Tag Archives: humans

Final Thoughts

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In studying object-oriented theory over the course of the semester, I feel like I have undergone a fundamental transformation in how I relate to the world around me. I pay attention to things more than I ever have before. Putting things or objects into separate categories has become something I question on a daily basis, which is remarkable considering how normalized a practice it was before these ideas were introduced to me.

In reference to an example from the beginning of class: a window is not simply a window, an opaque object which one looks through in order to view something on the other side. Now, I look at a window and I notice it for what it is, not what it is (or how it is supposed to function) in relation to me. As a human being, there will always be limitations to how I am going to perceive the world, especially in relation to myself, but this class has shown me how all things, human and nonhuman, actually work together.

No longer can I consciously and/or casually dismiss an object as insignificant, knowing that it has its place in a larger network or assemblage that might also, potentially, count me as one of its participants. Humans are neither the lowest nor the highest, nor can we consider ourselves in terms of inferiority or superiority. In this way, the “natural” order of things might not be so natural after all.

As much as I have struggled to wrap my brain around these concepts, I have also gradually integrated them into the most mundane corners of my life. For instance, simply walking down the street is a completely new experience. The street I’m walking on, the small animals in the trees, the grass that covers the ground, the door I eventually open—all of these are actants with equal agency and, perhaps even, equal vibrancy. Ultimately, the sights, sounds, and smells of everyday life take on new meaning when viewed through the lens of an object-oriented ontology.

The Writing’s on the Skin: Supplemental Resources

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Below are the pictures I chose to print on the “parchment” manuscripts.  I tried to choose animals relevant to the texts we’ve read so far: birds (like the nightingale and hawk) and werewolves.  I also consulted The J. Paul Getty Museum’s website on the exhibit of “The Making of a Medieval Book,” linked here.

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourBestiaryEnglish.asp

Photo Description: “An owl being attacked by three smaller birds, Southern England (Salisbury?), 2nd quarter of the 13th century, 310 x 230 mm. Harley 4751, f. 47  According to Hrabanus Maurus (d. 856), whose encyclopaedia, De rerum naturis, is excerpted in this bestiary, the owl signifies those who have given themselves to the darkness of sin and who flee the light of righteousness. When other birds see the owl, they attack it, pulling at its feathers and tormenting it with their beaks. The text likens the owl’s plight, depicted here, to that of sinners, who are justly chastised by the virtuous. The owl, it concludes, is a miserable bird.”

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourBestiaryStudies.asp#ENCYC

Photo Description: “A crane and barnacle geese in the margin of the Topographia Hiberniae, Northern England (Lincoln?), c. 1196-1223  The Topographia Hiberniae of Gerald of Wales (1146-1223) draws on his observations of Ireland’s topography, climate, creatures and people. The depiction of barnacle geese here accompanies Gerald’s account of the creatures, in which he observes that they are born in water as excretions from driftwood and are attached to the wood and enclosed by shells in their early stages of development. The illustration actually depicts an alternate account of the origins of barnacle geese, in which they grow from trees that hang over the water; those that fall from the tree into the water float away safely, while those that fall on land die.”

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourBestiaryStudies.asp#ENCYC

Photo Description: “A priest of Ulster administering communion to a she-wolf in her den in the margin of the Topographia Hiberniae, Northern England (Lincoln?), c. 1196-1223  In his Topographia Hiberniae, Gerald also recounts tales of marvellous creatures and events. He tells of a priest travelling from Ulster to Meath who is approached one night by a wolf who reveals that he is actually a man, cursed by a saint to take the form of a wolf after seven years. He requests that the priest administer the last rites to his companion, who lies dying in wolf form. The priest is shown here administering the viaticum to this she-wolf. Gerald was only too happy to cast the Irish in a morally dubious light, as he does here, because he was writing in part to encourage and justify an English invasion of Ireland.”

Also of interest from this website:  “Within bestiaries and without, animals inspired medieval writers as sources of wonder, entertainment and moral instruction. Observations of the creatures that populate Ireland fill the pages of theTopographia Hiberniae of Gerald of Wales, and he includes many creatures in his accounts of marvels that had been seen and recounted in the land. It is not surprising that some of these accounts found their way into bestiaries, which feature creatures both familiar and exotic.

The animal fables of Aesop (sixth century BC) draw morals from short and entertaining accounts of creatures whose susceptibilities and wiles are all too human. Fabulists like Aesop found in the natural world a mirror that offered both instruction and entertainment. Marie de France drew on Aesop and other sources when writing her Anglo-Norman verse Fables in the twelfth century. At a time when bestiaries were taking lessons from animals on how salvation might be achieved through virtuous living, Marie’s Fables offers morals applicable to navigating the vagaries of one’s life on earth. Equally earthbound is theRoman de Renart, a series of tales that began circulating in the twelfth century. The Renart stories feature the rivalry of the wily fox, Reynard, and his foe, Isengrim the wolf. These tales sometimes have a serious side, satirising the abuses of both church and state.” http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourBestiaryStudies.asp#ENCYC

Here is a link to the parchment making company, Pergamena Handmade Parchment.

