The article explores the significance of the rooster in English and Scottish ballads, highlighting its role as a symbol of time, vigilance, and the transition from night to day. Domestic chickens, particularly roosters, have been integral to human life for thousands of years, serving practical purposes such as providing eggs, meat, and feathers. This importance is reflected in folklore, where the crowing of the rooster is often associated with the dawn and the awakening of the world. The article discusses various cultural interpretations of the rooster’s crow, noting its historical use as a timekeeper before the advent of mechanical clocks. Ancient poets, including Lucretius and Juvenal, recognized the rooster’s role in marking the early hours of the morning, while Roman and Greek traditions imbued the rooster with mythological significance, associating it with deities of light and vigilance. The crowing of the rooster is depicted as a protective force against evil spirits and a harbinger of change, with various folk beliefs attributing supernatural meanings to its calls. In ballads, the rooster’s crow often signals the end of nocturnal encounters, particularly between lovers and their ghostly counterparts, emphasizing the theme of separation at dawn. The article also examines specific ballads, such as Sweet William’s Ghost and Clerk Saunders, where the rooster’s crowing serves as a pivotal moment that dictates the fate of the characters involved. Furthermore, the text highlights the rooster’s dual role as both a timekeeper and a symbol of resurrection, linking it to themes of life, death, and the cyclical nature of existence. The analysis concludes by underscoring the rooster’s enduring presence in folklore and its multifaceted symbolism across cultures, illustrating its significance in the human experience as a marker of time and a guardian against darkness.

This article examines plasticity as a theoretical lens for analyzing non-human animal narratives, focusing on popular animal fiction from the early twentieth century, especially Jack London’s wolf-dog novels. Plasticity – the capacity of organisms to be shaped by environmental pressures – has historically been used to construct species hierarchies, with dogs, particularly wolf-dogs, portrayed as the most plastic and adaptable. This framing often reinforces their ability to internalize human values, positioning canis familiaris as inherently defined by their bond with humans. While plasticity has traditionally upheld anthropocentric frameworks, this article argues that it also offers a means to challenge them. By reconsidering species stories through plasticity, it becomes possible to disrupt hierarchical assumptions and highlight animal agency within broader multispecies networks. This approach not only repositions dogs as active participants in ecological systems but also provides a methodology for disentangling them from human-centered narratives. It also conceptualizes canids as full-fledged subjects of environmental humanities scholarship.

This article proposes a “blattopoetic” analysis of Lorna Crozier’s poem “The Cockroach,” from her 2017 collection What the Soul Doesn’t Want. Set within the framework of zoopoetics and literary studies of animals, this interpretation draws on concepts such as disgust, anthropomorphism and mindful listening, and examines how
Crozier’s poem challenges the revulsion that often defines the relationship between insects and humans. One of the article’s premises is that, in this way, the poem opens up space for empathetic, interspecies contact and transforms the cockroach into a co-creator of poetic meanings. The Canadian author’s text allows for an imagined “touch” without disgust, critiquing the anthropocentric boundaries between human and nonhuman experience. Here, the cockroach becomes a material-semiotic – untouchable yet central – poetic presence.

Alonso Sánchez Baute’s La Mirada de Humilda (Humilda’s Gaze) (2022) is a book about the interspecies relationship between the writer and his dog, Humilda, West Highland White Terrier. It tells a story of a friendship of two beings who observe, support and love each other and who are made to say goodbye one day. The aim of this article is to explore how Sánchez Baute’s book may shape the reader’s engagement with the text, how it fosters a sense of simulative empathy, enabling readers to emotionally connect with the canine’s experiences and the human–dog relationship depicted in the novel; how it enhances the emotional depth and appeal of the story, offering unique insights into the interspecies bond. To explore the abovementioned themes, the impact of the companion species on a human being will be analyzed, along with their communication and the process of grieving after the dog’s death.

