Naslov
Bat in dichotomy: myths and representations of bats in the East and West

Autori
Đurđević, Goran ; Marjanić, Suzana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Animals and Religion – The Joint Annual Conference of The Finnish Society for Human-Animal Studies and the Finnish Society for the Study of Religion, Helsinki, 7. – 8. travnja 2021. Organizator: The Finnish Society for Human-Animal Studies (YKES), The Finnish Society for the Study of Religion (SUS), knjižica sažetaka / - Helsinki : The Annual Meeting of The Finnish Society for Human–Animal Studies, 2021, 21-21

Skup
The Joint Annual Conference of The Finnish Society for Human - Animals and Religion: Animal Studies and the Finnish Society for the Study of Religion

Mjesto i datum
Helsinki, Finska, 07.04.2021. - 08.04.2021

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
šišmiš, pandemija
(coronavirus pandemic, bat, sinophobia, (critical) animal studies, comparative, mythology, popular culture)

Sažetak
Based on Ji Xianlin’s synthetic and analytic thinking and Val Plumwood’s ecofeminist ideas of hyperseparation, the authors proposed a comparative approach to the bats in eighteen different folktales and myths around the world. The mythical and the popular culture representations of the bat could be summarized in a few common parameters: a) night and avoidance of the light and sunlight, b) fear, uneasiness, and punishment in European, American and Central American depictions, c) luck, longevity, and helpfulness in stories and legends of Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Pacific origin, d) duality of the beings – as mice, and as birds in Greco-Roman and Slavic traditions. On the trace of the religious and beliefs dichotomy between the Eastern and Western conceptualisation about the bats, the second part of the presentation examines the zooethical question – How to be a bat in time of COVID-19 or how much pandemics we could have? It is noticeable how the “infectious” story on COVID-19 is not bringing along deeply environmental narrative concerning the alleged process in which an alleged Chinese bat in the metonymic Chinese soup becomes the alleged cause and the alleged transmitter of the coronavirus from Wuhan. Deeply environmental story is similar to the plot of Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), which concerns the spread of a lethal virus that causes global pandemic in a matter of weeks. In the context of the fictitious virus from Soderbergh’s film, which is considerably more dangerous, and cannot be related to COVID-19, it is necessary to raise the aforementioned zooethical question – so let us repeat the zoo-question – How to be a bat in time of COVID-19?

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Etnologija i antropologija

POVEZANOST RADA