POPULARITY
Happy holidays, friends! We will be back with a new episode in January 2025. In the meantime, enjoy this favorite from our archives! ----- [originally aired Jun 14, 2023] Have you heard of Octopolis? It's a site off the coast of Australia where octopuses come together. It's been described as a kind of underwater "settlement" or "city." Now, smart as octopuses are, they are not really known for being particularly sociable. But it seems that, given the right conditions, they can shift in that direction. So it's not a huge leap to wonder whether these kinds of cephalopod congregations could eventually give rise to something else—a culture, a language, maybe something like a civilization. This is the idea at the center of Ray Nayler's new book, The Mountain in the Sea. It's both a thriller of sorts and a novel of ideas; it's set in the near future, in the Con Dao archipelago of Vietnam. It grapples with the nature of intelligence and meaning, with the challenges of interspecies communication and companionship, and ultimately with what it means to be human. Here, Ray and I talk about how he got interested in cephalopods and how he came to know the Con Dao archipelago. We discuss some of the choices he made as an author—choices about what drives the octopuses in his book to develop symbols and about what those symbols are like. We consider the major human characters in his book, in particular two ambitious researchers who embody very different approaches to understanding minds. We also talk a fair bit about AI—another central character in the book, after all, is a super-intelligent android. Along the way, Ray and I touch on Arrival, biosemiotics, the nature of symbols, memory and storytelling, embodiment, epigenetics, cephalopod camouflage, exaptation, and the sandbox that is speculative fiction. This episode is obviously something a little different for us. Ray is a novelist, after all, but he's also an intellectual omnivore, and this conversation, maybe more than any other we've had on the show, spans three major branches of mind—human, animal, and machine. If you enjoy this episode, note that The Mountain in the Sea just came out in paperback, with a jaw-droppingly cool cover, I'll add. I highly recommend that you check it out. One more thing, while I have you: If you're enjoying Many Minds, we would be most grateful for your help in getting the word out. You might consider sharing the show with a friend or a colleague, writing us a review on Apple Podcasts, or leaving us a rating on Spotify or Apple. All this would really help us grow our audience. Alright friends, on to my conversation with Ray Nayler. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode is available here. Notes and links 8:30 – For the review of The Mountain in the Sea in question, see here. 14:00 – Con Dao is a national park in Vietnam. 17:00 – For our previous episode about cephalopods, see here. 19:00 – For a book-length introduction to biosemiotics, see here. 24:00 – A video of Japanese macaques washing sweet potatoes. 26:30 – For discussion of the human case, in which environmental pressures of some kind may have propelled cooperation, see our episode with Michael Tomasello. 29:00 – A popular article about RNA editing in cephalopods. 35:00 – A video of the “passing cloud” phenomenon in cuttlefish. A brief article about the phenomenon. A video showing other forms of camouflage in octopuses. 41:00 – An experimental exploration of the movement from “iconic” to “symbolic” communication in humans. 44:00 – A popular article about the communication system used in the movie Arrival. 49:00 – One source of inspiration for Ray's book was Eduardo Kohn's How Forests Think. 1:00:00 – An article on the idea of “architects” and “gardeners” among writers. 1:05:00 – Ray's story ‘The Disintegration Loops' is available here. 1:11:00 – Ray's story ‘The Summer Castle' is available here. 1:13:00 – A popular article about the phenomenon of highly superior autobiographical memory. An essay about the idea that faulty memory is a feature rather than a bug. 1:18:00 – Ray's story ‘Muallim' is available here. Recommendations Ways of Being, by James Bridle Living in Data, by Jer Thorp Follow Ray on Twitter. Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.