This article examines selected horror films featuring femmes animales – figures whose status, suspended between humanity and animality, challenges the androcentric and anthropocentric order, as noted by Barbara Creed. An ecofeminist reading of these protagonists reveals that the apparent empowerment conveyed through visual metaphors associated with animal captivity is not only superficial but also replicates patriarchal structures and perpetuates both female and nonhuman oppression. Constructions of animality, the motif of being stared at (as a living exhibit in a zoo or as the object of the male gaze), and the representation of female suffering through images of meat and cages, all contribute to a dualistic hierarchical thinking. This, in turn, devalues that which is non-male, non-human, and what deviates from the primacy of reason in the androcentric and anthropocentric world shaped by the Western intellectual tradition.

Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO, premiering at the 75th
Cannes International Film Festival in May 2022 and earning a Cannes jury award, has drawn attention from the media and the pro-animal community. The film offers a unique perspective, narrating a donkey’s global journey and highlighting human-induced adventures and in-justices. Skolimowski’s innovative narrative and stylistic choices center EO as a protagonist advocating for nonhuman animals and ecological awareness. Media hailed the film as an animal rights manifesto, while Skolimowski aimed to evoke viewers’ emotions and protest against animal cruelty. In contrast, this analysis focuses on audience research to capture how regular viewers perceive the film. The article implies a triangulation of research methods: film analysis, the discourse of the critical-film community and the reception of non-specialist audiences. Its theoretical foundation is built upon refer­ences from both film studies and animal studies. It contrasts directorial intent, media coverage, and critical acclaim with common adult viewers’ perspectives, exploring the impact of techniques like anthropomorphism on emotional engagement. Two focus group interviews highlight differences in assessing the film’s societal significance and influence between specialized and general audiences.

The aim of this study was to characterize the textual layer of tombstone inscriptions at the “Rainbow Bridge” pet cemetery in Szymanów near Wrocław, reconstruct behavioral patterns of contemporary people experiencing the loss of a close companion, and analyze processes indicative of cultural transgression in human-nonhuman animal relationships. To precisely reconstruct the socio-cultural dimensions of the described cemetery, the research focused on both the linguistic aspects of the inscriptions and the aesthetics of the cemetery space. The analysis of the collected material revealed that pet cemeteries serve as spaces where a remarkably strong bond between humans and their deceased animal companions is expressed through various forms of expression. Furthermore, the study highlighted a shift in the perception of nonhuman animals from objects to subjects.

With the development of digital discourses related to animal death, such as support groups and commemorative portals, mourning for nonhuman companions becomes a more and more commonly observed sociolinguistic phenomenon. The present article is a case study of the French-language commemorative website called Amonami. The analysis, rooted in French linguistic discourse theory, is focused on the issue of pathemisation. It aims to describe how discursive factors influence expressing emotional states after losing beloved animals and to characterise linguistic means used by animal owners in this context. The study presents the scenography of the portal as a framework for enunciations, called homages (French: hommage), published on the website. The analysis also indicates the presence of various linguistic means of pathemic expression in the studied enunciations, such as metaphors, axiologically marked vocabulary, affectonymes and agentive expressions.

This article focuses on the depiction of animal suffering in early 20th century book-long essays by non-anthropocentric philosopher Marian Zdziechowski. His works: Pesymizm, romantyzm a podstawy chrześcijaństwa [Pessimism, Romanticism and the Foundations of Christianity] (1992), O okrucieństwie [On Cruelty] (1996) and W obliczu końca [Facing the End] (1999) are discussed in three subsequent sections and my methodological approach is close reading. Zdziechowski’s views on the animal question are placed in the context of Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy and the Christian religion, of which this writer was both an adherent and a critic. The final section considers contemporary theories of ethics towards animals in which some echoes of Zdziechowski’s thought can be found. In particular, Richard Ryder’s speciesism and painism, as well as the contemporary theory describing the mechanisms of the transmission of violence, testify that Zdziechowski’s intuitions anticipated the Anthropocene thought as early as the 1920s and 1930s.

