Our western society and lifestyle is to a considerable extent depended on the way we perceive and treat our co-existing non-human species. Industrial farming, vivisection, sports, circuses etcetera are just a few examples of how human use and exploit animal bodies for own gain. A phenomenon that in many ways, is perceived, as natural and normal, and therefore seldom discussed. The thesis purpose is to problematize this phenomenon by examine, what I call “The Speciesism Gaze”, through analysis of posters that promote animal rights, selected online, through the search domain Google. The theoretical framework used, are theories focusing on intersectionality, derived within postcolonial-, eco-critical and new materialist feminism. A brief introduction of animal right movements, its linking to feminism activism and theories derived within affect theory is presented as background for the analysis. As method, I use critical discourse analysis, focusing on intertextuality of the posters context. Asking what discourses emerge, challenging the anthropocentric and androcentric western dualistic hierarchy, whilst displaying mutually reinforced structures of sexism, racism and speciesism? I discuss the western historical and cultural human idea that the human species is separated from nature and animal, and where the “right” human subject standard is perceived as male, white, heterosexual and western in the Anthropocene age. I found that, this standard is displayed, played on, and questioned in the posters selected, in relation to animal materiality, grievability, killability, species necropolitics, sexism and racism. I discuss in my conclusion that oppression based on speciesism is not a power relation discussed in society today to the same extent as expressions of sexism and racism are. It is however an oppression that we all take part in every day and that affect all of us, despite species belonging. In that context, I hope the theorization and meaning of the speciesism gaze will have significance within the field of feminist theorizations and practices.

No description available.

1 Abstract This doctoral thesis focuses on the analogies between Virginia Woolf's "personal philosophy" and Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, or in his own words "philosophy of organism." The thesis does not claim that Whitehead's thought directly influenced Woolf's fiction, rather, it makes use of a zeitgeist model. The two contemporaries shared the rejection of long-established dualisms, particularly the Cartesian mind-body dualism, the binaries of subject and object, animate and inanimate matter, the human and the nonhuman, and last but not least the individual and the community. Interested in the philosophical enquiry into the problem of reality and the visible world, Woolf redefines the notion of "things" in her fiction and adopts the processist view that objects may be defined as clusters of events, which are not separate from the perceiving subject but interrelated with it. Moreover, Woolf illustrates her interest in the natural world in most of her works and often suggests that what we normally think to be inert and lifeless matter, may, in fact, also have some proto-conscious, or proto- experiential, qualities like Whitehead's "actual occasions." The second part of the thesis focuses on Woolf's attempt to overcome one's individual identity in favour of adopting a more inclusive and...

In this thesis I explore the place of the human in the Anthropocene, and our relationship to the Earth through an analysis of N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy. As the trilogy depicts an apocalyptic landscape where the Earth has sentience and humanity is divided into three subspecies, this work of speculative fiction lends itself well to be interrogated and examined as an allegory for our current climate crisis. The analysis is anchored in posthumanism and employs a variety of concepts, such as Bruno Latour’s work on agency and deanimation, Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene, and Amitav Ghosh’s work on speculative fiction among others. I argue that The Broken Earth trilogy illustrates that the Earth is an agentive network that can no longer be ignored and contend that the trilogy complicates both anthropocentrism and individualism by depicting amplified versions of human beings, and in doing so highlights the arbitrary boundaries between both nature and society, and human and nonhuman. Thus, The Broken Earth trilogy can be read as a warning call for a future to be avoided at all costs, while concurrently be used to make sense of the incomprehensibility of our contemporary era.

RICHTEROVÁ, Denisa: Through the Eyes of a Dog - Author's Book for Children. Prague, 2021. Diploma thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Education, Department of Art Education. (Appendix 1: author's book for children The Dog Who Thinks Something) (Appendix 2: presentation of the project Through the Eyes of a Dog) This diploma thesis deals with a dog as a bearer of contemporary historical and cultural contexts. The theoretical part describes the history of the domestication of dogs, their relationship to humans, symbolism and mythology, and maps the associated depiction in the history of fine art. Attention is then focused on the relationship between dogs and kids with an overlap into children's literature and on illustrations with emphasis on author's book for children. Finally, there is a devotion to the representation of dogs in assisting with the educational and therapeutic processes. In the practical part theoretical knowledge is applied in the form of a author's book for children called The Dog Who Thinks Something. The story and illustrations reflect the world through the eyes of a dog which mirrors thinking, feeling and the natural need to belong to someone. The didactic part presents a project called Through the Eyes of a Dog, which submits options of how the dog is connected with free time...

