of human±animal relationships in the material gathered by a public writing competition. Her research interests include cultural relationships between human beings and cows, gendered human±animal relations, writing competition materials, and narrative research. Christos Lynteris is a social anthropologist. He received his PhD from the University of St. Andrews for research on epidemics and epidemiology in modern China. He is currently a Mellon/Newton Interdisciplinary Research Fellow at the University of &DPEULGJH¶V&5$66+UHVHDUFKLQJWKHVRFLDOHFRORJ\RISQHXPRQLFSODJXHLQ,QQHU Asia. His book The Spirit of Selflessness in Maoist China: Socialist Medicine and the New Man was published in the autumn of 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan. Sandra Mänty is a post-graduate student in literature at the University of Oulu, Finland, and a degree student of Semiotics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She graduated in literature, German philology, Scandinavian studies, and Northern FXOWXUHVDQGVRFLHWLHV6KHVWDUWHGKHUVWXGLHVLQFKLOGUHQ¶VOLWHUDWXUHDQG6FDQGLQDYLDQ studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Her research focuses on chilGUHQ¶VDQGIDQWDV\OLWHUDWXUHDQGP\WKVZLWKDVSHFLDOLQWHUHVW in animals and mythological creatures. She is a member of the Finnish Semiotics Society and the Society for Social and Cultural Animal Studies in Finland. David Rothenberg is professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is the author of Why Birds Sing (2005; also published in Italy, Spain, Taiwan, Korea, China and Germany and turned into a feature length BBC TV documentary), +DQG¶V (QG 7HFKQRORJ\ DQG WKH Oimits of nature (1995), Sudden Music: Improvisation, Sound, Nature (1999), and Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound (2008). His latest book is on the evolution of beauty, and how art and science can be better intertwined, Survival of the Beautiful (2011). Rothenberg is also a composer and a jazz clarinetist. Morten Tønnessen is associate professor at the University of Stavanger, Department of Health Studies. He defended his PhD in semiotics at the University of Tartu in 2011, with a dissertation titled Umwelt Transition and Uexküllian Phenomenology: An Ecosemiotic Analysis of Norwegian Wolf Management. His research interests include biosemiotics and zoosemiotics, deep ecology (as developed by Arne Næss), ecophilosophy and environmental ethics, and human±animal studies. He is a CoEditor-in-Chief of the academic journal Biosemiotics, serves as the secretary of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies, and is the chair of Minding Animals Norway.

List of contributors

365

Kadri Tüür is a doctoral student in the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, her doctoral thesis is Estonian Nature Writing: Theoretical Perspectives and History. She has co-edited two volumes on Estonian culture of nature, Tekst ja loodus (Text and nature, 2000) and Eesti looduskultuur (Estonian culture of nature, 2005) with Timo Maran, and participated in editing several volumes of the publication series Place and Location (2002, 2003, 2004) and in editing the collection Umweltphilosophie und Landschaftsdenken im baltischen Kulturraum/Environmental philosophy and landscape thinking (2011). She has studied literary history and theory at University of Tartu and at University of Turku. She is a member of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment. Louise Westling is Professor Emerita of English and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, USA. She was a founding member of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, serving as its President in 1998. Her books include Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens: The Fiction of Eudora Welty, Carson 0F&XOOHUVDQG)ODQQHU\2¶&RQQRU (1986) and The Green Breast of the New World: Landscape and Gender in American Literature (1998). Her forthcoming book is The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language. Wendy Wheeler is Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Cultural Inquiry at London Metropolitan University. She is the author of A New Modernity: Change in Science, Literature and Politics (1999); The Political Subject: Essays on the Self from Art, Politics and Science (2001); and The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture (2006). She has edited the book Biosemiotics: Nature/Culture/Science/Semiosis (2011). Wheeler is on the editorial board of the journals of New Formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics and Green Letters. She is a member of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA-USA), and of the British Society for Literature and Science. Her new monograph, Matter, Mind and the Carrying: Thinking Culture with Biosemiotics, will be published in 2013.

