[...]hrough the qualitative experiential methodological instruments [--> comes to define the modes of critical relatedness in apass]


(since 15th century) investigators ==> staking one's claim to the real on the mastery of those forces that relentlessly elude a plain direct visibility or sensibility ~~--> human sciences


*we still hunt ghosts, fueled by a desire operationalized in a method of being close enough to something to sense it, because our form of mastery demands a closeness to things unseen, unprovable, indeed ‘nonsensical,’ yet unquestionably ‘there’* -Baxstrom

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Despret on Derrida's animal
the act of being seen by an animal ==> Derrida groups together on the end hand “scientists and philosophers =/= prophets and poets”
{ Bateson, Goodall, Bekoff, Smuts, and many others have met the gaze of the living diverse animals and in response undone an redone themselves & their sciences =/= Derrida }--Haraway--> why did Derrida leave unexamined the practices of communication outside the writing technologies he did know how talk about? ==> philosopher (speak in the absence of animal) =/= theoreticians (speak face to face with the animal) =/= scientists
•Derrida's original positioning: to speak (starting) from [~ a partir de] a real animal and not about animality [being animal] : to speak in the animal's presence and not in its absence --> this [this way of talking about animal is against his philosophical tradition] is not particularly original, it is part of the very game of philosophy: *to fight with ancestors and contemporaries [~=? recalcitrance تمرد tamarod] about great and noble ideas* (to denounce inequality and violence)

maintaining distance is a characteristic of the episteme of the French philosophical tradition

the topic of animal in French tradition:
•the animal can be a topic of philosophy if it is called up as a figure of otherness (or a figure of deprivation) [--> is that why i started to work and think about animal fables after i moved to germany? because i became identifiable as deprived other? and reading about the naming and denunciation of philosophical violence towards the animal became a proxy for philosophical violence towards myself as a foreigner?]
•animal as ancient ancestor (a search for difference with appeal)
•
}--> **as a figure caught up in theoretical and abstract issues** (a philosophical animal) --> animots: paper animals, abstract inexistent animals
=/= Derrida taking up the topic of the animal ==> to oppose a certain humanist hegemony, denouncing philosophical violence towards the animal
•Derrida's rejection of philosophical game par excellence (the game that deals with representations, framework of representation)



♥ the parable of the twelfth camel
An old man, sensing his impending death, called to his side his three sons, to share with them the little he still owned. He said to them: my sons, I have eleven camels. I bequeath half of them to the oldest, a quarter to the second son, and to you, my youngest, I give a sixth. Upon the father's death, the sons found themselves quite perplexed: how to divide their inheritance? A war over the division of goods seemed inevitable. With no apparent solution, the sons went to a neighbouring village to seek advice from an old sage. The old man thought awhile and then shook his head: I cannot resolve this problem. The only thing I can do for you is to give you my old camel. He is not very obedient and often does as he pleases. I don't know if you can use him but I think he may help you divide your inheritance. The sons brought the old camel back with them and divided up the inheritance: the first then received six camels, the second three and the youngest two. This then left the camel of the old sage, which they could return to his owner.

        ,     ,
‘'’ ‘'’   ‘'’   ‘’

this parable reveals particular and essential dimension of all forms of inheritance:
•[Despret:] they place us in a position of obligation --> to work out
•[Sina:] they had to go to the foreign to figure out their inheritance


the sons have to work out the *position of obligation*

*****inheritance (passed on as something that appears impossible) as such requires you to *start from* [=/= about, concerning, with] this inheritance
•“start from” implies precisely the fact of remaining obligated to that *from* which we speak, think, or act [~ learn from & create from events]
•“being obligated” implies learning to do, speak, act, decide, not about these events, not concerning them, not facing or against them, but from them
==> you are bound : *you honor the terms of the problem* (such as it is posed along with its contradictions ~ fubar)
==> (help you to) resist the common sense (or less common sense) solutions


[*]inheriting: an act that demands thought and commitment, an act that calls for our transformation by the very gift of inheriting --> my work on ajayeb, you start from ajayeb (better than “coughing”?)