Given the global climate crisis and the ubiquitous use of literature in Swedish upper secondary schools to raise various values-based issues, this essay examines the didactic potential of Jefferson and how to utilize the novel's aforementioned potential in relation to value-based work in a classroom context. Special emphasis has been invested on the environmental aspect of the value-based work, more precisely: how the relationship between humans and animals affects the environment and how this relationship can be problematized by using Jefferson in the Swedish subject classroom. Malin Alkestrand’s concept of didactic potential has been used in combination with a critical anthropocentric perspective to investigate the didactic potential of Jefferson in relation to the value-based work, and how this potential can be converted into didactic gains for students. Moreover, in addition to the concept of didactic potential, Alkestrand’s theory of alienation and Martha Nussbaum’s theory of narrative imagination have been applied to sections, themes, and literary devices in the book; furthermore, the results of the analysis indicate how Jefferson possesses the didactic potential to address numerous aspects included in the value-based work. The results also show that Jefferson, because of its content and literary devices, provides an especially favorable springboard to address the relationship between humans and animals from an environmental perspective.

I Dune: Messiah (1969) sker en förändring av klimatet, en terraformning som människan initierar. Vatten introduceras i rikliga mängder på planeten Arrakis och detta påverkar planetens ekologi såväl som människans kultur. Uppsatsen granskar Frank Herberts roman genom att teoretiskt utgå ifrån ett ekokritiskt perspektiv och tematiskt ifrån vatten, dess varande och relation till människan samt planeten. Människans medvetenhet av sig själv som en art på planeten och sin kulturella koppling till både planeten och vatten är centralt i analysen. Klimatförändringen som sker när människan terraformar planeten och hur detta påverkar människan behandlas också. Även postkolonialism väger in i analysen.  I Dune: Messiah är vattnet, människan och planeten starkt kopplade till varandra. Människan utgår från sin antropocentriska världssyn och betraktar planeten som en plats vilken kan förbättras till människans fördel. Eftersom fremenfolkets kultur är djupt grundad i naturen skapar terraformningen av planeten en identitetskris. Kulturen blir kopplingen som får människan att vilja bevara planeten som den är. Vattnets värde kulturellt men även som valuta gör den till en maktskapande vara. För människan är terraformningen en strävan mot förbättring, vilket speglar de teman av stora strukturer som finns genomgående i Dune-serien. Den här långsiktiga visionen som Frank Herbert målar upp, avbildar människan med en större medvetenhet, en möjlighet att tänka stort. Jag menar (likt andra inom ekokritiken) att detta större tänkande är en väg framåt som ger mänskligheten ett större perspektiv – därmed förståelse av – ekologiska förhållanden. / In Dune: Messiah (1969) the climate changes due to terraforming caused by humans. Water is introduced on the planet Arrakis, and this affects the planet’s ecology as well as the people’s culture. This paper is an exploration of Frank Herbert’s novel, theoretically anchored in ecocriticism and thematically in water, its nature of existence, relationship to humankind and the planet. Humanity’s awareness of themselves as a species on the planet, and their cultural connection to both the planet and water is central to the analysis. The climate-change which occurs when humanity terraforms the planet and how this affects humankind is also touched upon. Post-colonialism also plays a role in the analysis. Water, people, and the planet are strongly connected to each other in Dune: Messiah. Humans see the planet as a place which can be improved to their own benefit due to their anthropocentric worldview. Because the Fremen culture is deeply rooted in nature, an identity-crisis occurs when the planet is terraformed. It is culture that enables humans to want to preserve the planet as it is. Water is a resource that creates power due to its cultural and economical value. The terraforming is humanity aiming for improvement, which mirrors the themes  of larger structures that can be found continuously in the Dune-series. This long-term vision which Herbert paints, pictures humans with a broader consciousness, a capability to think in a larger magnitude. This I (as others within ecocriticism), consider to be a path forwards which offers a broader perspective – therefore an understanding of – ecological conditions.