Have you heard of Octopolis? It's a site off the coast of Australia where octopuses come together. It's been described as a kind of underwater "settlement" or "city." Now, smart as octopuses are, they are not really known for being particularly sociable. But it seems that, given the right conditions, they can shift in that direction. So it's not a huge leap to wonder whether these kinds of cephalopod congregations could eventually give rise to something else—a culture, a language, maybe something like a civilization. This is the idea at the center of Ray Nayler's new book, The Mountain in the Sea. It's both a thriller of sorts and a novel of ideas; it's set in the near future, in the Con Dao archipelago of Vietnam. It grapples with the nature of intelligence and meaning, with the challenges of interspecies communication and companionship, and ultimately with what it means to be human. Here, Ray and I talk about how he got interested in cephalopods and how he came to know the Con Dao archipelago. We discuss some of the choices he made as an author—choices about what drives the octopuses in his book to develop symbols and about what those symbols are like. We consider the major human characters in his book, in particular two ambitious researchers who embody very different approaches to understanding minds. We also talk a fair bit about AI—another central character in the book, after all, is a super-intelligent android. Along the way, Ray and I touch on Arrival, biosemiotics, the nature of symbols, memory and storytelling, embodiment, epigenetics, cephalopod camouflage, exaptation, and the sandbox that is speculative fiction. This episode is obviously something a little different for us. Ray is a novelist, after all, but he's also an intellectual omnivore, and this conversation, maybe more than any other we've had on the show, spans three major branches of mind—human, animal, and machine. If you enjoy this episode, note that The Mountain in the Sea just came out in paperback, with a jaw-droppingly cool cover, I'll add. I highly recommend that you check it out. One more thing, while I have you: If you're enjoying Many Minds, we would be most grateful for your help in getting the word out. You might consider sharing the show with a friend or a colleague, writing us a review on Apple Podcasts, or leaving us a rating on Spotify or Apple. All this would really help us grow our audience. Alright friends, on to my conversation with Ray Nayler. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode will be available soon. Notes and links 8:30 – For the review of The Mountain in the Sea in question, see here. 14:00 – Con Dao is a national park in Vietnam. 17:00 – For our previous episode about cephalopods, see here. 19:00 – For a book-length introduction to biosemiotics, see here. 24:00 – A video of Japanese macaques washing sweet potatoes. 26:30 – For discussion of the human case, in which environmental pressures of some kind may have propelled cooperation, see our episode with Michael Tomasello. 29:00 – A popular article about RNA editing in cephalopods. 35:00 – A video of the “passing cloud” phenomenon in cuttlefish. A brief article about the phenomenon. A video showing other forms of camouflage in octopuses. 41:00 – An experimental exploration of the movement from “iconic” to “symbolic” communication in humans. 44:00 – A popular article about the communication system used in the movie Arrival. 49:00 – One source of inspiration for Ray's book was Eduardo Kohn's How Forests Think. 1:00:00 – An article on the idea of “architects” and “gardeners” among writers. 1:05:00 – Ray's story ‘The Disintegration Loops' is available here. 1:11:00 – Ray's story ‘The Summer Castle' is available here. 1:13:00 – A popular article about the phenomenon of highly superior autobiographical memory. An essay about the idea that faulty memory is a feature rather than a bug. 1:18:00 – Ray's story ‘Muallim' is available here. Recommendations Ways of Being, by James Bridle Living in Data, by Jer Thorp Follow Ray on Twitter. Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.
In this episode, Morag chats to Rachel Holmes about her research to kick off our theme on senses. Rachel Holmes is a practicing artist and writer currently completing her doctorate project The Language of Birds at Kingston School of Art, supervised by Professor Scott Wilson. Influenced by the work of Georges Bataille, Silvia Federici, Eduardo Kohn and Dale Pendell, The Language of Birds is interested in developing a theory of luck or chance, through which the intelligence of the Other (as nature) expresses itself; historically through ritual practice. In this podcast she sets the context for her research by describing the worldview of "living myth" which was demonized during the medieval witch hunt, laying the foundations for transatlantic slavery, modern capitalism and our contemporary state of disenchantment. www.racheladelineholmes.com IG: @jaguar_bird Cover art: "Hazel Grove", textile work by Rachel Holmes referring to a vision-fast undertaken in Donegal, Ireland. --- Episode transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jn5T_EdDVZWeBmNc-32GdBcU2TBmI0od/view?usp=sharing --- If you would be interested to share your research with us, please do get in touch at technecaster@gmail.com
Yaramarud regrettably announces the departure of Zarina in future episodes but introduces the newest co-host, Pythia. They discuss what to look forward to in future episodes, a brief overview of the book How Forests Think by Eduardo Kohn, the nature of death in our ecological web, how Western society has tried to remove itself from it, and how to embrace this aspect into a more healthy understanding.