Despert in reading Derrida through Haraway --> studying the way in which scientists were beginning to respond to their animals & becoming attentive to the animals’ responses in trun

[Sina + Despret + Haraway] ***to inherit is an act that demands a transformation on the part of the inheritor***

the importance of transforming that which is transmitted to us


thinking from animals
(Despret working on) the meaning of ”(starting) from” [a partir de]
•for philosophers: to depart from animals, to leave them as quickly as possible and never to return ==> “animal = text & pretext” : its function is to provide a reason for going (partir) elsewhere [<-- i have done this]


getting involved --to--> martyrdom


author-turned-ethologist --> classic genres of ethological literature

(a matter of) *performing through narration the passing obligation that is now mine*

(Latourian) *amateur: a person who likes and cultivates her tastes and does her best to cultivate a kind of becoming-sensitive to the world*

in ethology (and in animal sciences) monologues make terrible narratives

[@Femke, @Pierre, ?can we do without] the philosophical tradition of: **searching for traces of ideological and political contamination** in the work of scientific naturalist (or whatever other field) --> you (often) find a perfect target for this sort of critique
•(pay attention to) what makes a perfect target for your sort of critique (@Laura's Jane Fonda, etc.)

[zoological bird:] sociobiological literature prepares you to accept a certain kind of fact about this bird =/= Zahavi's babblers however do (altruism & cooperation) in a remarkably more inventive and diversified way and for entirely different reasons that sociobiological birds

anthropocentrism (credit birds with complex intentions, and [why?] complex intentions always seem human)
to see birds as “dancing” and for fairly complex reasons could only have been a result of the fact that the observers projected onto the animals their own frameworks and experiences


Despret observing the birds + their ethologist --> the birds made Zahavi interesting

(Despret discovering that) any theory of representation was at once partial and totalizing, because it proposed to elucidate the complex work of relations and encounters from the sole standpoint of the human

(how Despret became) interested in actual practices (with Stengers and Latour), in the way they articulated questions and responded to questions

****stories that scientists [and Disney or Hollywood] develop about animals are also our stories**** --> these stories transform humans and their animals
--Stengers--> sciences (of the contemporaneity) for which: **production of knowledge = production of a way of being** ==> (they do not reveal what animals are, rather) they follow and accompany an act of becoming together : *an act of becoming with the stories that we construct concerning them* (good or bad)
•birds will have been far more interesting starting from the moment that Zahavi proposed to connect their stories to others [~-> how Cinderella became interesting for me when her stories became connected to other stories =/= restructure her story to make her fit my contemporary political correctness]
•sheep will have been far more sophisticated starting from the moment that Thelma Rowell asked them interesting questions

**to ask interesting question: to create conditions in which sheep [beings, your subject] are able to demonstrate an interest in these questions

**interesting research: looking at the conditions that allow beings to become interesting


{ how scientists made their animals agents = how scientists created the conditions for certain responses with respect to what was being asked of the animals }--Despret--> how these changing animals *became real* by way of the very *test of transformation* that had been proposed to them (~ how they were involved in the “process of verification”) --> *to understand the system of truth that was ay the heart of these tests* (=/= to produce an umpteenth critical analysis of “representation” @Pierre)
==> you are under the same constraints as those in whom you had placed your confidence

@Sina: do not construct knowledge about your mother behind her back! --> getting to know what matters (to them, to her) ==> allows transformations to occur
-i usually did both (as mentor in apass), construct knowledge behind people's back [psychosis] & getting to know what matters to them [paranoia]

(Despret discovered) one (unignorable) thing that mattered to scientists was: how animals take an active part in the knowledge that is produced about them


(why working on ajayeb bestiary involves becoming interested in sciences:) you work on animals --immediately--> you are marking on scientists

i remember the way i anticipated where a pigeon, a cat, spider, or ants, would make a home, a niche, in my childhood house...
the difference between ‘what i imagined’ & ‘where the nest actually appeared’ ==> made the world far more interesting
--> looking at the perception of animals (when you are child)


inventive and remarkable birds
happiness of sheep
sadness of captive wolves in a park in the Lorraine --> *not because they were captive but because captivity had transformed them into stupid and cruel beings*

[it is good to be able to say that] certain scientists not only do “bad science” (which remains a way of keeping distance) but that they do “science badly”


creatures that happened to be animals
creatures that happened to be ghosts
creatures that happened to be ...