Index Abduction 291, 301, 304, 308, 334 Abject (see also Sublime ± the) 24, 125±126, 130±131, 135, 149±150, 153±155, 333 Abram, David 10, 125±126, 142±147, 152, 156, 313±314, 325 Acampora, Ralph R. 10, 26, 102, 194, 204, 258, 267, 363 Adaptation 42, 50, 77, 159, 171, 176± 177, 179, 246, 266 Aesthetics (see also Beauty) 58, 163, 168, 171, 296, 321 ² avian 53±73 Agency 9, 19, 145, 194±195, 278± 279, 330, 337, 344±345 ² moral 344±346, 355±356, 360 Agriculture ² in Finland 192±193 ² in Japan 231 ² monoculture 182 Aho, Juhani 267±269, 271, 276±277, 280±281 Alien Empire (nature documentary series) 116±117, 123 Alien (extra-terrestrial) species ± see Species Aliens (film series) 24, 125±156 Angling (see also Fishing) 263±270, 280±284 µ$QLPD¶VHHDOVR6RXO  Animal communication ± see Communication Animal husbandry (see also Herding) 10, 192, 197±198, 200, 202, 209± 210, 221 Animal representation ± see Representation ± animal Animal 7±8, 10±11, 18, 239, 245±246 ² domesticated (see also Breeding, Domestication) 37, 201 ² fantasic 239, 249±257 ² prey 33, 35, 47

Animality 10, 99, 208, 296, 353 Anthropocentrism 117, 131, 218, 246, 349, 356 Anthropology 24, 75±92, 177 ² of ignorance 24, 76, 88±91 Anthropomorphism 45, 85, 110, 113± 114, 116, 163, 204, 208, 256, 297, 300, 332 Ant 112, 136±138, 173, 299±300, 304, 308 Aristotle 9, 294 Art 25, 163, 291±298, 306 Artwork 294±297 Attenborough, David 24, 159±185 ² Life on Earth 159±169 Authority (in herding dog training) 48±49 Avatar 313, 316, 323, 334±335 Barad, Karen 194±195 Bateson, Gregory 293, 297, 308, 311 BBC (see also Attenborough, Nature documentary) 116, 123, 159±161, 167, 183, 185 ² Natural History Unit 161±162, 166±167 Bear, Greg 313±314, 332, 338 ² 'DUZLQ¶V5DGLR319, 334, 337± 338 Bee (see also Hive) 103, 112, 137, 145, 151 Beast (see also Bestiary) 149±150, 249, 320 Beauty (see also Aesthetics) 59±60, 62±63, 72, 153, 172±173, 364 Beckett, Samuel 295, 309 Beever, Jonathan 26, 355 Bestiary 249±250 The Bible 225±226, 254 Biology (see also Biosemiotics, Conservation, Ecology, Ecosemiotics, Ecosystem, Entomology, Ethology,

368 Ichthyology, Zoology, Zoosemiotics) 9, 19, 53, 62, 64± 65, 72, 99, 117, 177, 180, 229, 263, 269±273, 347 ² evolutionary biology 23, 293, 333 ² sociobiology 9, 169, 177±182 Biosemiotics (see also Ecosemiotics, Zoosemiotics) 8±9, 17, 19±23, 27, 72, 297, 343, 352, 355, 358, 364± 365 Bird 23, 41, 53, 76, 86, 161, 173, 230, 246, 277, 296, 302, 310±311, 350 ² bird song 53±73 ² nightingale 59±62, 65±72 ² veery 55±60 ² warbler 59, 63±64 Bodily (i.e. somatic) semiosis ± see Semiosis Body language 37, 40, 44, 46, 48, 206, 242 Borges, Jorge Luis 249±250 Boundary (human/animal, self/other, species) 132±133, 155, 179, 327 Breeding (see also Animal ± domesticated) 36±37, 45, 220, 232 Budde, Larissa 24, 116, 256, 277, 314, 321, 363 Buffon, Georges 104, 165 Burke, Edmund 153, 172±173 Butler, Octavia 313±314, 329±332, 337±338 Byatt, A.S. 291±311 ² Angels and Insects 291, 298±309 Capitalism (see also Economic growth, Industrialisation) 182, 184, 217, 228, 328 Captivity 137, 160, 278 Cattle (see also Cow) 47, 191±211, 278 China (see also Manchuria) 75±92, 220±221, 233, 364 Chomsky, Noam 321, 329 Civilisation 84, 89±90, 126, 149 Code ± see Sign types