Acuario ♒️ es una energía bastante compleja, que tendemos a simplificar bastante diciendo que son “locos, rebeldes, creativos, dispersos, impredecibles, etc.” y no es que eso sea mentira, pero creo que hay otras informaciones asociadas a este signo. En este episodio, que tiene mucho de ciencias sociales, te cuento más sobre este signo, Saturno, Urano, la Casa 11 y el próximo tránsito de Plutón en Acuario. - Para tirar del hilo: Astrología para reencantar el mundo (libro) ¿Qué dirían los animales si les hiciéramos las preguntas correctas? de Vinciane Despret (libro) Cómo piensan los bosques de Eduardo Kohn (libro) - Música: Alejandro Lafogiannis - Contacto:
Diversas tribus africanas cooperan con pájaros guía de la miel para encontrar panales. Se comunican con silbidos transespecies. La traducción atraviesa todas las dimensiones de la realidad, también las no humanas. Necesitamos traductores, intermediarios, embajadores y… actores de doblaje. Un episodio parcialmente doblado sobre las voces ajenas y nuestras voces interiores. Con citas de Eduardo Kohn, Isabel Cadenas Cañón y Jacques Derrida, la maestría del actor catalán Jordi Brau, la voz y las ideas de Jorge Carrión, la batería de Andreu Quesada y un poema de la escritora española Berta García Faet leído por ella misma. ¡Madre mía!
Katia Dumont: Anthropologist, regional network organiser for SE Europe, BMW foundation & speaker at the Why the World needs Anthropologists, Re|Generation 23-25 Sept 2022 Berlin Katia Dumont is a Regional Network Organizer for Southwestern Europe for the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was a consultant for foundations and social enterprises in venture philanthropy. She spent various years setting up and building the regional chapter for the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs – ANDE of Development Entrepreneurs based out of Mexico City, where she enabled research, facilitated collaboration between a community of stakeholders for the small and growing business sector, and provided a base for knowledge management and practical applications. Katia also is part of the Board of Directors of Value For Women Ltd., a social enterprise on a mission to promote women's economic participation, leadership, and entrepreneurship by bringing a gender lens to business practices. Her interest in (eco)systems sparked her passion to create a regenerative future by engaging in agriculture and the broader human/nature system that supports it. We are happy to have Katia with us speaking to her background and current work in community development. She speaks to her intent of contributing to the creation of safer and braver community spaces where relationships are anchored in trust instead of transactions. We also explore together several topics such as: how to balance engaging in community action with the observer role? How to create space for flourishing futures for all? As speaker at the Why the world needs Anthropologists conference, she shares how she will be contributing to the theme as well as her advice and thoughts to those considering to attend. Listen to the episode to hear more about it. Mentioned: Why the World needs Anthropologists, Re|Generation, September 2022: https://www.applied-anthropology.com/speaker/katia-dumont/ (https://www.applied-anthropology.com/speaker/katia-dumont/) Stuff, Daniel Miller https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stuff-Daniel-Miller/dp/0745644244 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stuff-Daniel-Miller/dp/0745644244) How Forests Think, Eduardo Kohn https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520276116/how-forests-think (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520276116/how-forests-think) Social Media: LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/katia-dumont-a724b818/?originalSubdomain=es (https://www.linkedin.com/in/katia-dumont-a724b818/?originalSubdomain=es)
Diretta con Eduardo Kohn e Livia Filotico andata in onda sulla pagina facebook Associazione Tlon il 18 marzo 2021. Come pensano le foreste?Un dialogo intorno alla ricerca "Come pensano le Foreste", che Le Monde ha definito “Una vera e propria rifondazione dell'antropologia. Sorprendente”, e che uscirà in Italia per nottetempo.Sarà un incontro digitale quello del 18 marzo (ore 21) tra Eduardo Kohn della McGill University e Andrea Colamedici di Tlon sul tema delle “foreste pensanti”, introdotto dall'Ambasciatrice del Canada in Italia, S.E. Alexandra Bugailiskis e moderato da Livia Filotico di IDA.Quello proposto da Kohn è un nuovo modo di fare antropologia, incentrato sull'etica oltre gli esseri umani, in grado di aiutarci a trovare delle alternative in un momento in cui il nostro modo di vivere attuale è chiaramente insostenibile.Passando dall'etica all'ontologia, dalle foreste pensanti agli spiriti che in essa si manifestano, il filo conduttore di questo incontro è cosa significhi pensare ed essere vivi – prendendo le foreste come guida per aiutare a orientarci, se impariamo ad ascoltare.
