Paper short abstract

In June 2025, a wild bear was spotted in the residential areas of Vilnius, causing considerable commotion among residents and an outburst of interest in the media and social networks. This paper dwells on various interpretations of this encounter and their explicit or implicit meanings.

Paper long abstract

In June 2025, a wild bear was spotted in the residential areas of Vilnius, causing considerable commotion among residents and an outburst of interest in the media and social networks. Several reasons could explain this interest. Primarily, bears have been considered extinct in Lithuania since 1883 when the last one was hunted down. For decades, only incidental traveling bears that were making their way through the remote forested areas by the Belorussian or Latvian border to Lithuania have been reported. Yet currently, due to the changing environmental and geopolitical situation, bears started appearing (or even dwelling?) in Lithuania again. It should be noted that bear has always had a prominent role in Lithuanian culture, featuring in literature (starting from the famous horror-fantasy novella Lokis by Prosper Merimee), folklore, ethnography, heraldic, and popular imagery. Its image combines traces of a wild, savage and dangerous beast on the one hand, and a cuddly, slow and lovable creature from children’s stories on the other. Therefore, encounters with bears inevitably evoke strong and ambivalent emotions. Hence, the case of such a creature, which used to be virtually absent even in forested areas, unexpectedly wandering into the streets of the bustling Lithuanian capital, raised a storm of public interest. Various issues were tackled in the discourse that followed, including inefficiency of the governmental institutions, public safety, environmental concerns, etc. The situation was also exploited for endless ads, memes and other forms of popular creativity.

Paper short abstract

An examination of the special role of bears in the consciousness of Scottish Gaels from early times to the present despite having become extinct in Scotland. Particular attention will be paid to their active re-emergence in the oral traditions of 19th century diaspora communities in Canada.

Paper long abstract

From at least medieval times bears have been accorded a distinct status in Gaelic consciousness, as evidenced in Old Irish by personal names and by the various noa names applied. When the bear became extinct in Scotland is not certain, with accounts/opinions ranging from the medieval period to the late 16th century, yet over the succeeding centuries its presence in popular tradition has persisted the form of clan names, apotropaic prayers and the recitation of traditional narrative. With the Gaelic diaspora and the founding of rural communities in early 19th Canada, direct contact was renewed. The encounters, usually involving the protection of livestock, gave rise to a series of songs by local bards, commonly titled Òran a’ Mhathain’ ‘The Bear Song’ as well as at least one dramatic account from oral history. One song has come down in print from the early 20th century Nova Scotia Gaelic language newspaper Mac-Talla; the majority are to be found in field sound recordings made on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia during the late 20th century and now held in regional archives. These sources will be examined in detail with regard to questions such as anthropomorphism and sentience (bears in addition to being capable of human speech in the songs often express their own side of the encounters); descriptions of appearance and character; traditional views of nature; and humour in describing potentially drastic confrontations. Where appropriate, prose narratives from the field accompanying songs will be included in the presentation.

Paper short abstract

This paper examines how Japanese wolf lore framed unusual human–animal encounters as reflections of fear, reverence, and reciprocity. Even after extinction, wolves endured as symbolic guardians, revealing how cultural invention mediated Japan’s relations with the wild.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores how Japanese wolf lore cast unusual human–animal encounters as mirrors of ecological fear and engines of cultural creativity. In premodern Japan, wolves were rarely observed directly; instead, folklore filled gaps in knowledge with stories that balanced fear and reverence. Legends such as the okuri-ōkami (“sending wolf”), in which wolves escort night travelers safely through mountains, depict the animal as a guardian who demands reciprocity. Tales of “wolves’ gratitude” (rōhōon), where respectful offerings are repaid with protection or gifts, highlight a belief in interspecies exchange and moral recognition. These encounters suggest that humans and wolves “witnessed” one another—humans acknowledging wolves as divine messengers or kami, wolves acknowledging humans as moral beings. The Meiji (1868-1912) state’s embrace of Western scientific taxonomies and imported wolf lore (Aesop, Grimm, etc.) transformed these narratives. Wolves shifted from ambivalent guardians to one-dimensional predators, reinforcing new ecological hierarchies that justified eradication. Yet shrines continued to venerate wolves as protective deities, their absence magnifying their allegorical power. The extinction of the Japanese wolf did not end its presence; it shifted it into symbolic and spiritual realms, where talismans and rituals replaced living animals. By tracing these transformations, the paper argues that wolf narratives in Japan expose how encounters with the wild are never purely literal but mediated by cultural invention. Wolves became witnesses not only to ecological change but also to Japan’s shifting negotiations with fear, reciprocity, and national identity.

