- Instytut Filologii Polskiej
Uniwersytet Wroclawski
Plac Nankiera 15
50-140 Wrocław
Poland
tel. +48 071 3752586
- Environmental Humanities, Ecocriticism, Literature, Communication, Climate Change, Storytelling, and 15 moreEmpathy, Affect, Environmental Communication, Environmental Psychology, Cultural Evolution, Empirical Study of Literature, Social Psychology, Human-Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Pragmatism, Empathy (Psychology), Narrative, Aesthetics, Richard Rorty, and Animal Studiesedit
- Wojciech "W.P." Malecki is associate professor at the Faculty of Letters University of Wrocław, Poland, and affiliat... moreWojciech "W.P." Malecki is associate professor at the Faculty of Letters University of Wrocław, Poland, and affiliate researcher at the Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw. His research is situated at the intersections of the humanities and social sciences and explores the impact of literature and the media on public attitudes toward the environment and on society in general.
He is the co-author of Human Minds and Animal Stories: How Narratives Make Us Care About Other Species (New York: Routledge, 2019), the author of Embodying Pragmatism (New York: Lang, 2010 – Chinese edition 2019), the editor or co-editor of four collections of essays and several journal issues, including, most recently, a special cluster on "Empirical Ecocriticism" in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. He sits on the editorial boards of the journal Pragmatism Today and the Eger Journal of English Studies.
He has published numerous book chapters and contributed to journals such as ISLE, The Journal of Ecocriticism, The Oxford Literary Review, Poetics, PLOS ONE, Foucault Studies, Angelaki, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, World Literature Today, and others.
He has been a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the University of Edinburgh; the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, Florida Atlantic University; and an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. He is also a recipient a Fellowship for Outstanding Young Scholars, awarded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
He has given invited talks and workshops at various institutions around the world, including University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Irvine; Fordham University; Stony Brook University; Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne; Freie Universität Berlin; Peking University; Capital Normal University (Peking); Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, and others. He is a founding member and officer of The Richard Rorty Society.
Photo credit: Alina Metelytsia, 2021.edit
This paper presents the results of a pioneering experimental study into how extinction stories impact the affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of our attitudes toward endangered species. Combining insights from the environmental... more
This paper presents the results of a pioneering experimental study into how extinction stories impact the affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of our attitudes toward endangered species. Combining insights from the environmental humanities with methods from the social sciences in an approach known as empirical ecocriticism, the paper shows how the sensory modalities of extinction stories and the gender of their audience may influence their social impact in often surprising ways. It also indicates how the use of drastic imagery may backfire by diminishing the persuasiveness of extinction narratives, and problematizes their reliance on interspecies empathy.
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This is the introduction to a thematic cluster (mini special issue) of articles on Empirical Ecocriticism in the Spring 2020 issue of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, co-edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson,... more
This is the introduction to a thematic cluster (mini special issue) of articles on Empirical Ecocriticism in the Spring 2020 issue of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, co-edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, and W.P. Małecki. It introduces empirical ecocriticism, a novel, interdisciplinary form of environmental criticism that combines social scientific and humanistic methodologies to empirically examine the influence of environmental texts on their audiences. It describes the ways that empirical ecocriticism picks up on convictions about the influence of environmentally engaged literature on readers’ attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that have always been central to ecocriticism. It describes what empirical ecocriticism does and doesn’t do, how it might productively contribute to ecocriticism, and the kind of scholarship and synergies that might be possible in the future. /// The other articles in the cluster are: 1) Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, "'Just as in the Book’? The Influence of Literature on Readers’ Awareness of Climate Justice and Perception of Climate Migrants,” https://tinyurl.com/justasinthebook. 2) W.P. Małecki, Alexa Weik von Mossner, and Małgorzata Dobrowolska, “Narrating Human and Animal Oppression: Strategic Empathy and Intersectionalism in Alice Walker’s ‘Am I Blue?,’” https://academic.oup.com/isle/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/isle/isaa023/5843531. 3) Pat Brereton and Maria Victoria Gomez, “Media Students, Climate Change, and YouTube Celebrities: Readings of Dear Future Generations: Sorry Video Clip," https://academic.oup.com/isle/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/isle/isaa021/5862597?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Research Interests: Communication, Media Studies, Climate Change, Research Methodology, Environmental Psychology, and 9 moreLiterature, Literary Criticism, Cognitive Narratology, Environmental Communication, Ecocriticism, Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Humanities, Environmental Literature, and Empirical Study of Literature