當人們談論動物保護時，可能提出的問題大約不脫「人類是否應該保護動物」、「人類為何保護動物」、「人類應該保護哪些動物」，以及「人類如何保護動物」之延伸範疇，針對這四個問題又可以依所採之研究基礎偏重倫理學或法學，而有各種不同的回應。 本文採取偏重法學角度之立場，從實定法出發，隨時序個別分析我國及德國動物保護法之歷史發展及現行法呈現之樣貌後，藉由與咸認先進的德國動物保護法制及其背後所可能隱含之人與動物關係的歷史變遷進行比較研究，試圖在同與異之間尋找我國動物保護法所隱含的人與動物關係之可能解釋，此乃嘗試從實定法追溯背後的倫理學意涵，並在此解釋基礎上，進一步探求動物保護法益之可能回答，由倫理學再回歸法學領域，均是試圖回應「人類是否應該保護動物」及「人類為何保護動物」二問。 最後嘗試藉由求得之動物保護法益「道德感情」來建構我國動物保護刑事規範，則是試圖給出「人類應該保護哪些動物」及「人類如何保護動物」二問在刑事法層面上之回答，對現行動物保護法刑事規範提出修正建議，包括將動物一般保護規定及刑事規範分勾，擴張動物一般保護之客體範疇而維持刑事規範涉及之行為客體範圍，以重構本文理想之動保刑事規範。 / When referring to animal protection, the most popular questions probably will be within the range of the following four. Should humans protect animals? Why should humans protect animals? What kind of animals should humans protect? And the final one, how do humans protect animals? The answers can be changed depending on the different views, like ethics view or legal point of view. This study basically focuses on the legal point of view, starting with Taiwan’s Animal Protection Act and German’s Animal Welfare Act (in German: Tierschutzgesetz), by comparing those two different animal protection systems, trying to figure out the development level of Taiwan’s Animal Protection Act in the tide of the world’s development of animal welfare, then using the conclusion to explore the legal interest of animal protection, attempting to answer the first two questions: Should humans protect animals? And why? Furthermore, using the legal interest “moral emotion” to construct ideal animal protection criminal legal norms, attempting to answer the rest of the questions: What kind of animals should humans protect? And how to protect? The final purpose is to reconstruct an ideal animal protection criminal law system in Taiwan.

The thrust of this thesis proceeds from two main presuppositions. The first is that the Old Testament wisdom books are generally ignored or not given enough attention in the studies about water and water-related phenomena. The second is that the romantic perspective on elements of the natural world is dominant in eco-theological studies. To highlight this twofold problem, a sample survey into the works of the scholarly biblical dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles as well as ecotheological studies is offered in the second chapter of this thesis. In an attempt to (partly) address this problem, this study argues that, firstly, despite a scarcity of scholarly interest in water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books, this body of literature contains a rich variety of references to water and water-related phenomena. Secondly, it is shown in this study that an overly-romantic view of nature does not do justice to the richness, complexity, and variety of portrayals of elements of nature in the texts themselves. In this sense, this study aims at retrieving ecological wisdom from particular texts that give voice to both the life-giving and life-threatening potential of water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books. The exploration is facilitated by elements of the historical-critical and literary approaches through an ecological framework informed by four of the six eco-justice principles of the Earth Bible Project. The thesis suggests that scholars who attempt ecological readings of the Bible will gain more if they also take less favoured texts into consideration. The exploration of water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books, therefore, goes beyond what studies on water or water-related phenomena have hitherto done. Furthermore, a study on both aspects of water as a life-giving and life-threatening entity demonstrates that an eco-friendly view of nature does not do justice to the biblical texts themselves. This will be seen through the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters. / Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)

This study attempts to offer an ecological interpretation of Genesis 1: 1-2:4a in view of the question as to what extent this passage bears footprints of anthropocentrism, on the one hand, and/or ecological wisdom, on the other hand. Extant ecological readings of this text tend to either recover its ecofriendliness, or they criticise the text on the basis of its dominion and subdual language in Genesis 1:26-28 which seems to go against the grain of ecological sensibilities. In resonance with revisionist readings, this study shows that the only way to mollify the dominion language of Genesis I :26-28 is to read this section as part of the whole Priestly creation account. Elements of the exilic context and many literary features of Genesis I: l-2:4a present humans as a member of a world of interdependences. Hence, accusing Genesis I: l-2:4a of lying at the root of modern indifference towards nature, is not the whole story. / Old Testament & Ancient Near Eastern Studies / M. A. (Biblical Studies)