Paper short abstract

Examining narratives of encounters between human and hunman (gray langur) in Bengal, this paper explores how these wild animals negotiate sacred, domestic, and ritual spaces while interacting with humans and shaping narratives of religiosity, wilderness, power, and interspecies coexistence.

Paper long abstract

Gray langurs, popularly known as hunman (from Sanskrit, Hanuman) in Bengal, occupy a curious position between nuisance and contested reverence in everyday life. Their mythic association with the divine figure Hanuman in the epic Ramayana grants them a privileged place in sacred imagination, yet in lived practice, they are as likely to be feared, mocked, or tolerated. In rural Bengal, hunmans appear as unruly spectators at temples, roaming freely, snatching offerings, and even witnessing sacrificial rituals, blurring the line between ritual order and profane disruption. They also intrude into domestic space, bewildering householders, stealing vegetables, sometimes, puzzled by their reflections in mirrors. Folk narratives describe moments of uneasy hospitality, such as when female hunmans with newborns seek shelter in human homes to escape aggressive infanticidal males. Villagers, otherwise wary of them, extend temporary refuge in these moments of crisis. By drawing on oral accounts and field observations from southern West Bengal, this paper explores how humans and hunmans negotiate shared space across private and public domains. Situating these encounters within broader contexts of vernacular narratives and lived religion, I demonstrate how human–hunman encounters illuminate the porous borders of sacred and profane, domestic and wild, challenging conventional dichotomies between culture and nature. Across contexts, these animals emerge not as passive presences but as agents actively negotiating space and shaping narratives. These narratives prompt us to rethink the conception of “wilderness” through interspecies relations in shared ecology and negotiations of power and space for survival.

Paper short abstract

The paper looks at the wolf's symbolism, the value of metaphors, and their historical rootedness in Germany. It traces the journey of wolves from the fictional world of folktales to the nonfictional world of ecology, political discourses, and eco-consciousness to analyse the biopolitics around them.

Paper long abstract

No other animal is as deeply embedded in cultural expression and human thought throughout human history as the wolf. Psychologist C.G. Jung defines the wolf as an archetypal being, an echo of the human collective subconscious (Jung, 2003). Shamanic cultures worship the wolf as a spiritually guiding power animal (Lopez, 1978). In the Palaeolithic, humans admired wolves as dangerous rivals, while Indo-European cultures considered them guardians. Wolf symbolism became a part not only of culture, but politics also had its reflection. Hitler himself was regarded as the pack leader by the Nazis (Arnds, 2021). The wolf symbolised the great German past and a predator for Nazis, but in current times in Germany, there has been a transformation of the image, where far-right activists depict living wolves in a negative light and associate them with “the other,” the reason being rewilding, return of the wild, human–non-human conflicts, and immigrant politics. Through this paper, I analyse how the wolf's image has transformed and been appropriated, from the folktales to the farmlands, and what role the folk narratives play in invoking emotions surrounding human-non-human conflicts. Both fictional and non-fictional narratives and encounters with the non-human have metaphorical value, shaping and reshaping the human psyche. Therefore, this paper will trace the journey of metaphors migrating from oral traditions to ecological and political discourses and analyse the process of political scapegoating of wolves and their bio-politics. This paper will draw upon narrative theory, actor-network theory, and cultural semiotics to examine these entanglements and shifts.

Paper short abstract

The essay is an attempt in analysing Eden Robinson’s prose as a modern variant of the Sasquatch/Yeti myth (Lévi-Strauss) in order to specify the shifts of perspective (Viveiros de Castro) between culture and nature, human and nonhuman as a starting point of storytelling rooted in cultural tradition.

Paper long abstract

Born in British Columbia, a member of Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations, Eden Robinson, the author of Monkey Beach, Son of a Trickster and the essay The Sasquatch at Home, consequently develops a vision of “modern storytelling” which would be partly rooted in traditional myths. One of such myths is that of the Sasquatch/ B’gwus presented in her work. As a part of broad corpus of different Yeti-like creature stories to be found almost anywhere, Robinson’s concept of Sasquatch manifests the same structural tendency to mediate relations between man and animal, science and common knowledge, culture and nature and between separated cultures. Robinson uses some typical traits of the creature, making it a kind of trickster, a go-between worlds, contexts and narrations. Using Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s theoretical concepts, it can be analysed how cosmological perspectives are shifted in Robinson’s narrative and how the “unusual encounters” with the being out of culture/nature strays becomes something more than transgression. Therefore, Sasquatch can be perceived not only as a mute monster, but also as a specific “logical device” (Claude Lévi-Strauss’s term). Creating the process of storytelling and actualizing our perspective on cultural tradition, Sasquatch sometimes even acts as a sentinel of a certain lore.