There is a growing consensus across disciplines that narratives are of central importance to our relationships with other humans and nonhumans as well as the broader environment. However, until recently ecocritics have largely relied upon... more
There is a growing consensus across disciplines that narratives are of central importance to our relationships with other humans and nonhumans as well as the broader environment. However, until recently ecocritics have largely relied upon speculation to assess the critical question of the influence of environmental narratives on their audiences. This is due in part to the lack of interdisciplinary cooperation between humanists and social scientists in assessing how environmental narratives across various mediums contribute to our understanding of the world around us and our place in it. So as to better understand this critical question, we are organizing an edited collection dedicated to empirical ecocriticism. We hope that it will begin to address this lacuna, ask valuable empirical, theoretical, and methodological questions, and encourage both ecocritics and environmental social scientists to conduct similar research in the future.
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Research Interests: Empathy (Psychology), Animal Studies, Race and Racism, Race and Ethnicity, Ecocriticism, and 12 moreEnvironmental Humanities, Animals in Literature, Animals in Culture, Gender and Race, Intersectionality and Social Inequality, Affect (Cultural Theory), Intersectionality, Empathy (Philosophy), Empathy, Affect, Alice Walker, and Animals
Throughout history, it has been often claimed by activists, writers, and scholars that narrative em-pathy for animals influences social attitudes toward other species. The problem is that there are no experimental data to support this... more
Throughout history, it has been often claimed by activists, writers, and scholars that narrative em-pathy for animals influences social attitudes toward other species. The problem is that there are no experimental data to support this opinion. Our study aimed to address this limitation. Involving 209 participants and three different narratives, it sought to experimentally establish whether narrative empathy for animals can improve attitudes toward animals and their welfare. The results were positive, and in the conclusion we discuss their implications, situating them in the context of research on the prosocial effects of narrative empathy.
Research Interests: Empathy (Psychology), Narrative, Animal Studies, Theory of Mind, Emotions (Social Psychology), and 10 moreEcocriticism, Environmental Humanities, Animals in Culture, Empathy (Philosophy), Empathy, Affect, Animals, Empathy (discourse), Theory of Mind (ToM) / Empathy / Emotion Recognition., and Empirical Study of Literature
The purpose of the three studies described in this paper was to investigate the effects that reading fiction has on pro-animal attitudes and behavior. Although such effects have been widely claimed to exist by writers, activists and... more
The purpose of the three studies described in this paper was to investigate the effects that reading fiction has on pro-animal attitudes and behavior. Although such effects have been widely claimed to exist by writers, activists and scholars, there has been scant experimental data to support that. In particular, there have been no experimental studies on the impact of fiction on attitudes toward animals over time and no experimental studies on the impact of fiction on behavior on behalf of animals. Our studies sought to address these limitations. Study 1 (n = 62) investigated the impact of a fictional narrative on attitudes toward animal welfare a week after exposure. Study 2 (n = 410) investigated the impact of that same narrative on attitudes toward animal welfare over the period of up to two months. Study 3 (n = 186) sought to establish whether that same text would have an impact on behavior on behalf of animals. All these studies were conducted in Poland on Polish subjects and with the use of texts written in the Polish language. While Study 1 yielded a positive result, the results of the remaining studies were negative. In conclusion, we discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these data.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X17302188
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X17302188