Coletta, W. John 20, 26, 363 Colonialism (see also Imperialism) 23, 25, 78, 90, 174±175, 184, 218, 229, 233±235 ² self-colonisation 228 Command 38±39, 41±42, 44, 46±50, 254 Communication 8, 11±12, 15, 17, 19± 22 ² animal 8, 20±21, 53, 279 ² auditory 37 ² cyclical model of 264, 279 ² gestural 34±35, 39±40, 43 ² interorganismic 14, 348 ² interspecies 20±21, 54, 151, 195, 198±199, 202, 207, 263±264, 274, 279, 283±284 ² intraorganismic 13 ² musical 53, 68, 151 ² non-verbal 265 ² symbolic 269 ² telepathic 127, 131, 150±151, 191, 205 ² vs. representation and signification 11±12, 15, 17 Complexity theory 7 Consciousness 298, 308, 321±322, 324, 332, 345, 355 Conservation (see also Ethics) 27, 159, 165±166, 171, 178, 181±182, 184±185, 325 Cooperation (human±animal) 24, 33± 35, 42, 44, 48, 50, 201 Cow (see also Cattle) 24, 35, 191± 211, 229 ² milking 202±205 Cronenberg, David 135, 138 ² The Fly (film) 125, 135, 138 Csányi, Vilmos 35±39, 47 Cue ± see Sign types Darwin, Charles (see also Bear) 13, 58, 60, 65, 72, 164±165, 169±170, 172, 175, 179, 184, 249, 299 Darwinism (see also Social Darwinism, Sublime) 177±178

369 Death (see also Killing) 8, 80, 82, 87, 130, 133, 148, 150, 154, 170, 254, 282±283, 306±307, 355 Deep ecology 325, 337, 338, 363, 364 Deleuze, Gilles 44, 313±314, 319± 320, 325 Derrida, Jacques 50, 179, 280, 321, 326, 329 Dilley, Roy 76, 88±89, 92 Disease (see also Plague) 75, 129, 144, 154, 205, 220, 348, 355 Documentary film 116, 162, 164 ² nature documentary 116, 159±185 Dodd, Adam 24, 129±130, 134, 267, 333, 363 Dog 23, 33±50, 79, 84, 86, 200, 257 ² training of herding dogs 33, 35, 43±50 Domestication (see also Animal ± domesticated) 35±38, 217 Drury, Dru 97, 104±105 Earth 24, 128, 159±185, 273 ² Mother Earth 149±151 Eating (see also Food, Hunger, Prey) 24, 41, 82, 135, 235 Ecocriticism 7, 25, 28, 263±266, 279, 285, 363±364 Ecofeminism 24, 28, 363 Ecological semiosis ± see Semiosis Ecology (see also Biology, Ecosemiotics) 15±16, 21, 22±28, 77, 145, 163±182, 271, 282, 284, 294, 296, 308, 314, 321, 324, 354 Ecological niche 37, 58, 333 Economic growth (see also Capitalism) 217±235 Economy, economics 9, 91, 217±35, 269, 293, 322, 325, 328 Ecophobia 125, 129, 130 Ecosemiotics (see also Biosemiotics, Zoosemiotics) 8, 17, 19, 22, 27, 263±264 Ecosystem (see also Biology) 8, 15, 76, 125±126, 133, 142±144, 147, 155

Education 28, 97±98, 162±167, 191± 192, 226, 240 Eerme, Karl 267±268, 270±271 Eguchi, Maki 25, 363 Embodiment 89±90, 134, 139, 167, 172, 193±195, 205, 210, 293, 315, 331, 348, 352±354 Entomology (see also Biology, Zoology) 97±117, 129±130, 145, 177 Environmental ethics ± see Ethics Epidemiology 79, 364 Epistemology 19, 24, 88, 99, 100, 102, 110, 296, 332, 359 Estonia 7, 64, 267, 269±271 Ethics (see also Agency ± moral, Morality, Semioethics) 19, 26, 28, 115, 138, 149, 316, 351, 358, 363 ² animal 102, 343±360 ² biosemiotic 13, 26 ² conservationist (see also Conservation) 160 ² environmental 28,173, 178, 181 ² evolutionary 335 ² feminist 205±206 ² interspecies 351 ² of performance 164 Ethnography 79, 162, 175±176 Ethology (see also Biology, Zoology) 9, 20±22, 28, 33±50, 177±178, 343 ² cognitive 20 Evolution (see also Darwinism, Sexual selection) 13, 19, 23, 25, 36±38, 58±62, 132, 169±183, 265, 266, 293, 296±297, 299, 301, 308±309, 319±321, 325, 328±329, 333±338, 353, 358 ² co-evolution 23, 34, 38±42, 199, 321 ² evolutionary epic 159±185 ² evolutionary psychology 313, 325, 327 ² semiotic evolution 356 Expeditions 77, 128, 165, 167, 299

