Fantasy literature has a long history of including a wide array of non-human characters, each more fantastical than the other. But can these characters also be used to question anthropocentric beliefs or are their portrayal just a way to reinforce those ideas? Because fantasy literature, especially earlier examples in the fantasy canon, tend to include a lot of allusions to religion in general and Christianity in particular, is the question more complex than it first might seem. This thesis therefore aims to examine the portrayal of non-human characters in the works of one of the last 25 years most bestselling fantasy authors, Philip Pullman. It’s a well-known fact that Pullman isn’t a fan of organized religion, which sometimes is very noticeable in his trilogy His Dark Materials (1995-2000). The trilogy includes several kinds of non-human characters and one of the most central aims of the thesis is to examine how these portrayals relate to the undermining or reproduction of anthropocentric ideas. Because Pullmans alternative theology is so central to the trilogy’s narrative, it will also play a part in my examination. / Denna uppsats är en undersökning av de icke-mänskliga karaktärer som figurerar i Philip Pullmans fantasytrilogi His Dark Materials (1995–2000). Litteratur inom fantasygenren har en lång historia av att inkludera en stor mängd av icke-mänskliga karaktärer, den ena mer fantastisk än den andra. Kan dessa karaktärer användas för att problematisera den antropocentrism som genomsyrar det västerländska samhället eller är deras gestaltande endast exempel på hur dessa föreställningar reproduceras? Eftersom fantasy, speciellt äldre exempel, ofta har allusioner till religion i allmänhet och kristendom i synnerhet, är frågan mer komplex än den först verkar. Pullman är känd för sin kritik av organiserad religion och i His Dark Materials skriver han fram en alternativ teologi. Denna uppsats undersöker således inte bara gestaltningen av de icke-mänskliga karaktärerna och hur de relaterar till eventuell problematisering och/eller återskapande av antropocentriska normer, utan också den roll Pullmans teologi spelar i relation till detta. I slutändan är också förhoppningen att denna uppsats kan visa hur litteratur, och framför allt den som faller inom fantasygenren, kan vara ett verktyg för att diskutera och problematisera antropocentriska föreställningar.

The purpose of the essay is to see (1) how being a bricoleur works within the framework of academic discourse, specifically an archaeological one, (2) if, by usinga bricoleur approach, incorporating object-oriented philosophy, phenomenology, aesthetic theory and photography, one can get at different interpretations of an archaeological place and material; specifically the cairn at Skårby and how it ”should” be approached, and (3), if the incorporation of a photography that’s not aimed at textual illustration or representation, along with a looser language, can make an academic text like this one more approachable.

Sammanfattning Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilken betydelse ickemänniskor har i förskolans innemiljö under barns fria lek och vilken betydelse de har för barns subjektskapande. För att samla in vår empiri har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ ansats och genomfört en deltagande observation på en förskoleavdelning med hjälp av anteckningar. För att få fatt i vårt syfte och våra frågeställningar har vi utgått från ett posthumanistiskt perspektiv och tagit stöd av ett flertal performativa begrepp. I våra analyser har vi lyft fram ickemänniskor som till exempel rum, ytor, möbler, leksaker och material som generellt sätt kan ses som mindre betydelsefulla i förskolans vardag. Dessa ickemänniskor kan ses som performativa aktörer som deltar, får saker att hända och tillför förändringar i barnens fria lek. I analysen går det även att förstå hur ickemänniskor blir medskapare i barnens subjektskapande och att barnens handlande inte beror på hur de är innerst inne. Med en posthumanistisk syn kan pedagoger i förskolan bemöta barnen mer etiskt då de uppmärksammar hur ickemänniskor är deltagare och medskapare i barnens fria lek.