Paper short abstract

This paper explores how Ruskin Bond’s select children’s short stories reconfigure interspecies relationality and offer fresh critical avenues to address animal subjectivity, animal rights and ethical coexistence of life forms.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores how select children’s short stories of Ruskin Bond assert a re-estimation of animal subjectivity and interspecies relationships. By foregrounding animals as sentient beings rather than mere symbols, “The Banyan Tree,” “Tiger Tiger Burning Bright,” and “Panther’s Moon” disrupt anthropocentric hierarchies and open an interspecies dialogue that resonates with contemporary debates in animal studies and posthumanist ethics. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming animal,’ centred on ‘alliance’ and ‘transversal communication,’ provides a productive framework to read these texts and dismantle speciesist boundaries. Here, humans encounter animals, at different levels, as ‘co-participants’ in a shared continuum of life, destabilising the human-animal binary. This resonates with Cary Wolfe’s posthumanist emphasis on the emotional exchange between humans and animals that signifies the irreducible subjectivity of non-human life. Further, Martha Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities theory’ can be seen in the way Bond’s narratives extend ethical imagination toward animals’ intrinsic needs and capabilities. Complementing this, Peter Singer’s anti-speciesist ‘utilitarian’ framework underscores the imperative to minimise suffering across species, a principle tacitly reflected in Bond’s refusal to reduce animals to mere narrative utility. Similarly, Tom Regan’s assertion of animals as ‘subjects-of-a-life’ with inherent moral value finds resonance in Bond’s insistence on the sanctity of animal existence. At this juncture, this paper explores how these theoretical perspectives enable a fresh reading of Bond’s select children’s texts as a critical site for reimagining interspecies justice and asserts the issues of animal ethics, animal rights, animal subjectivity, and the ethical coexistence of life forms.

Paper short abstract

This paper investigates selected Grimm’s fairy tales that decentre human characters through essential encounters with nonhuman beings. These narratives critique anthropocentrism and reimagine an ecological order where all beings possess independent yet interconnected agencies.

Paper long abstract

In an anthropocentric fashion of literature (and fables), the ‘more-than-human’ is often reduced to allegorical or metaphorical functions in the literary text. The multispecies world of Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen (KHM) has challenged this anthropocentricity of narratives and has decentralised the humans not only through the plots but also through the narrative structure. This decentralisation as an active criticism of anthropocentrism is staged through essential encounter with nonhuman beings, who are integral parts of many narratives in KHM. Numerous tales defy anthropocentric human agency and re-establish a new ecological order, where the nonhuman animals too, have independent agencies. This shift happens through the unexpected encounters with nonhuman animals, who play decisive roles in the humans’ pursuit of their goals. Based on Wolfgang Iser’s and Hubert Zapf’s triadic model of literature, this paper argues, that the selected Grimm’s tales unfolds a threefold dynamic of human-nonhuman encounters, where the existing human-centeredness is staged and criticised; the alternative ecological world-order is imagined; and through the reintegrative function, the harmony is restored. Through the analysis of selected Grimm tales i.e., Hansel and Gretel (KHM 15), The Bremen Town Musician (KHM 27), The Queen Bee (KHM 62), The Two Travelers (KHM 107), I argue that the human and nonhuman encounters in selected KHM significantly decentralise humans in these tales while emphasising the centrality of more-than-human world by establishing an ecological order, where all beings have independent agencies yet are interconnected and interdependent.

Paper short abstract

Through a linguistic and folkloristic investigation of written and video-recorded narratives about wild animal encounters, we explore how humans relate to the wild, and how they construct social positions for themselves and non-human animals.

Paper long abstract

From research on encounters between humans and domesticated non-human animals we know that humans tend to position their non-human interlocutors as sentient and thinking beings. Domesticated animals are often treated as family members and (potential) friends, with their own agency and rights. At the same time, there is a built-in un-equal structure in that humans own the agenda for how meetings are to be organized, and that there can be ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways for non-humans to e.g., greet (Nilsson & Norrthon 2024).