370 Fabre, Jean-Henri 115±116 Fantasy literature 25, 239, 242±244, 249, 364 Farming 24, 35, 112, 220±221, 232 ² dairy farming 191±211 Farrar, Reginald 80, 84±87 Fear 42±43, 75, 87, 117, 129, 138± 140, 145, 153±154, 173, 203, 304 Feedback (see also µUmwelt¶) 281± 283, 326 Feminist theory (see also Ecofeminism) 137, 205, 343 Fielding, Henry 226±227 ² The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (novel) 225±228 Film ± see Aliens, Cronenberg, Documentary film, Rowling Finland (see also Agriculture) 65, 191±211, 364 ² Finnish Literature Society 191 ² Union of Rural Education and Culture (Finnish) 191±192 Fish (see also Ichthyology) 8, 25, 43, 106, 263±285, 321 ² fish-and-stream literature 266 ² literary representation of 263±285 ² salmon 267, 271, 280±281 ² trout 267, 270±271, 278, 282 Fishing (see also Angling) 263±285 ² bait fishing 270 ² coarse fishing 270 ² fly-fishing 270±271, 276 Flight zone 42±48 Fly 135, 138 Folklore 84, 103, 191, 196, 198, 272, 278 Food (see also Eating, Prey) 33, 35, 39, 41, 45, 50, 128, 131, 133±135, 205, 270, 280, 291, 330 Functional cycle (see also Feedback, µUmwelt¶) 326 Fur 81±83, 89, 247 Gaze 46, 172, 204±205, 280

Gender 126, 132±133, 144, 148, 150± 156, 191, 193, 197±198, 205±207, 332, 364 Gestures 33±43, 191±201, 309, 320, 351, 353 Grandville, J.J. (Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gerard) 109±110, 121 Grasshopper-locust (see also Locust) 313, 323±324 Guattari, Felix 44, 313, 319±320, 325 Haraway, Donna 33±38, 50, 179, 195, 199, 201±202 Harry Potter ± see Rowling Health ± see Plague Hearne, Vicki 33, 35, 38, 43±44 Heath, William 110, 120 ² Monster Soup Commonly Called Thames Water 110, 120 Hediger, Heini 35±36, 42, 46 Hemingway, Ernest 268, 272 Herding 23, 33±50 Hibernation 76, 86, 136, 142, 144, 146 Hive 125±156, 294, 297, 304 ² bee±hive 145 ² hive-mind 131, 133, 145, 149± 152, 294 ² hiveship 141±149, 154 ² meta-hive 125, 144±147, 156 Hoffmeyer, Jesper 18, 313, 318±319, 323, 326, 333, 343, 345, 352 Hollingsworth, Christopher 134, 136, 139, 141±146 Huggan, Graham 24, 116, 267, 363 Hughes, Ted 268, 280 Human 9±10 ² human vs. nonhuman 97, 126, 148, 152±156, 175, 181, 194±195, 239±259, 278, 298, 346 ² more-than-human 9, 26, 126, 142, 150, 176, 318 ² other-than-human 125±126, 150, 242±243, 343