I denna uppsats utforskar vi icke-mänskliga varelser och den mänsklighet vi som betraktare ger dem, både i position som mediekonsumenter samt producenter. Med en frågeställning som fokuserar på hur vi ska gestalta varelser i relation till antropomorfism, och genom granskning av den vaga gräns som existerar mellan fantasivarelser och verkliga djur, tar vi hjälp av teorier främst från Donna Haraway, Boria Sax, Jennifer Parker-Starbuck och Fanny Ambjörnsson. Ändamålet består i att belysa antropomorfiska stilgrepp, om hur och varför vi applicerar beteenden som antas styras av motiv liknande människans på djur, samt att öka förståelsen för den mänskliga linsens inblandning. Genom tidigare forskning, tecken- och färglära, samt en ständig medvetenhet kring posthumanism och mänskliggörande av djur, tar vi oss an att gestalta nyanserad antropomorfism i 3D. I vår undersökning framkommer det att ett kontinuerligt reflekterande krävs vid tillskrivande av attribut på varelser, eftersom vi ständigt tolkar omvärlden genom en mänsklig lins. Argument finns för att de varierade förutsättningarna olika djur är försedda med ger upphov till en helt annan iakttagelseförmåga än den människan besitter. Det behövs både ett kritiserande av människans natur och ett ifrågasättande av att som människa försöka uppfatta världen genom en icke-mänsklig varelses sinnen, när vad vi besitter är ett utifrånperspektiv till djurlivet. / In this bachelor thesis, we investigate non-human beings and the human traits we apply on them, both in a position as media consumers and as producers. The research question focuses on how to portray creatures in relation to anthropomorphism, and with an examination on the vague boundary that exists between imaginary animals and real animals, we explore anthropomorphism mainly through the theoretical lenses of Donna Haraway, Boria Sax, Jennifer Parker-Starbuck and Fanny Ambjörnsson. Our purpose is to illuminate the idea of anthropomorphism – how and why we apply human-like behaviours on animals – and to increase our understanding for the influence of the human lens. With previous research, semiotics, as well as an awareness about posthumanism and humanizing of animals, we come to terms with the depiction of nuanced anthropomorphism in 3D. Through our research it appears that we need to reflect constantly on our choices during application of attributes on creatures, due to our human interpretation of the world. There is discussion concerning the varying qualities among different kinds of animals, which declares that these attributes cause animals to possess a completely different perception than humans hold. It requires both a questioning about the nature of humans, and a criticizing of how we humans try to apprehend the surrounding world through the lens of a non-human creatures and their senses, when all we have is an outside perspective of the wildlife.

No description available.

The fact-value distinction has structured and still structures ongoing debates in metaethics, and all of the major positions in the field (expressivism, cognitivist realism, and moral error theory) subscribe to it. In contrast, I claim that the fact-value distinction is a contingent product of our intellectual history and a prime object for questioning. The most forceful reason for rejecting the distinction is that it presupposes a problematic understanding of the subject-object divide whereby one tends to view humans as the sole source of normativity in the world. My dissertation aims to disclose the background against which human ethical praxis is widely seen as a unique and special phenomenon among other phenomena. I show that ethical norms, as delimited by utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc., derive from an originary proto-ethical normativity at the heart of the real itself. Every object, human and nonhuman, presents itself as a bottomless series of cues or conditions of appropriateness that determine adequate and inadequate ways of relating to it. That is, objects demand something from other objects if they are to be related to; they condition other objects by soliciting a change in disposition, perception, or sense, and for this reason are sources of normativity in and unto themselves. Ethical norms, or values, are the human expression of the adequacy conditions with which all objects show themselves. In the post-Kantian landscape it is widely thought that human finitude constitutes the origin of ethical norms. Consequently, the world is divided up into morally relevant agents (humans) on one side, and everything else on the other. Adopting a deflationary view of agency, I argue that human-human and human-world relations differ from other relations in degree rather than kind. Thus, instead of a fact-value distinction, value is inextricably bound up with the factual itself. The critical upshot of my project is that traditional subject-oriented ethical theories have served to conceal the real demands of non-human objects (such as animals, plants, microorganisms, and artificially intelligent machines) in favor of specifically human interests. Such theories have also been leveraged frequently in exclusionary practices with respect to different groups within the human community (e.g. women and those of non-European descent) based on arbitrary criteria or principles.

The theoretical movement known under the heading of posthumanism has entered the academic field. Posthumanisms most prominent feature is to retrieve the concept of matter into the analytical framework. Matter is understood to be under-theorized within the social sciences as a result of the permeative focus upon language and discourse. A prevailing understanding of posthumanism that has been used within educational science and philosophy thus consists of moving the searchlight from language/discourse onto matter. Notably, these scholars are turning to the philosopher Karen Barad in order to spell out their posthumanistic implications. The aim of the thesis is to give an account of the philosophy of Karen Barad in contrast to other prevailing renderings of her. The analysis is carried out using a contrastive methodological approach. In this study I demonstrate how my reading of Barad differs from the scholarly readings that I choose to engage with. The results show that with an alternative conceptual understanding of Barad’s posthumanistic theory the analysis is being steered towards the entanglement of matter and discourse rather than towards the materialistic components of a posed problem. In addition, the results also show how a focus on the ontological underpinnings of Barad’s theoretical framework can give crucial contributions when it comes to understanding the generative conditions of science and knowledge-making.