The article explores the increasingly popular topic of canine perception of human music, aiming to determine whether dogs possess a criterion for differentiation between categories of auditory stimuli – human music and anthropogenic noise – that humans intuitively distinguish. By employing a comparative narrative and outlining the neurobiological layer of auditory perception in both humans and dogs, the paper develops a reflection on the validity of categorizing auditory stimulation in dogs and the potential boundaries of their classification within the music–noise dichotomy. The analysis is extended to include the impact of agency, habituation, and association on dogs’ behavioral and biological responses to auditory stimuli. Referring to Daniel Berlyne’s psychobiological theory, the article also highlights the importance of context and individual factors in animal perception. The article provokes a discussion on two potential paths of interpreting existing knowledge and serves as an introduction to further empirical research in this area, emphasizing the need for an interdisciplinary approach that combines the humanities and biological sciences. It also proposes a zoocentric assumption that, although music may have a positive neurobiological impact on dogs and elicit emotional arousal, the capacity to truly enjoy music might be an inherently human trait.

Contemporary family models take into account the changes that have occurred in the way dogs are treated, which is currently becoming more and more subjective, and have contributed to the emergence of a new structure – interspecies families. The results of these research indicate the existence of differences in the role assigned to utility dogs in contemporary families, related to the origin of the dog: adoption or purchase. Families that decided to purchase a dog treat their dog at least on a declarative level as a family member, but their attitude towards it can also be objective, as evidenced by assigning the role of an employee or athlete. In the case of families that adopted a dog, it was declared that the dog plays the role of a family member, and that emerging difficulties are treated as challenges. At the same time, the study revealed certain stereotypes regarding utility breeds that affect the fulfillment of caregiving functions towards these dogs.

The study aims to explore the configurations of personality traits in the context of attachment to companion animals. A total of 426 Polish participants (aged 18–77; M = 32.08, SD = 10.53) completed online measures of Big Five traits, Attachment to Pets, and demographic data. Cluster analysis identified personality-based groups. The first cluster is characterized by sociability, openness to new experiences, and emotional stability, showing lower pet attachment. The second cluster is characterized by neuroticism, closeness to novelty, and socializing. The third cluster is characterized by low openness to experience, persistence, and a need for predictability. Both latter clusters showed higher pet attachment. Findings indicate that personality profiles differentiate individuals regarding their attachment to nonhuman animals.

The article addresses the issue of legal protection of animals, which constitutes a multifaceted concept. As a signatory to numerous international agreements, Poland is obliged to implement the provisions arising from the international legal framework. Therefore, the analysis of international legal sources should precede the examination of domestic regulations. The article analyzes selected instruments of international law, which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the issue of legal protection of animals and their current legal status. The text serves as an introduction to further considerations concerning the rationale behind granting animals legal protection.

The starting point of this interview with Małgorzata Lebda is the relationship between humans and insects, especially bees, which occupy a special place in her poetry and prose. The writer speaks of bees as beings co-creating the ecosystem, and at the same time of the metaphorical kinship between the work of the bee and the poet’s work – both requiring vigilance and concentration. The conversation touches on ethical issues related to beekeeping, veganism, and anthropocentrism, and reveals the complexity of the relationship between care for and violence toward more-than-human beings. Lebda also recalls the inspiring role of her father – a beekeeper whose attentiveness and tenderness toward the smallest creatures shaped her poetic sensitivity. The interview becomes a reflection on the need for coexistence, attentiveness, and an ethical contemplation of a world in which the boundaries between the human and the more-than-human become blurred.

The review discusses the volume What We Owe to Nonhuman Animals: The Historical Pretensions of Reason and the Ideal of Felt Kinship, the latest work published by Gary Steiner, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Bucknell University. The monograph provides an overview of and a challenge to the anthropocentrism of the Western philosophical tradition. In particular, it forcefully advocates for the recognition of the full moral status of nonhuman animals, going against the grain of the hegemonic Western philosophical stance. The review introduces the main arguments advanced by the author and addresses the volume’s structure, the conclusions it reaches, and the relevance of its discussion for the status of nonhuman animals.