Research Interests: Aesthetics, Posthumanism, Animal Studies, Animal Ethics, Narrative Psychology, and 11 morePhilosophy of Literature, Literary Theory, Psychonarratology, Ecocriticism, Narrative Theory, Human-Animal Studies, Narrative Ethics, Literary studies, Ecocriticism, Eco-Aesthetics, Psychology of Literature and Arts, and Empirical Study of Literature
Literary fiction has been credited with considerable power to improve attitudes toward out-groups. It was even argued that it has been an important factor behind the global decline of violence against various minorities in the last... more
Literary fiction has been credited with considerable power to improve attitudes toward out-groups. It was even argued that it has been an important factor behind the global decline of violence against various minorities in the last centuries. Could it also help to reduce the human-inflicted suffering of animals? To test this, we studied the attitude toward animal welfare of n = 921 (experimental group) people of both sexes who read a short fragment of an unpublished novel with a motif of the physical abuse of an animal. The control group (n = 912) read a fragment of a similar length but not related to animals. After reading the text all subjects filled out an on-line questionnaire with seven items (camouflaged among many others items) measuring attitudes toward animal welfare. The questionnaire included also demographical questions, such as whether the subject keeps pets. We found that in comparison with the control group, the experimental group was significantly more concerned about animal welfare. This result indicates that literary fiction can influence attitudes toward other species. It is also worth noting that our study is characterized by a high level of ecological validity, i.e. a relatively high extent to which its results can be generalized (or extended) to real-world settings. Due to its specific design, which involved the cooperation of a best-selling author and his publisher, the study approximated the typical conditions in which people read fiction in a remarkably accurate way. Finally, our research has potential practical implications for promoting animal welfare.
Research Interests: Experimental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Human-Animal Relations, Empathy (Psychology), Narrative, and 24 moreAnimal Studies, Animal Ethics, Anthrozoology, Audience and Reception Studies, Storytelling, Narrative Methods, Reader Response, Animal Welfare, Facebook, Psychonarratology, Ecocriticism, Narrative Theory, Human-Animal Relationships, Human-Animal Studies, Narrative Ethics, Narrative Inquiry, Empathy (Philosophy), Animal Husbandry, Facebook Studies, Animal Welfare Law, Anna Sewell Black Beauty, Animal Stories, Philosophy and Sociology of Human/animal Relations, and Empirical Study of Literature
According to a view widely held in the media and in public discourse more generally, online hating is a social problem on a global scale. However, thus far there has been little scientific literature on the subject, and, to our best... more
According to a view widely held in the media and in public discourse more generally, online hating is a social problem on a global scale. However, thus far there has been little scientific literature on the subject, and, to our best knowledge, there is even no established scholarly definition of online hating and online haters in the first place. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide a new perspective on online hating by, first, distinguishing online hating from the phenomena it is often confused with, such as trolling, cyberstalking, and online hate speech, and, second, by proposing an operational definition of online hating and online haters based on ethnographic interviews and surveys of the existing scholarly literature.
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Research Interests: Pragmatism, Feminist Theory, Cultural Theory, Embodiment, Gilles Deleuze, and 15 moreHealth, Affect Theory, Baruch Spinoza, Cinema, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Gender and Race, Affect (Cultural Theory), Affect (Philosophy), Somaesthetics, Practical Philosophy, Richard Shusterman, Brian Massumi, Philosophy of the Body, Body Without Organs!, and Body Theory
On Philosophy and Philosophers is a volume of unpublished philosophical papers by Richard Rorty, a central figure in late-twentieth-century intellectual debates and a primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism. The first... more
On Philosophy and Philosophers is a volume of unpublished philosophical papers by Richard Rorty, a central figure in late-twentieth-century intellectual debates and a primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism. The first collection of new work to appear since his death in 2007, these previously unseen papers advance novel views on metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, philosophical semantics and the social role of philosophy, critically engaging canonical and contemporary figures from Plato and Kant to Kripke and Brandom. This book's diverse offerings, which include technical essays written for specialists and popular lectures, refine our understanding of Rorty's perspective and demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the iconoclastic American philosopher's ground-breaking thought. An introduction by the editors highlights the papers' original insights and contributions to contemporary debates.
