Paper short abstract:

The paper presents two viewpoints on animals and their homes and dwellings, based on the folkloristic, anthropological, philosophical, and ecocritical findings as they are thematized in the works of Fran Erjavec, Richard Adams, and Iztok Geister.

Paper long abstract:

The paper presents two viewpoints on animals and their homes and dwellings, based on the folkloristic, anthropological, philosophical, and ecocritical findings. These are the anthropocentrical and ecocritical view as they are presented in the works of Fran Erjavec (Depictions of domestic and foreign animals, 1868-1873), Richard Adams (Watership Down, 1972), and Iztok Geister (Nature, as seen by nature, 2010). A deep analysis of these works will provide an insight into the question of anthropomorphization. Through mostly realistic thematizations of animals and their dwellings in those works, I try to establish whether we can classify those dwelling as a part of nature or culture, e.g. is badger's burrow an architectonic masterpiece or merely an existential act based on instinct (von Uexküll 1957, Von Frish 1975). The starting-point of the presented paper is the premise that non-human animals have their own subjectivity which reflects through their dwellings and construction of their homes (Ingold 2000). In all three works, constant human and non-human encounters can be established just by observing different animal dwellings, which can be either preserved or destroyed by human.