Does living psychedelically necessarily mean taking psychedelics? How does dream, poetry and art relate to psychedelic consciousness? How can you share psychedelic journeys and insights in a way that make them meaningful to others? Prepare to be advised by Amazonian shamans, visionary artist William Blake and the archetypal wise fool! REFERENCES The Unbearable Everything – Torgrim's article about his ayahuasca experience https://www.mythopoesis.net/2020/04/12/the-unbearable-everything/ Eduardo Kohn interviewed at the World Science Festival https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi66wFfOC-4 Book: How Forests Think https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17718835-how-forests-think The Eleusinian Mysteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries Entheogens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen Devdutt Pattanaik https://devdutt.com/ Default mode network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network Shiva https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva Vishnu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu Theriomorph/Therianthropy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therianthropy Tryzub http://symboldictionary.net/?p=894 William Blake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake Book: William Blake vs. the World by John Higgs https://johnhiggs.com/books/william-blake-vs-the-world/ Hilma af Klint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilma_af_Klint Book: The Alphabet vs the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455992.The_Alphabet_Versus_the_Goddess Set and setting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting The Princess who always had to have the last word – folktale from this collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Folktales
Samples of Eduardo Kohn, Alan Sparhawk, Mark Fisher, Donna Harraway, and more.
Answering questions about what it means for humans to flourish is difficult. Attempting any certainty as to what it means for nonhuman animals to flourish is even more confounding. And yet, these questions have significant overlap. While some cultures have developed relationships that are responsive to the lives and needs of other animals, some communities—many stemming from modern Western traditions—have tended to view nonhuman animals more like resources. Materials to be managed or controlled for the primary benefit of humanity. From this perspective, the natural world is mechanical, passive, and speechless, seen as distinct from the human world. But how might attending more to nonhuman perspectives and ways of being contribute to human flourishing? What, if any, moral obligations do we have to the nonhuman members of our particular communities and households? Jeffrey Howard speaks with Ike Sharpless, a political theorist interested in animal ethics and the history of science and philosophy. He holds two master's degrees from Tufts University. One in law and diplomacy, the other in animals and public policy. In addition to earning a master's degree in political science from UC San Diego, he is also studying to receive his doctorate. He advocates for a more inclusive view of human nature that obscures the divisions between humans and nonhuman animals, inviting us to reflect more on the sensorial encounters we have with other living beings. He takes us on a freewheeling exploration into the challenging territories of animal flourishing, interspecies relationships, and how we might better accommodate nonhuman animals into our political and social systems. Now some things worth considering. How confident can we be in our understanding of the inner lives of other animals? What are some tangible steps we can individually take to make right our relationships with other animals? Do nonhuman animals have moral agency? In what ways do other living creatures contribute to human wellbeing and what can we do to bolster animal flourishing? Show Notes The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram (1996) Why Look at Animals by John Berger (2009) Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership by Martha Nussbaum (2007) Primates and Philosophers by Frans de Waal (2006) Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (2011) The Eye of the Crocodile by Val Plumwood (2012) Animal Minds and Human Minds: The Origins of the Western Debate by Richard Sorabji (1995) How Forests Think: Toward an Anthology Beyond the Human by Eduardo Kohn (2013) "Alone in One of Nature's Threshold Places" by Derek Parsons (2020) Ep. 8 Embracing Subsistence Agriculture During the Collapse of Industrial Capitalism w/ Ashley Colby (2021) Ep. 7 Charles Peirce and Inquiry as an Act of Love w/ David O'Hara (2020) "Politics and the Signs of Animal Life: Biosemiotics, Aristotle, and Human-Animal Relations" by Ike Sharpless (2016)