This thesis presents an examination of the political ecology of human-elephant relationships in India. Its overall aim is to revitalize the ecology that has been sifted out from the discipline. The thesis draws upon, and consequently develops, more-than-human geography through a sustained engagement of nature-society relations in a non-Western context. The thesis has three broad objectives. First, to examine what more-than-human geography’s emphasis on non-dualistic forms of agency, could contribute to understandings of policy, planning and politics in conservation. Second, to examine the spatial dimensions of human-elephant relations and the social orderings of space which influence these relationships. The third objective of the thesis is to interrogate the politics of elephant conservation through a sustained engagement with diverse modes of human-elephant encounters and the socio-political assemblages with which they are entangled. The thesis first deploys and develops the concept of ‘encounter value’ to account for the different forms of human-elephant encounters and how they contribute to the political economies of biodiversity conservation. The thesis then draws from a multi-sited ethnography examining both encounters and spaces of elephant conservation. It shows how elephants help forge connections across difference and the ways their geographies are reconfigured by global networks of conservation. The third empirical section has an implicit spatial dimension. It is concerned with writing a ‘more-than-human’ geography of landscapes, examining how humans and elephants cohabit with and against the grain of political design. Finally, the thesis examines politics as an ecology of relations, showing how human-elephant relations as well as social and political outcomes may be mediated by materials. Modes of enquiry between these papers overlap. They offer critical insights into three themes that interface between political ecology and more-than-human geography. First, the thesis contributes to conceptualizing modes of human-animal encounters in a symmetrical fashion. It explicates the role of nonhuman agency as an organizing force in political economies of conservation. Second, it posits new understandings of the spaces of animals. This is developed in two ways: landscapes as dwelt, political achievements and as fluid spaces emerging through international networks of environmental governance. Third, the thesis ecologizes politics and goes beyond the humanist frameworks of political ecology. It fosters novel conversations between more-than-human geography and the postcolonial critique of political ecology in the context of human-elephant relationships. Taken together, the thesis offers up a concerted, symmetrical and novel approach to the study people’s relations with animals.

Les techniques biologiques actuelles, en particulier celles qui concernent le génie génétique, sont devenues un domaine de discussion philosophique très actif. Elles soulèvent un nombre considérable d’inquiétudes dont le centre problématique réside dans cette interrogation : doit-on laisser à la technique la possibilité d’une fabrication intégrale de l’homme ? Les réponses habituelles avancées se heurtent soit aux problèmes philosophiques de l’essentialisme naturaliste, soit aux limitations des discours utopiques qui prônent l’arrivée du posthumain. Nous tenterons d’emprunter dans cette recherche une perspective différente, impliquant une double démarche conceptuelle : d’une part, une interrogation de l’image de l’homme à l’oeuvre dans les différents projets biotechniques ; d’autre part, la formulation d’une philosophie de la vie capable d’élucider la signification biologique et humaine de ces projets. Nous affirmerons à cet égard que l’image de l’homme-machine élaborée aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles trouve son accomplissement dans les biotechniques actuelles, dans lesquelles l’homme acquiert la condition de locus technicus par excellence. À l’intérieur de cet espace, il s’ouvre la possibilité d’une production technique de l’homme où les capacités normatives de la vie sont mises en question. Nous soutiendrons que les biotechniques s’offrent à l’homme comme une forme d’activité vitale paradoxale, dans la mesure où elles travaillent pour dépasser ou supprimer la polarité dynamique propre au vivant. Il s’agira donc d’analyser– à l’aune de Canguilhem – les fondements de la « fabrique » biotechnique et ses répercussions à l’égard de la valeur biologique de la vie. / Current biological techniques, in particular those concerning genetic engineering have become a veryactive domain of philosophical discussion. These raise a series of significant concerns amongst which thefundamental problem lies in the following issue: should we or should we not allow the technique toassume on its own human improvement in all its dimensions? The customary answers to such matter,encounter with either the philosophical problems of naturalist essentialism, or else, the limitations ofutopian discourses which advocate the virtues of the arrival of the post-human concept. In this research,however, we will attempt to answer through a double conceptual approach. On one hand, a questioningof man’s image, at work in the diverse biotechnical projects; and on the other, the formulation of aphilosophy of life capable of clarifying the human and biological significance of these projects. In thisregard, we will claim that the image of the man-machine outlined in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries isfully accomplished by present ongoing biotechnologies in which man acquires the condition of locustechnicus par excellence. This scenario opens up the possibility of a technical production of man, one inwhich life’s normative capacities are currently questioned. We will affirm that biotechnologies imply avital yet paradoxical form of activity insofar as these work towards surpassing or suppressing thedynamic polarity peculiar to living beings. Therefore, our approach will analyse – from the standpoint ofCanguilhem – the basis of the “biotechnical fabric” of the human body and its repercussions regardingthe biological value of life itself.

The main focus of this diploma thesis is picturing ethnicity and race of "non-humans" in first two series of science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica a Defiance. It is based on the postcolonialistic theory, which is dealing with the dominant relationship of the colonist over the colonized. This relationship was created between western civilization colonists and native inhabitants of newly discovered territories. In the case of science fiction, the "non- humans" are in the position of colonized and humans in the position of colonists. Some space is also given to the posthumanistic theory of a creature being based on combination of both biological and mechanical parts. The chosen series are examined through the method of quantitative content analysis. It has been shown, that humans in science fiction are the race, from which the picturing of all other "non-human" races is derived. Also, in most cases, humans are the race superior to other races, which is shown in various fashion. Values accepted by today's western society are presented as values of all human kind. From these values, the perception of "non-humans" and their societies is derived. Science fiction is also mirroring the problems western society had during its beginnings.