Nonhuman animal protagonists of folklore texts in the European space have tended to be perceived primarily as performing a symbolic and metaphoric function. But behind the symbols and the metaphors ...hide real flesh-and-blood nonhuman animals, and flesh-and-blood humans interacting with them, mostly from a position of power. The emerging discipline of zoofolkloristics considers nonhuman animals in their own right. Through critical analysis of folklore material, zoofolkloristics examines the role of animals and power relations within the interspecies entanglement with the aim of deconstructing the oppressive system and establishing multispecies justice. We begin this paper with a brief reflection on the 'historical animal' as an embodied being and a human construct. We then perform a critical re-reading of three animal-related folklore texts from the Slovenian tradition and, applying Hubert Zapf's concept of imaginative counter-discourse, consider the potential of imagination as a methodological tool in the transformative program of zoofolkloristics. Implications for animal ethics, liberation, and conservation are also discussed.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The act of dwelling and physical dwellings is not an exclusively human domain: all spaces, environments and homes of various animals are included. The question of whether an animal merely exists or ...also lives and dwells forms the basis of the article. We examine the types of environment in which nonhuman animals live either together with people or independently and those where they build their dwellings. We look at the difference between dwelling and building. We will present three viewpoint models that consider animals, their dwelling and physical dwellings on the basis of folkloristic, anthropological, philosophical, eco-critical, and critical-animalistic findings. They are the anthropocentric, anthropomorphic, and zoo-centric models as they appear in the works of Fran Erjavec (Domače in tuje živali v podobah, 1868-1873), Richard Adams (Watership Down, 1972) and Iztok Geister (Narava, kot jo vidi narava, 2010). The way these works present animals and their dwellings, more or less closely reflecting reality, will aid in determining whether these dwellings are part of nature or culture. We will be asking, for example, whether the beaver’s dwelling is an architectural masterpiece or merely a result of instinctive behaviour. Our starting point is based on the understanding that animals are persons and, as such, are capable of dwelling and intentionally producing their physical dwellings.
The article examines selected poems that deal with the inter-species relations ina multi-species world, from the collections of poems Tisoč osemdeset stopinj (Thousand Eighty Degrees) by Alenka ...Jovanovski and roko razje (Eats Away the Hand)byVesna Liponik. Through the analysis and interpretation, we investigate howtheir poetics work when it collides with the demonization of the other and theovert or covert social and environmental speciesism. In doing so, we discuss thesymbolic and active power of poetry, the poets’ critique of the binary divide between man and other beings, and their emphasis on the inherent value of animaland, in awider context, their political-economic critique of global capitalism andlinguistic, symbolic, material human violence against other species and nature.
This article discusses the Lipizzaner horses, now a part of the natural and cultural heritage of the Slovenian nation, claimed also by the Austrians, and in the past an imperial heritage of the ...Habsburg Empire. Lipizzaner horses are typically perceived as a national cultural monument (trained stallions) owned by the human community, and not as non-human animals that were, only by way of domestication and (even worse) the way they were raised genetically, destined to serve people, first at a feudal imperial court. Based on the interactions of zoofolkloristics, anthropology and philosophical and legal discourses, this article reflects the role and importance of Lipizzaner horses through folklore and literature, and reconsiders the human/animal relationship by establishing non-hierarchy between the animal and the human on the basis of ecocritical analysis. The focus of the analysis is on folkloristic materials (texts), customs and traditions associated with the horse/human community, as well as the literary works that discuss the Lipizzaner horses.
In this article, folk songs, some important traditional practices and mythological sources relating to blood as well as selected poems of Slovenian poets from Gregorčič to Makarovič and Detela are ...researched. Presented are the meaning, roles, symbolic and metaphoric dimensions of blood. The focus of the article is based on two philosophical concepts that are thematised in folklore and poetry: the sacred and the profane. It seems that discussing blood is a taboo and therefore we can say that a genuine artistic creation can relevantly depict both perceptions and conceptualisations of blood. The article takes ecocentric and unspeciesistic perspectives to this discussion and criticises the still existing unacceptable ritual practices of perpetuating killing of non-humans and spilling innocent blood.
The author notes that new, more complex researches of connections between animals, nature and connections to humans are needed in Slovenian and European folklore, literature and cultural studies, due ...to new ecological and ethical findings in the wider social and cultural environment and a changing order of the world, which has moved the focus from anthropocentrism into ecocentrism. The discussion builds upon various theoretical discourses, new concepts and multidisciplinary knowledge, to create the foundations, guidelines and directions for a new academic discipline of zoofolkloristics. Furthermore, new theoretical and analytical discourses should enable zoofolkloristics to provide an insight into changes in human attitudes to animals, in both folklore and within traditional and contemporary ritual practices, or their redefinition, and at the same time exert influence upon legal safety of non-human subjectivities.
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