(the influence of) Anglo-Saxon animal studies [on me]


(in Despretian way) learning to think from love


(the bad) fable of coming out of the closet
there is no closet. there are transformations.
falling from a horse, on a path that no longer leads to Damascus

(the story of) Saul does not answer God; he politely asks him to wait two minutes while he comforts his horse. let God wait; other things matter <--Despret-- this is where true conversation takes place

(a philosophy, or thought) one of: obligation =/= distance
(Stengers:) obligation =/= requirements -->{*a distinction that is to be made*, to be created, to be invented, not acknowledged as already manifest in the state of things}
obligation (is much more demanding than) =/= right
(Sina:) obligation =/= commitment
[*]being obligatet = agreeing to expose oneself to failure, refusing to construct the words of order that would protect oneself from the requirements of the activity
{not all activities arise from obligations = not all activities put themselves at risk, not all activities make an effort to present themselves politically}


Haraway's writing technique: a remedy for indifference and contempt --> *becoming attached to the multiple threads that make up the fabric of the world*

(Despret obligated to hear) the blackbird sang as if the world itself depended on its song --and-->
*the importance of things came to dwell in its voice*
*the blackbird made importance exist in another way*
*importance became incorporated in the world*

and this importance rises like a question [a question that comes after “what matters for..."] --Despret--> how can i now write in such a way as to be worthy of what matters, with a similar insistence, for another being? (my question in Cinderella diaries)

...................................

my history (of continuous interest, or what created the next “-->”):
iran / visual arts --> germany / lecture and performance --> research / heritage study --> case / ajayeb bestiary --> epistemology / animal --> science / anthropology

...................................

home funerals put into practice an important dimensino of the lives lived by the deceased --> participates actiively in the instauration of their existence
-instauration: [re-storying] restoring, participating in a transformation that leads to a certain existence = to more existence, in the case of the deceased: both a biographical supplement and the accomplishment of an existence in another realm of reality ==Souriau==> brilliance of reality (of the dead): regards of the existence of the deceased, provided we agree on the right regime of reality that can be granted to them --> (envisioning definition of the mode of existence)==enable==> to account for what the deceased do and what they have others do ==> describe how they interfere in the lives of the living --✕--> (we avoid the trap of) the tradition that captures and generally freezes the problem, separating the ways of being into two categories: “physical existence =/= psychological existence” ==> the deceased = non-existence, fantasy, belief, hallucinations... (<-- bad for ajayeb)

vigil
the deceased retain thier full relatinoal capacity
the midwives stress that it is important to carry on talking to them, with love, soflty, carefully choosing one's words...
death --> passage --> a medico-scientifice time frame in which the living have work to do (=/= the work of mourning)
body remains vibrant matter <== communication remains possible

taking care of events through their affects

(Despret asks) what do we know about what the body continues to feel and causes the person to feel once it has stopped breathing?


death midwives
share the conviction that death is not a matter of all or nothing
[people] can still talk to those who remain through memories or thoughts that arise in their presence
signs --> remain open to the possibility of being understood differently

death affects the face muscles in such a way that it produces a post-mortem smile (لبخند شهید) --> *smile (that comforts) ==> ‘deceased: a particularly robust being’ that unifies two ways of being:
1. he becomes an expressive relational being
2. his body becomes matter for expressions

midwife ==> a possibility in the sense of “or else, also” (=/= “either or”), in the valuable grammatical register of conjuctions: and, and, and...


these expressive modes that require *only recipients*, [=/= explanation: to give the phenomenon its scientific imprimatur] they just call for one to take into account
-this is tricky if you are in Iran's shia martyrdom culture or in the presense of Western authoritative sensual teacher. can there be a deliberate coexistence [an additive epistemological engagement --> *affirmation of the possibility that multiple and contradictory versions coexist*] of (the current enchanted version:) لبخند شهید and (the comming disenchanted version:) secular imprimatur in present iran?]

the dead body is both *biological & sacred*, object & subject, disenchanted & enchanted

disjunctive and controversial (یا “or else”) --(replaced by)--> “and” that challenge medical epistemology (each version “adds” to the current versoin rather than erase it)
•the fact that a smile can be a “natural” phenomenon does not prevent him from having wanted to comfort his family
•the “and” introduces a non-polemical challenge (an *open challenge* that opens up to other narratives) in terms of “there is always something else" = a commitment (that transforms ways of thinking and ways of feeling) [=/= Holakouee's روشنگری enlightened secularism]

the deceased:
•they invite themselves into dreams
•****they make presence of presence felt**** --> through stratagem (ruse of genre, skill in devising plans or schemes)
•they play on coincidences --> (as far as they are connected) anything can be used to make a sign <== **they are opportunists of enigma**
•they thwart all attempts to give meaning to the action
•they do have regularity ==> ([...]