371 Human±animal studies 9, 10, 21, 27± 28 Humanities, the 20, 27±28, 298 Humanity 20, 60, 99, 114, 126±127, 137, 142, 156, 168, 176, 225, 243, 322, 330, 355 Hunger (see also Eating) 125±156, 351 Hunting 34±37, 50, 75±92, 146, 176 Husbandry ± see Animal husbandry Hybridity 126, 132, 135, 149, 155, 314, 321, 324, 333 Ichthyology (see also Biology, Ethology, Fish) 271, 280, 285 Icon ± see Sign types Imperialism (see also Colonialism) 78, 82, 89±90, 116, 165±166, 182, 229 Index ± see Sign types Individuality 102, 129, 145, 150, 206, 209, 324 Industrialisation (see also Capitalism) 27, 91, 192, 209±210, 231±232, 266, 270 Insect (see also Ant, Bee, Byatt, Locust) 97±117, 125±156, 291, 294, 299, 304, 310, 322±323, 332±333 ² insectoid alien 125±156 ² insect world 97±117 ² social insects 294, 299 Instinct 43±44, 46±47, 49±50, 68, 107, 114±115, 246, 304±305, 324, 351 Interdisciplinarity 21, 26 Interpretant (see also Sign types, Semiotics) 13, 274±275, 292±293, 318±319, 323±324, 327, 329±330, 345 Japan (see also Agriculture, Colonialism, Meiji era, War, Westernisation) 25, 80±82, 90, 98, 217±236 Japanese literature 217±236

Johnson, Mark 41, 345±346, 354, 356±357 Kaarlenkaski, Taija 24, 35, 364 Kafka, Franz 143 ² Metamorphosis 143 Killing (see also Death) 33±34, 47, 149, 272 Kirby, William 105±107, 112 Kull, Kalevi 19±20, 22, 347±348 Labour 89±90, 159, 180, 193, 197, 206 Language (see also Command, Speech) 19±21, 39±41, 43, 191, 208, 248, 255, 274, 291, 301, 318, 321 Leisure 222, 232, 269, 270 Levi-Strauss, Claude 90 Lien-teh, Wu 81±87, 89 Lifeworld 10±11, 17, 102, 113±115, 352, 354 Linguistics 21, 353 Literature ± see English literature, Fantasy literature, Japanese literature Livestock 22, 45, 47, 220±222, 232 Locust (see also Grasshopper-locust) 139±140, 313, 317±319, 322±324, 333±334 Lotman, Juri 14, 242 Lynteris, Christos 23±25, 35, 364 Macherey, Pierre 291, 295 Magic world ± see World ± magic Mammals 33, 77, 176, 194, 267, 294, 350 Manchuria (see also China) 75±92, 217±236 Maran, Timo 20±22, 26, 264, 273, 279±282, 327±328 Marmot 16, 23, 35, 75±92 Martinelli, Dario 8, 12±13, 20±22, 25, 67, 204, 239, 242, 245±248, 251± 253, 255, 257±258, 274, 355±356 Masculinity 138, 150±153 ² rural masculinity 206

372 Meaning, meaning generation 13 Media 11, 24, 98, 125±126, 156, 159± 185, 196, 274, 320, 337 Meiji era (see also Japan) 217±236 Melody 53±73 ² amplitude 68±70 ² pitch 61, 66, 68 ² sonogram 54, 57±58 ² timbre 54, 66 ² tone 61, 66, 200, 206 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 33, 35, 40± 41, 142±144, 194, 352, 354 Metaphor (see also Trope, World ± insect) 97, 106±107, 113, 116, 125, 137, 143±144, 170±171, 175, 181, 231, 235, 250, 280, 291±311, 335, 354±358 Method 19, 53, 55, 72±73, 116, 197, 263, 300, 356 Methodology 7±9, 15, 23, 177, 350, 356 Microscopy 97, 105, 107, 117 Migration 33±36, 63, 173 Modernisation 25, 91±92, 217±236 Mongolia 79, 82±87, 92, 233 Moral standing 26, 343±350, 357 Moral worth 201, 357 Morality (see also Ethics) 136, 243, 247, 343±344, 350, 354±360 Morris, Charles 273, 279, 283 Motherhood 137, 141, 150 Movement 33±50, 141, 173, 174, 191, 200, 206, 265, 277, 281, 291, 295, 322, 352±353, 357 Murakami Haruki 217±218, 229±236 ² A wild sheep chase 217±218, 229± 236 Music 53±73 ² improvisation 54±55 ² musical analysis (see also Notation, graphic) 53, 71 ² musicality 53, 58, 67, 72 Musset de, Paul 109±110, 121 ² Sufferings of a Click Beetle 109, 121

