Wraz z rozwojem postkolonializmu, zwłaszcza jego drugiej generacji, wyraź- nie zwiększyła się tendencja do przełamywania hegemonii dominujących dyskursów, narzucających kulturowe znaczenia i budujących zideologizowane reprezentacje „Innego”. Choć centralnym „Innym” tej krytyczno-kulturowej orientacji był i nadal jest człowiek, to wywodząca się z derridiańskiej, dekonstruktywistycznej koncepcji „różni” idea podmiotu mówiącego i podmiotu mówionego, jak się zdaje, coraz skuteczniej może służyć też animal studies. W nich bowiem – właśnie szczególnie – niemożność wypowiedzenia się podmiotu (milczącego Innego), w dramatyczny i spektakularny sposób zyskuje swoisty kształt, bez mała nieprzezwyciężony. Dzięki radykalnej, inteligentnej i twórczej kry- tyce reprezentacji (od Frantza Fanona przez Edwarda Saida po Stuarta Halla i Homi Bhabhę), „dziki” – obiekt europocentrycznego dyskursu – przemówił wreszcie własnym głosem. Zyskał zdolność do działania, której nie można już lekceważyć; zdolność i możliwość wypowiadania, tworzenia kontr-reprezentacji przeciw produkowanej dotąd o nim (ale nie z nim) wiedzy. Stał się podmiotem mówiącym.

Mimo licznych i przekonujących danych o zdolnościach komunikacyjnych i symbolicznych zwierząt, wysuwanych zwłaszcza przez etologów (od Konrada Lorenza po Fransa de Waala), Animal – przedmiot animal studies – wciąż nie może liczyć na taką emancypację. W jego imieniu nieodmiennie mówią/ wypowiadają się humaniści, przedstawiciele, jak to ujął już ongiś Charles P. Snow, drugiej kultury. Mówią językiem prozaików, poetów, filozofów, plastyków, kulturoznawców, religioznawców, literaturoznawców, analizując, ale też budując i tak już gęstą, wręcz przytłaczającą warstwę dyskursu w „cudzym imieniu”. Nie można mieć złudzeń, że zapośredniczenie zapośredniczenia to głos równoważny głosowi podmiotu mówiącego, ale czy istnieje inna forma, w której zwierzęce mogłoby znaleźć język niezależny od jego ludzkich reprezentacji?

Oddajemy do rąk Czytelników drugi numer monograficzny interdyscyplinarnego czasopisma, zatytułowany Reprezentacje, który zawiera artykuły filo- logów i neofilologów (literaturoznawców i językoznawców), kulturoznawców, filmoznawców, filozofów i psychologów. Wszyscy oni próbują – każdy w inny sposób i na użytek własnej dyscypliny naukowej – penetrować, rozważać i ukazywać reprezentacje samych zwierząt bądź relacje człowiek – zwierzę(ta), zarówno w ludzkiej mentalności/mózgu/umyśle, jak i w szeroko rozumianej kulturze. Co więcej, niektórzy autorzy próbują głębiej wnikać w zagadnienia dotyczące sposobu rozumowania/myślenia i komunikacji w świecie zwierząt, poszukując odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy mają one umysł i „język”.

Features of Shmelev’s zoopoetics are described in the article on the basis of the early stories, such as My Mares, Light Page, and Mary, in which images of animals are analysed in the context of Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Strider by Lev Tolstoy, Kashtanka by Anton Chekhov, The White Poodle and Emerald by Alexander Kuprin, and Dreams of Chang by Ivan Bunin). Shmelev’s zoopoetics is based on the philosophy of life and death, freedom and captivity, and the connection between the natural world and the world of childhood, and is actualized in anthropomorphic images of animals manifested in the texts of the writer in many ways (psychologism, spirituality, and the use of the concepts of “soul”, “destiny”, “love” “morality” and “compassion”). Animals in the stories appear as a certain indicator, because the correlation with them and the attitude to them reveal the other characters – both adults and children.

The character of the relations between linguistic and not strictly linguistic elements of awareness is
discussed upon the example of existing notions. The vocabulary material reflecting both historical and contemporary interpretations is quoted. These interpretations consider the words’ etymology. Their analysis is intended to find out the motifs which change in time, features and semantic analogies. These three elements are then consolidated in the notions of the mental and linguistic culture. Later on the character of relations is established (by placing the character in artificially created space) between the state of an animal and that of a human. The human resembles the animal, and the latter is a representative of a community in captivity, and the human observing the animals becomes an element of the collective display. The gathered information and interpretations (compared to the data from the dictionary of dreams via their semantic and mental features) make it possible to ask a question on the semantics of the mental and semantic features of the vivid experiences which are in perceptual and mental existence. These experiences shape the notions for the representatives of a specific mental culture. The notions in question are of regulating, approximate and not always realized character. These notions are especially the ones which condition the organisation of the world in linguistic and non -linguistic awareness, and as a result they influence the semantic evolution of a language as well as its users’ mentality.