Stuart interviews Gordon White Part Two Show Notes: THE LIMINAL MUSE https://theliminalmuse.com THE EXPERIENCER GROUP https://members.experiencergrouplab.com/member/plans/83524f984f (Free for one month if you use the Aliens & Artists sign up) STUART DAVIS’ PATREON https://www.patreon.com/stuartdavis RUNE SOUP : https://runesoup.com HOW FORESTS THINK, EDUARDO KOHN : https://www.amazon.com/How-Forests-Think-Toward-Anthropology/dp/0520276116 THE SETH MATERIAL : https://www.amazon.com/Seth-Speaks-Eternal-Validity-Soul/dp/1878424076 HOME BLESSING KITS, ETSY https://www.etsy.com/listing/708379163/house-cleansing-kit?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_housewarming_All_Products&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQjwsLWDBhCmARIsAPSL3_2YVN9hrZjolYcnJZuVcXtYQCZbkOMAUCyx2l1dPgOetWB0VgxlBYgaAk_4EALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_1707294184_63430327341_331635217629_pla-293946777986_c__708379163_143099209&utm_custom2=1707294184&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsLWDBhCmARIsAPSL3_2YVN9hrZjolYcnJZuVcXtYQCZbkOMAUCyx2l1dPgOetWB0VgxlBYgaAk_4EALw_wcB MILLANARIANISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenarianism DR. JOHN D BRANDENBURG https://kepleraerospace.com/team/dr-john-brandenburg-ph-d/ DR. JEFFREY MISHLOVE INTERVIEWS DR. JOHN BRANDENBURG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjkv9XJga-w DEATH ON MARS https://www.amazon.com/Death-Mars-Discovery-Planetary-Massacre/dp/193914938X PAUL LAFFOLEY : http://paullaffoley.net/ MICHAEL SALLA : https://www.amazon.com/Michael-E.-Salla/e/B001HQ3F6C%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
En un nuevo episodio de CHARLAS DE MENTES recibimos al Dr. Eduardo Kohn, Director para América Latina de B´nay B´rith internacional, y conversamos de sionismo, antisemitismo y de política en contexto de pandemia.
En las últimas semanas se sucedieron dos eventos en Caracas,la reunión del llamado Movimiento de No Alineados,y luego la del denominado Foro de San Pablo. Antes de ello,la Alta Comisionada para Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas,ex Presidenta de Chile Michelle Bachelet había emitido un informe sobre los derechos humanos en Venezuela.
In this episode we will be hearing two interviews I did when I was in Ecuador. One with anthropologist Eduardo Kohn and the other with filmmaker Ryan Killackey.Support the podcast.Music featured in this episode:Yacu Viteri
What’s worse than listening to lovebirds on Valentine’s Day? Surely it is listening to them wondering whether the rideshare model can be applied to socks. So feel free to skip past all that nonsense (15:19) to our special holiday conversation with anthropologist and philosopher Eduardo Kohn. We begin with his influential book, How Forests Think, and how Eduardo’s fieldwork in Amazonia and the semiology of Charles Saunders Peirce helped him break down the nature-culture dualities of much western theory. Eduardo walks us through icons and indexes as ways of knowing and being in the world and discusses how the modern (human) investment in symbols and symbolic abstraction has contributed to the Anthropocene trajectory. We talk about academic resistance to engaging the semiosis of life in its broadest sense, why ethnographic method should be celebrated as a form of (iconic) mindful attention to the world, what’s similar about art and science as modes of knowing, and how sylvan thinking can be an ethical practice in the Anthropocene. We turn from there to Eduardo’s current scholarly and creative collaborations that cross legal, scientific and shamanic registers in the interest of “cosmic diplomacy.” We close by talking about the ethical importance of aesthetic experiments and accepting life as a wild guess.
"Forests think." Eduardo Kohn, author of the book How Forests Think, discusses a kind of thinking, which he calls “sylvan," that is manifested by tropical forests and those that live with them. This mode of thought can provide an ethical orientation in these times of planetary human-driven ecological devastation that some call the “Anthropocene." He presents his work as “cosmic diplomacy." How Forests Think, which has been translated into several languages, won the 2014 Gregory Bateson Prize and is short-listed for the upcoming 2018 Prix littéraire François Sommer. Eduardo Kohn's research continues to be concerned with capacitating sylvan thinking in its many forms. He teaches Anthropology at McGill University. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.
B'nai B'rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin is joined by Director of Latin America Affairs Eduardo Kohn to discuss the recent spats of anti-Semitism in Central and South America, allies of the Jewish community and Israel in the region, and more.