Mänty, Sandra 25, 364 Næss, Arne 27±28, 364 Name ± see Sign types 1DWVXPH6ǀVHNL217±218, 222±230, 235±236 ² 6DQVKLUǀ 217±218, 222±231, 235± 236 Natural history (see also Attenborough and BBC, Natural History Unit) 24, 77, 97, 104, 107, 113, 159±185, 263, 296, 300, 322 Natural sciences 21, 27±28, 164, 204 Nature documentary ± see Documentary film Nature writing 10, 22, 24, 263±285 Nietzsche, Friedrich 294±297, 308, 350, 363 Notation, graphic 54±57 Nöth, Winfried 23, 314, 326 Object ² dynamic 317±319, 323 ² immediate 319, 323±324 ² semiotic 13, 274±275, 313±338 Occultism 102±103, 108, 130, 332 Ontology 13, 19, 316, 333, 337, 343± 344, 347, 353, 358±359 Organism 8, 13±16, 125±126, 129, 133±135, 138±139, 142±147, 150, 154, 156, 294±297, 335±338, 345±348, 352, 354, 356±359 2¶7RROH&KULVWRSKHU117, 123 Pain 265, 272, 281, 304, 315, 348, 355 Parasite 76, 129, 131, 139, 220, 348 Parasitoid 129±130, 134, 138 Parsons, Christopher 161, 164 Peirce, Charles Sanders 14±15, 274± 275, 291±293, 301, 304, 313±314, 318, 321±322, 324, 326±332, 335, 345, 355 Perception (see also Semiosis, perceptual, µUmwelt¶) 13±17, 100, 114, 144, 248, 264±265, 274, 331, 357

373 Personhood 126, 150 Petrilli, Susan 355±356 Phenomenology (see also Abram, Merleau-Ponty) 7, 24, 125, 142± 145, 150, 292, 346, 351±356 Philosophy (see also Ethics) 19, 100, 194, 295, 299, 343, 350, 353 ² natural 100, 299 Physics 62, 184, 305 Plague, the Great Manchurian 23±24, 35, 75±92 Politics 9, 28 ² conservationist politics 171 ² identity politics 327, 331, 333 ² insect politics 138 Pope, Alexander 227 ² Pastorals 227 Popular culture 7±8, 103, 125±126, 171, 259 Popular discourse 97, 101, 108 Pragmatics, pragmatism 100, 279± 280, 324, 328, 354 Predation, predator 35±36, 42, 46±47, 50, 61, 90±92, 125±156, 247, 271, 281, 284, 321 Prey (see also Eating, Food) 33, 35± 36, 47, 50, 76, 84, 87, 91, 125± 156, 247, 265, 284, 321 Production animal 207, 210 ² wool production 219±220, 229 Propp, Vladimir 25, 247, 254 Psychology 135, 152, 155, 309, 316, 353 ² evolutionary 313, 325, 327 Race 88, 90, 132±133, 153, 155, 332 Radde, Gustav 77±78 Rape 131±132, 139, 149 Rationality 350±351 Regan, Tom 349±350 Representamen 274±275, 292, 253, 319, 324, 345 Representation 11±19 ² animal 7±28, 239, 247, 325, 359 ² literary 25, 263, 266

² vs. communication and signification 11±12, 15, 17 Reproduction (see also Sex) 36, 125± 156, 180, 299 Respect (in herding dog training) 48± 49 Rhetoric 24, 28, 98±99, 105, 116± 117, 130, 152, 167, 171, 178, 183, 207, 209, 268 ² entomological 97±117, 129 Roeske, Christina 69±71 Rothenberg, David 23, 25, 364 Rothschild, Friedrich Salomon 19, 29 Rowling, J.K. 239±259 ² Harry Potter (novels) 239±259 ² Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 249, 251± 252, 255, 258 Ruonakoski, Erika 194±195, 200 Science (see also Humanities, Natural sciences, Social sciences) 9, 18, 21, 27, 28, 53, 62, 64, 65±73, 77, 84, 97, 103, 109, 111, 160±161, 169±172, 180, 183±184, 204, 292, 294, 298, 303, 305, 343 ² cognitive 343 ² life sciences 9 ² neuroscience 68±69, 353 Science fiction 10, 107, 116±117, 125, 129, 266, 330 Scott, Ridley 156 Sebeok, Thomas A. 8, 19±21, 35, 249, 251, 264±265, 274±275, 279, 327±328 Self 26, 126, 132±135, 138, 141±144, 146, 150, 152, 294, 308, 313±338, 351±352 ² anti-Oedipal 26, 313±338 ² humanimal 26, 313±315 ² semiotic 20, 313±314, 322±338 Selfhood 126, 209 Semantics 279, 284, 344, 354 Semioethics 355±356 Semiosis 7±28, 205, 242, 258, 263, 265, 274±279, 283, 285, 293,