The article describes everyday life in Czeladź, one of the towns of Zagłębie Dabrowskie, during the Second World War. The reconstruction of the role animals played in this town (both as farm and draft animals and as household pets) is primarily based on memories collected by the author during interviews with the oldest residents of the city.

The article aims at presenting the description of the category of ‘animal’ in the human brain, mind and language. The article reports the results of linguistic, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research.

The research on animal cognitive capacities is mostly determined by two contrasting methodological attitudes: naive anthropomorphism and dogmatic anthropodenial. The former is defined as fallacious (naive) projecting cognitive, emotional and linguistic capacities of humans on animal world; the latter is denying essential similarities between human being and animals in order to emphasize qualitative differences between these two worlds. Between those attitudes there is some space for putting forward intermediate viewpoints, which include the heuristic value of critical anthropomorphism and indicate those similarities and differences between humans and animals, which deter- mine proanimal moral actions.

Today the psychology of human-animal interaction is a rapidly developing field of psychological research in western countries. In Russia there are some isolated works on psychological aspects of interspecies communication between humans and animals but these have not formed a separate research field so far. In order to analyse the causes of the ‘pet relationships’ phenomenon at the levels of needs and personality spheres, we conducted a comparative study of pet owners (n=44) and people who have no pets (n=39). The attached pet owners demonstrated a need for subjectification of the animal and orientation to a definite type of communication. Presentation of the results of this study to the Russian psychological community revealed the problem of acute and active polarization of the scholars regarding the assessment modus of relevance and importance of human–animal studies. Such a reaction could be determined by the level of an individual’s emotional and personal maturity rather than by theoretical or methodological issues.

 One of the most essential topics of science-fiction literature and film is the encounter of a human being with the other, an alien being. Not only does the meaning of this encounter point to the dilemmas of anthropocentrism, but it also emphasizes the loneliness of a human being in the face of other, non-human beings. Animal studies and imagined worlds of science-fiction share basic questions about the possibility of communicating with the representatives of other species. Therefore, in this paper I analyze selected texts of science-fiction literature and films that consider the consequences resulting from the encounter of the human being and the animal. I indicate the primacy of feminist thought in this field of technoculture (Donna Haraway) and, at the same time, I present the examples of bio-technological animals in cyberpunk. I also evoke the figure of King Kong, which is emblematic for the fantasy film genre, in order to accentuate the presence of feminist discourse in this “encounter of Beauty and the Beast”.

Selected works of Chris Marker will be interpreted with respect to the presence of animals in his projects. An idiosyncratic bestiary, which may be visible in a number of Marker’s works – from his 1960s documentaries and filmic haiku, to cats inhabiting Second Life and public spaces – triggers reflection on his relationship with animals in general, and cats in particular. Marker’s works are analyzed from three different perspectives: the relation of technology to animals, the relationship between humans and animals, and the author’s own attitude towards the bestiary. The interpretation of Marker’s versatile works leads to the conclusion that his artistic continuum is to some extent guaranteed by the presence of a cat, which appears in different forms depending on the technology and type of medium used in a film. By becoming the author’s alter ego, the cat allows him to explore politically and socially sensitive issues and to appear without restraint in Second Life as well as on Poptronic platforms.

Rekin unoszący się w roztworze formaldehydu, zawieszony w przestrzeni, unieruchomiony, to zobrazowanie zmienionego sposobu, w jaki zwierzęta mogą być reprezentowane przez sztukę. Z jednej strony Damien Hirst zaproponował całkowicie nowe podejście do kwestii wykorzystywania zwierząt w sztuce, kiedy zaczął wystawiać prace z cyklu Natural History (Historia naturalna), z drugiej strony zupełnie nowy „materiał” został użyty w pracy, którą można zakwalifikować do prac rzeźbiarskich. Rekin przyciągnął uwagę publiczności i mediów, ale Hirst posłużył się też zwierzętami takimi jak krowa, owca czy świnia. Jednakże tytuły jego prac pozostały intrygujące i skomplikowane. Artykuł skupia się na tym, jak zwierzęta, zarówno te martwe, jak i te (ledwo)żywe, stały się częściami prac artystycznych. W artykule omówione zostały wybrane prace jednego z przedstawicieli Young British Artists, aby zaprezentować kwestię uprzedmiotowienia zwierząt w sztuce postmodernistycznej.

This paper aims at the problem of realism in the artistic representation of animals. Contemporary animal studies recognize the problem of narratives in which animals serve as a negative point of reference to humans or as a symbol, always referring to some cultural story. In this context the anthropocentric art of Walton Ford is particularly interesting. The painter is openly enthusiastic about the symbolic and narrative uses of animals in culture, and yet in his paintings he manages to represent animals’ otherness, and their ability not to be „tamed” by our schemes.

The Internet is one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. The virtualization of social
life is a growing process. In this article the author examines memes via vegan and vegetarian perspectives to analyze how speciesism occurs in them.