If these things could talk…

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This week while reading “Yonec” I was reminded a lot of “Guigemar” because of the same wife locked away in a room scenario.  However, I liked that in “Yonec” the wife has more of a voice.  In “Guigemar” we are given a description of the king that is very much like the description of the king in “Yonec.”  he is “a very aged man who ha[s] a wife” (Guigemar 210).  In “Yonec”, the king is “rich, old and ancient” (Yonec 12).  So in “Guigemar” the king is characterized in terms of having a wife, and in “Yonec” the king is identified by his money.  I don’t really see anything out of the ordinary here, but in “Yonec” we are provided with the wife’s perspective of her husband which I thought was just great.  She calls him a “jealous old man” (71), and says that “when he should have been baptized / he was plunged instead in the river of hell; / his senews are hard, his veins are hard, / filled with living blood” (87-90).  Whoa!  I didn’t realize how much of a woman’s voice was lacking in the lais until this one finally spoke.  I know women do speak occasionally in the lais, but this is the first time I really felt like I heard one with a voice.

Another exclamation of the wife’s that made me think is when she cries that she should have never been born, her fate is terrible, and that she is imprisoned until death (67-70).  Most intriguingly she thinks, “What is this jealous old man afraid of / that he keeps me so imprisoned?” (71-2).  If we place everything on a horizontal plane like Bennett suggests, I wonder how many other “things” like the wife are screaming inside to be allowed to be the director of their own agency instead of being forced to serve the agendas of others (humans).  Going back to the wife’s earlier opinion of her husband:  what if things could talk?  What would they say about their “owners”?

Werewolves and Humans and Violence

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In Jeffrey Cohen’s “The Werewolf’s Indifference” blog post he mentioned violence and werewolves and humans.  This was interesting to me because a lot of the violence in the werewolf stories we read was actually done by humans, not the monstrous werewolves. (I looked back through some of the werewolf posts on our blog and I didn’t see anyone tackling this subject, so I don’t think I’m stealing anyone else’s idea. Maybe we talked about it in class, and if we did, sorry I’m not giving credit where credit is due)

Jeffrey quotes Marie de France’s opening lines, “A werewolf is a savage beast: / while his fury is on him / he eats men, does much harm, / goes deep in the forest to live” and this would make the reader think that as a werewolf Bisclavret is a monster. He isn’t though; he is just wild and has some of the best times of his life as a werewolf.  In Bisclavret, and in Biclarel the humans are the ones who torture the Wife of the werewolf.  True, the werewolf gets his revenge by biting off the nose of the wife, but this is done in revenge.  To me the worst violence committed is by the king and the other humans when they torture the truth out of the wife.

It’s a bit chilling to read about this and Jeffrey’s comment on it is that “Torture compels the disfigured woman to reveal her crime, and she admits the stealing of his transfigurative clothes.” I wonder if we as readers are supposed to have indifference toward the torture and the human violence? Or should we be a little put off by it? Remember in Sir Cleges, we discussed the oddity of the violence at the end with the whipping of the three people who held Cleges up on his way to the king.  The torture and violence done by the humans toward the end of the werewolf stories is again strange.  Maybe violence by humans shouldn’t be so strange after all.

 

Anthropocentrism

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I read and reread the preface to Vibrant Matter and felt as though Dr. Seaman predicted my thoughts exactly. I felt as though I had a sense of things, but not a full understanding. This week’s theories have left me feeling quite perplexed. Our in class discussion helped a bit, but I still feel foggy as I try to wrap my head around anthropocentric thinking and how we can avoid such thoughts. I’m left wondering if it is even possible to think in a non-anthropocentric way? As human beings, I wonder if it is possible for us to completely remove ourselves from the equation. If we have difficulty, does it mean we are just selfish? Since our thoughts about, and perceptions of, the world and “things” around us originate in our human minds, how can we remove the human aspect from the process altogether?
In the instance one thinks about the environment and how pesticides negatively impact the environment and then chooses to no longer use pesticides for the sake of the environment, has this person achieved thinking non-anthropocentrically? Or, is the human interest in the environment’s well being and subsequent actions still anthropocentric because it satisfies a human’s need to “take care of” the environment? Does a human need to be completely neutral to an issue to think about it in a removed way, or is it possible to also reap some sort of satisfaction (i.e. the pesticide free way of living) but not be anthropocentric?
Because so much of this still seems abstract to me, I look forward to employing our new approach to texts so I can get a better understanding of what exactly we mean when we talk about non-anthropocentric thinking. I think once we actually put these new approaches into practice, I may be able to wrap my head around these new concepts a bit more and get a greater sense of “things.”