374 308±310, 318±319, 322, 330, 343±360 ² bodily (i.e. somatic) 13±15, 24, 26 ² communicational, representational, significational 11±12, 15, 17 ² ecological 13±15 ² organismic, sub±organismic, super-organismic 13±16 ² perceptual (see also µUmwelt¶) 14± 16 Semiosphere 14, 19, 242±244 Semiotic breakdown 35, 75±76, 91 Semiotics 7, 11±18, 19, 25, 27±28, 235±236, 263±264, 273±275, 355, 357±358 ² of nature (see also Biosemiotics, Ecosemiotics, Zoosemiotics) 17, 19±23 Sender vs receiver 12, 274, 276, 282, 284 Sense (sensation) 13, 150±151, 207, 269, 280, 348, 356 ² auditory, acoustic 37, 40±41, 147, 248, 265, 272±273, 277±278 ² chemoreception 271 ² electroreception 271±272 ² lateral line 271±272, 280 ² olfactory 12, 147, 151, 198, 271, 277±278, 329, 337±338 ² touch 40, 147, 202±203, 210, 232 ² vision 12, 40±41, 62, 69, 110, 114, 116, 144, 147, 151±152, 154±155, 162±164, 172±173, 247±248, 271±272, 277, 280±281, 285, 321±322, 353, 357 Setreng, Sigmund Kvaløy 27±28 Sex (see also Reproduction) 131±133, 149 Sexual selection (see also Evolution) 23, 53, 58±64, 68, 71±72, 338 Sheep (see also Herding, Wool) 8, 16, 25, 33±35, 42±50, 217±236 Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine 352±355 Sign (see also Semiosis, Semiotics, Signal, Sign types) 8, 11±16, 19

Sign types 263±264, 275±279, 285 ² code 54, 60, 284, 301±302, 350, 356 ² cue (see also Sign) 41, 270±271, 283, 326, 333 ² fetish sign 277 ² icon 159, 275±279, 285, 295, 301± 302, 321±322, 332 ² index 112, 164, 275, 277±279, 285, 295, 321 ² name 275, 278 ² symbol 9, 11, 34, 87±90, 100, 106±107, 126, 135, 140, 149, 153, 225, 229, 232±235, 240, 246±247, 269, 273±275, 277±279, 284±285, 295, 309, 314, 321±322, 324, 335, 337±338, 354, 358 ² symptom 80, 82, 87, 275, 277 ² physical signs 85, 87 ² zero sign 275±276 Signal 12, 37, 40±44, 48, 50, 61, 65, 75, 87, 91, 100, 201, 265, 271, 273±276, 279±281, 283±284 Signification 8, 11±12, 15, 17±18, 21, 26, 90, 273±279, 285, 313±314, 329, 331, 345, 358, 360 ² vs communication and representation 11±12, 15, 17 Signified vs signifier 11, 151, 276, 345 Singer, Peter 348, 358 Slaughtering 46, 201, 204, 228 Social Darwinism (see also Darwinism) 88, 90, 313, 315, 325, 327±328, 331 Social sciences 27±28 Song ± see Bird ± bird song Sotavalta, Olavi 65±67, 71 Soul 9, 151, 230, 233, 254, 305, 348 Sound ± see Melody, Music, Sense ± acoustic, Song Spaceship Earth 126, 144, 149 Species (see also Boundary, Communication ± interspecies, Ethics ±