The author analyzes E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story Master Flea, focusing mainly on the scene of the telescope duel between two biologists: Jan Swammerdam and Anton Leeuwenhoek. This scene triggers reflection on discovering the closeness between humans and insects – a closeness that became possible once man started to question the possibility of being different from animals. Even though Swammerdam equated human beings with insects, he never overcame the limitations of anatomic perception. It was only the generation of Romantics that discovered the similarity of fate between humans and insects – a similarity, as Maurice Maeterlinck called it, of “misery and greatness”. The author traces the evolution in the ways of perceiving insects and writing about them; an evolution which was initiated by Montaigne’s essay Apology for Raymond Sebond and later developed by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Henry David Thoreau and Maurice Maeterlinck.

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the issue of human-animal relationships in con- temporary works of poetry and prose by Nino De Vita (b. 1950) – a Sicilian born in Marsala, for whom the local dialect of Cutusìu contrade becomes the language of expression. The author leaves out of his writings anthropocentric models and introduces into them narratives concerning various forms of life marked by common and indivisible history. Both animal and human characters share similar fates, experience the same emotions, reciprocate feelings, suffer and feel fear. Still, what unites the human and animal world most is the language, or rather the dialect, of Marsala – a com- mon channel of interspecies communication. The expression of the animal nature in people who wish to most spontaneously and sincerely express their own emotions and moods, resorts to dialectal sound, the mother tongue, characterized by great intimacy but also violence. Finally, the dialectality and animality of Nino De Vita’s work involve going beyond the boundaries, tracking and leaving traces as well as marking the territory for fear of loss and being left. This poetry is written in the name of ‘another him’ and for him.

The essay is concerned with the topic of archaic “ethological tales”, which often present non-anthropocentric definitions of an animal as an emotional, rational, aesthetic creature – not formulated in opposition to the human. This point of view also appears in the poetry of Julian Tuwim, who connects the mythical idea of interspecies community with the Darwinian theory of evolution. In Ptasie radio/Bird radio (1938) he shows, for example, that the concept of melic poetry inherited from the ancient Greeks, has a biological base and comes from birds’ vocalisation. Analysing birds’ mating songs leads him to the idea that not only does man have the ability to generate aesthetic sounds, but that he also shares this ability also with other animals. Today, his intuition can be confirmed also in the field of genetic research.

The article is devoted to the literary representation of the wolf, and the texts analysed include Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf and Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf. In both texts the wolf becomes the mirror in which the man’s inner life is reflected, and the authors search for the answers to existential questions in the wolfish nature. “And so, the Steppenwolf had two natures, a human and a wolfish one. This was his fate, and it may well be that it was not a very exceptional one.” Those words of Hermann Hesse refer to the complicated, split personality of the main protagonist and the complex nature of every man. Harry is partly a man, who desires social respect and the comforts of the middle-class life, and shares human ideas and interests, and partly a wild beast, who mocks these vain and absurd desires, and remains untamed and impulsive. Mark Rowlands’ wolf is not only part of the author’s inner self, but a wild animal, with which the American philosopher spent 11 years of his life. The wolf companion changes completely the man’s way of thinking, becoming an inspiration for philosophical considerations over the nature of love, death, happiness and humanity, the purposefulness of human actions, the sources of despair and hope, the nature of the fear of death. The wolf’s company makes it possible for Rowlands to find his human nature, makes him eventually become a different person: of partly human and partly wolfish nature. In both cases the wolf (being either part of a man’s personality or a real wild companion) determines the protagonists’ lives and helps them understand themselves.

The aim of this paper is to examine the multidimensional way of presenting dogs in selected German works. Dogs trigger a whole range of emotions in man, such as attachment and protectiveness, but also the dangerous instinct associated with the desire for power and domination. Dogs can be both devoted companions and friends to man but also objects of ruthless training. Therefore, Theodor Fontane’s and Thomas Mann’s works, which present the function of animals in a surprising light, may be an excellent point of reference.

Animalisms as the animalistic components of paremiaes play an important role in the semantic codes in Paremiology. The comparative and contrastive analysis of animalisms in the structure of Polish, Russian and Ukrainian paremiaes with the use of a biocentric approach allows us to describe the general and specific features of behaviour and characters that exist in the most widespread paremic images of wild and domestic animals. The animalistic images are typical of: the Polish, Russian and Ukrainian culture. The process of describing each category of animal which takes place in the paremiologic units supports the reconstruction of fragments of a linguistic world-image and allows us to observe a correlation between such concepts as Animal and Human Being.

The interests of nonhuman animals within political philosophy have been and are still overlooked and underestimated. Recognition by modern science, and – increasingly – ethics, of the subjectivity and vulnerability of many animals does not extend to recognizing them as anything more than a secondary object of politics. In recent years, however, new concepts have emerged emphasizing the subjectivity and political agency of nonhuman animals. One of them is the concept of zoopolis by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka. It postulates the use of political and legal categories that previously defined only men: citizenship, denizenship and sovereignty. Through citing earlier attempts at politicization of the animal detriment issue, the article presents the major hypothesis of the zoopolis concept and discusses some examples of its previous criticism.

Nota Justyny Tymienieckiej-Suchanek na temat almanachu „Русский мiръ. Пространство и время русской культуры” Мiръ животных. Тематический выпуск «Русская культура», Sankt Petersburg 2015 (w języju rosyjskim).