When encountering wild non-human animals, these claims on the meeting agenda dissolves. Depending on how wild or rare a species is, narratives range from divine and even life changing (in encounters with e.g., lynx or wolverines in the wilderness) to stories very similar to those about domesticated animals (in meeting e.g., hedgehogs and squirrels in the backyard) as well as narratives of disgust and distance (when encountering e.g., rats or lice in the home) (see also Nylund Skog 2018, Ekström & Kaijser 2018). In that regard, the narratives are closely related to where the encounter takes place.

Drawing on post-human theory (Buller 2014, Haraway 2003, 2008, Meijer 2019, Wolfe 2010), we investigate written and video-recorded narratives about wild animal encounters, and explore how humans relate to the wild, and how they construct social positions both for themselves and non-human animals.

Paper short abstract

In the panoply of parrots in folk culture, some are helpful, clever agents or the darling pets of sailors, others mischief makers and taboo-breakers. Within that frame, I will consider contemporary stories of humans’ unusual encounters with surprisingly sapient parrots who always get the last word.

Paper long abstract

Since ancient times humans have been fascinated by parrots for their faculty of speech, from the storytelling parrot of the Sanskrit *Suka Saptati* to the exotic imported parrots that dazzled courts of Chinese Emperors to the sailors’ companions whose salty locutions were as colorful as their plumage. These avian oddities are animals, but their ability to mimic human language makes them almost seem preternatural—inviting questions about the mysteries of cognition, communication, and the nature/culture divide. In the panoply of parrots in folklore and popular culture, some are helpful, clever agents like advisers to kings’ courts or the darling pets of pirates, others mischief makers and taboo-breakers. Within that context, my interest turns toward the legendary. There are old legends about notable parrots belonging to famous people—and more recent stories of parrots that swear uncontrollably, betray confidences, and otherwise insert themselves (in troubling ways) into the lives of humans around them. There is even a body of narratives about parrots tangled in the criminal world; sometimes they’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but other times they are surviving witnesses to scandals and felonies, and then, by their ability speak, de facto “witnesses” to the crimes. This paper will survey the history of parrot legendry and analyze contemporary stories of humans’ unusual encounters with surprisingly sapient parrots who always seem to get the last word.

Paper short abstract

This paper explores narratives of dominion through representations of the tiger in Asia. From royal hunts to colonial cinema, the tiger is framed as adversary and symbol, embodying wildness, power, and resistance, revealing tensions in human–animal encounters and control over nature.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how narratives of dominion over nature are expressed through representations of the tiger in Asian visual and cinematic traditions. Across historical and cultural contexts, the tiger emerges as both adversary and symbol, embodying wildness, danger, and resistance to human control.

From imperial hunting scenes that celebrated sovereignty, to colonial iconography portraying conquest as civilisation, and twentieth-century films staging the tiger as both threat and spectacle, these narratives illustrate how human–animal encounters are embedded in wider struggles over power and identity. The tiger becomes a contested figure: a predator to be subdued, a trophy to be displayed, and a cultural emblem to be feared and admired.

These portrayals naturalise binaries such as human/animal, coloniser/colonised, and masculine/feminine, while also exposing their instability. Moments of confrontation with the tiger reveal the fragility of dominion and the limits of human mastery over the wild.

Through interpretative analysis of visual and filmic sources, the paper argues that dominion is never absolute but continually narrated, contested, and reimagined. By foregrounding the tiger as a focal point, it contributes to the conference theme by showing how stories of human–animal encounters mediate cultural politics of power and nature.

Paper short abstract

This paper examines the core elements of narratives of encounters between human and non-human animals to see the connection between older and recent forms of the narratives. This connection will be examined at the level of form/structure of the narrative and the inherent meaning in the narrative.

Paper long abstract

Encounters between human and non-human wild animals have a long history in the folk narrative and a wild spread across the world. The same is true of more recent narratives of such encounters. While the folk narrative makes this encounter possible with magical means, contemporary narratives emphasize realistic evidence. The absence of mutual, shared language makes the search for other means of communication necessary. These other means of communication require recognition as well as questioning.

In this paper I propose to examine the core elements of narratives of encounters between human and non-human animals to be able to see if there is a connection between older and recent forms of the narratives of encounters between human and non-human animals. This connection will be examined at the level of form/structure of the narrative and the inherent meaning in the narrative so as to be able to explore narrative continuities and philosophical possibilities. The question this paper seeks to answer is: Do these narratives carry a potential for an alternate epistemology of the more-than-human world?