375 interspecies, Speciesism) 7±8, 11, 13, 20 ² alien (extra-terrestrial) 125±156 Speciesism 137, 315±316, 331±332 Speech 40±41, 46, 131, 151, 192, 199±200, 208, 254, 273, 308 Spence, William 105±107, 112 Spider 115, 140±141, 146, 248, 252, 291, 301 Stargate Atlantis (TV series) 126± 127, 133, 136, 139, 146, 151±152, 155, 157 Subjectivity (see also Personhood, Self) 19, 110, 194, 240, 268, 313± 314, 322, 332, 343, 349, 353±354, 358 Subjective world ± see µUmwelt¶ Sublime, the 153, 169±170, 172±173 ² abject 153±154 ² Darwinian 169±177 ² Romantic 170 Supernatural beings (see also Byatt ± Angels and Insects) 101±103, 108, 272, 299, 348 Survival 59, 128, 159, 170±172, 285, 300, 308, 328, 333, 351 Swarm 134, 136, 139, 142, 147, 173, 300, 322, 333 Symbiosis 36±37, 125, 130, 144±145, 170, 176, 334, 336±337 Symbol ± see Sign types Symptom ± see Sign types Syntactics 279, 283±284 Tarbagan ± see Marmot Tchernichovski, Ofer 67±68 Technology 110, 141, 147±148, 168, 172, 180, 182, 193, 209, 236, 246, 270 Teleology 113±114, 332, 345 Tennyson, Alfred 302±303, 306±308 Theology 299, 305 ² natural 107, 113 Thought without concepts 25, 205, 291±311 Tone ± see Melody

Touch ± see Sense Trade ² with marmot fur 83, 89 ² with sheep 220 ² with slaves 165 ² with wool 219 Trope 24, 104, 113, 163, 291, 337 Tüür, Kadri 25, 137, 365 Tønnessen, Morten 14, 17, 360, 364 Uexküll, Jakob von (see also µUmwelt¶, µWohnhülle¶ ±9, 11, 13, 16±18, 26, 98±99, 264, 279, 297, 314±315, 326, 347, 356, 358 Uexküll, Thure von 9, 326, 356 µUmwelt¶ (see also Functional cycle, µWohnhülle¶ ±19, 98±99, 117, 207±208, 263±265, 269, 273±274, 277±279, 281, 283, 285, 323, 336, 347, 356, 358 Utilitarianism 181, 307, 348 Vagina dentata 132, 148 Vahtra, Jaan 267±268, 270±271, 277± 278, 280, 282 Value (see also Aesthetics, Ethics) 10±11, 26, 28, 102, 130, 201, 246, 350, 289 ² aesthetic 72 ² inherent 160 ² social 179 Vico, Giambattisto 295, 309 Victorian era, the 107, 169, 179, 183, 298, 303 Vision ± see Sense Visions 127, 298, 303, 305 War ² First Sino±Japanese 220 ² Russo±Japanese 220 ² World War I 219, 221, 270 ² World War II 192, 218±219, 221 Wasp 112±113, 117, 122, 135, 138± 139 Weaver, Sigourney 136, 156±157 Wenders, Wim 346, 362 Westernisation (of Japan) 217, 220, 223, 229

376 Westling, Louise 10, 23, 91, 194, 199, 201, 218, 365 Wheeler, Wendy 9, 25±26, 145, 205, 322, 365 Wilderness 128, 160, 181±182, 256, 258, 268±269 Wildlife 159, 161±164, 168, 172, 180±181 Wiley, Norbert 20, 313±314, 318, 324-334 Wilson, Edward O. 169, 177±178, 180±181 Witchcraft 102, 240, 243, 251, 253, 255 Wittgenstein, Ludvig 33, 43 µWohnhülle¶ Wolf 12, 15, 34±39, 42, 47, 49, 76 Wolfe, Cary 33, 179, 239±240, 313, 315±316, 320±321, 329, 331±332, 334, 358 Womb 148±151, 153, 155 Wood, John George 113±114, 122 ² Ants, wasps, and solitary bees 122 Wool (see also Trade) 217, 219±222, 228±229, 232, 234 World (see also µUmwelt¶) ² alien (see also Alien Empire) 97, 126, 130 ² insect 24, 97±102, 104±112, 114± 117, 129±130, 143 ² magic 241±242, 245±253, 256± 258 ² natural 27, 53, 62±63, 99, 111, 114, 116, 153, 160±161, 167, 169, 172, 174±175, 179±180, 182, 184 Worm 102, 129, 146, 194, 230, 265, 284 Wraith 126±142, 144, 146±156 Writing competition 191±211, 364 Zoo 160, 230, 246, 252±254, 363 Zoosemiotics (see also Biosemiotics, Ecosemiotics) 7±23, 26±28, 33, 264, 275, 279, 285, 343, 349, 355 ² anthropological zoosemiotics 21± 22

Zoology (see also Ethology, Entomology, Ichthyology) 19, 45, 160, 164, 255, 358