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a forest of dreams: the dreams of dogs and men, dreams about policemen and peccaries, dreams prophetic and dreams instrumental. In this brilliant new ethnography of a village in Ecuador's Upper Amazon, those dreams are woven into the lives and deaths of a bookful of selves (both human and non-human) to help readers reconsider what it means to be a thinking, living being and why it matters to anthropology, science studies, and beyond. In creating this “anthropology beyond the human,” Kohn calls into question our tendency to conflate representation with language, rethinking the relationship between human language and other forms of representation that humans share with other beings. Here, human lives are both emergent from and contiguous with a wider semiotic community of were-jaguars and sphinxes, barking dogs and falling pigs, men and women alive and dead, walking stick insects and tanagers, spirit masters and rubber trees. It is a transformative, inspiring, and critically meticulous book that deserves a wide readership and rewards close reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a forest of dreams: the dreams of dogs and men, dreams about policemen and peccaries, dreams prophetic and dreams instrumental. In this brilliant new ethnography of a village in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, those dreams are woven into the lives and deaths of a bookful of selves (both human and non-human) to help readers reconsider what it means to be a thinking, living being and why it matters to anthropology, science studies, and beyond. In creating this “anthropology beyond the human,” Kohn calls into question our tendency to conflate representation with language, rethinking the relationship between human language and other forms of representation that humans share with other beings. Here, human lives are both emergent from and contiguous with a wider semiotic community of were-jaguars and sphinxes, barking dogs and falling pigs, men and women alive and dead, walking stick insects and tanagers, spirit masters and rubber trees. It is a transformative, inspiring, and critically meticulous book that deserves a wide readership and rewards close reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a forest of dreams: the dreams of dogs and men, dreams about policemen and peccaries, dreams prophetic and dreams instrumental. In this brilliant new ethnography of a village in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, those dreams are woven into the lives and deaths of a bookful of selves (both human and non-human) to help readers reconsider what it means to be a thinking, living being and why it matters to anthropology, science studies, and beyond. In creating this “anthropology beyond the human,” Kohn calls into question our tendency to conflate representation with language, rethinking the relationship between human language and other forms of representation that humans share with other beings. Here, human lives are both emergent from and contiguous with a wider semiotic community of were-jaguars and sphinxes, barking dogs and falling pigs, men and women alive and dead, walking stick insects and tanagers, spirit masters and rubber trees. It is a transformative, inspiring, and critically meticulous book that deserves a wide readership and rewards close reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a forest of dreams: the dreams of dogs and men, dreams about policemen and peccaries, dreams prophetic and dreams instrumental. In this brilliant new ethnography of a village in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, those dreams are woven into the lives and deaths of a bookful of selves (both human and non-human) to help readers reconsider what it means to be a thinking, living being and why it matters to anthropology, science studies, and beyond. In creating this “anthropology beyond the human,” Kohn calls into question our tendency to conflate representation with language, rethinking the relationship between human language and other forms of representation that humans share with other beings. Here, human lives are both emergent from and contiguous with a wider semiotic community of were-jaguars and sphinxes, barking dogs and falling pigs, men and women alive and dead, walking stick insects and tanagers, spirit masters and rubber trees. It is a transformative, inspiring, and critically meticulous book that deserves a wide readership and rewards close reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a forest of dreams: the dreams of dogs and men, dreams about policemen and peccaries, dreams prophetic and dreams instrumental. In this brilliant new ethnography of a village in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, those dreams are woven into the lives and deaths of a bookful of selves (both human and non-human) to help readers reconsider what it means to be a thinking, living being and why it matters to anthropology, science studies, and beyond. In creating this “anthropology beyond the human,” Kohn calls into question our tendency to conflate representation with language, rethinking the relationship between human language and other forms of representation that humans share with other beings. Here, human lives are both emergent from and contiguous with a wider semiotic community of were-jaguars and sphinxes, barking dogs and falling pigs, men and women alive and dead, walking stick insects and tanagers, spirit masters and rubber trees. It is a transformative, inspiring, and critically meticulous book that deserves a wide readership and rewards close reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a forest of dreams: the dreams of dogs and men, dreams about policemen and peccaries, dreams prophetic and dreams instrumental. In this brilliant new ethnography of a village in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, those dreams are woven into the lives and deaths of a bookful of selves (both human and non-human) to help readers reconsider what it means to be a thinking, living being and why it matters to anthropology, science studies, and beyond. In creating this “anthropology beyond the human,” Kohn calls into question our tendency to conflate representation with language, rethinking the relationship between human language and other forms of representation that humans share with other beings. Here, human lives are both emergent from and contiguous with a wider semiotic community of were-jaguars and sphinxes, barking dogs and falling pigs, men and women alive and dead, walking stick insects and tanagers, spirit masters and rubber trees. It is a transformative, inspiring, and critically meticulous book that deserves a wide readership and rewards close reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices