A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans

with A Theory of Meaning

Jakob von Uexküll

Narrated by Darren Roebuck

Available from Audible

Book published by University of Minnesota Press

The influential work of speculative biology—and a key document in posthumanist studies—now available in a new, accurate English translation.

In Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. Uexküll’s concept of the umwelt holds new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the framework of biopolitics.

A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans advances Uexküll’s revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species’ morphology and behavior. A Theory of Meaning extends his thinking on the umwelt, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll’s work for the first time will find that his concept of the umwelt holds new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the framework of biopolitics.

Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) was born in Estonia and educated at the University of Heidelberg and the Zoological Center in Naples. He published widely and, in 1926, founded the Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Hamburg.

REVIEWS:

“Those interested in the environment (or environments), animal studies (especially critical animal studies), and biology will find this new translation significant and illuminating.”

—Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment