Dancing Star Foundation’s Michael Charles Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison, in collaboration with our publisher, Springer International (Switzerland) will be bringing out a new work on anthrozoology next year. The focus is on the Anthropocene and interspecies communications and how this expansion of our cognitive, moral and philosophical compass – that constellation of feelings, intentionality, and the embrace of Other Minds – is key to our survival as a species and to the survival of most of biodiversity worldwide.
At first glance, the notion of anthrozoology reverts back to the earliest versions of Aesop’s Fables. To the vast history of biophilia and human ecological aesthetics. Interspecies communication has had few pure compass readings in the modern sciences. But, in fact, the history of science, metaphysics, art, ethics and activism is replete with a sublime aggregation of great poets, philosophers, scientists, politicians, and activists who have rallied to the cause of the Dr. Dolittle in all of us.
The new DSF book will go a long way towards enshrining the ethological revolution at the heart of all eco-remediation, restoration and sustainability. We hope to see the notions of “community” and “neighborhood” expanding to encompass all species, all individuals, all of us. And to recognize in our hearts and minds that the ethological revolution is at hand; that re-wilding our hearts, as our close friend and colleague Dr. Marc Bekoff has written of it, becomes the rallying cry for 21st-century environmentalism, conservation biology and animal rights.