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In the paper, I try to consider the function of ecocriticism at the present time using insights taken, or derived, from the work of a loose group of scholars that is sometimes labeled as ‘neopragmatists.’ In particular, I shall be... more
In the paper, I try to consider the function of ecocriticism at the present time using insights taken, or derived, from the work of a loose group of scholars that is sometimes labeled as ‘neopragmatists.’ In particular, I shall be concerned with the points made by Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish to the effect that putting too much hope in the power of one’s academic discipline can be detrimental to the political tasks one wants to realize with its help. As Rorty argues, to effectively address any pressing political problem usually demands directly impacting the powers that be, which, as is safe to assume, is very unlikely to be achieved solely through books and articles in literary criticism. What one needs in such cases, Rorty tirelessly reminds us, is “real politics,” i.e., participating in demonstrations, supporting financially the political organization or party one finds the most hopeful, or writing letters of protest to officials. In order to see how these points apply to ecocriticism, understood as a subdiscipline of literary studies devoted to inquiring into “the relationship between literature and the physical environment,” I will begin by asking how that field can be useful in furthering the ecological cause, and will then turn to an example of an ecoritic’s engagement in “real politics.”
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The power of stories to raise our concern for animals has been postulated throughout history by countless scholars, activists, and writers, including such greats as Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy. This is the first book to investigate that... more
The power of stories to raise our concern for animals has been postulated
throughout history by countless scholars, activists, and writers,
including such greats as Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy. This is the
first book to investigate that power and explain the psychological and
cultural mechanisms behind it. It does so by presenting the results of
an experimental project that involved thousands of participants, texts
representing
various genres and national literatures, and the cooperation
of an internationally acclaimed bestselling author. Combining psychological
research with insights from animal studies, ecocriticism, and
other fields in the environmental humanities, the book not only provides
evidence that animal stories can make us care for other species, but also
shows that their effects are more complex and fascinating than we have
ever thought. In this way, the book makes a groundbreaking contribution
to the study of relations between literature and the nonhuman world
as well as to the study of how literature changes our minds and society.
throughout history by countless scholars, activists, and writers,
including such greats as Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy. This is the
first book to investigate that power and explain the psychological and
cultural mechanisms behind it. It does so by presenting the results of
an experimental project that involved thousands of participants, texts
representing
various genres and national literatures, and the cooperation
of an internationally acclaimed bestselling author. Combining psychological
research with insights from animal studies, ecocriticism, and
other fields in the environmental humanities, the book not only provides
evidence that animal stories can make us care for other species, but also
shows that their effects are more complex and fascinating than we have
ever thought. In this way, the book makes a groundbreaking contribution
to the study of relations between literature and the nonhuman world
as well as to the study of how literature changes our minds and society.
Research Interests: Social Psychology, Aesthetics, Moral Psychology, Human-Animal Relations, Narrative, and 14 morePosthumanism, Animal Studies, Critical Animal Studies, Narrative Psychology, Philosophy of Literature, Environmental Communication, Aesthetics and Ethics, Ecocriticism, Cognitive Literary Theory, Environmental Humanities, Empathy, Literary studies, Human Animal Studies, and Empirical Ecocriticism
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his book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover... more
his book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover the wide-ranging scope of Shustermans pragmatist thought, divide into three sections: Literary Theory and Philosophy of Art; Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics; and Somaesthetics. Written by an international group of authors from different philosophical perspectives, the books essays not only provide a good introduction to Shustermans innovative pragmatist theories, but show their useful applications to important and controversial topics in philosophy, politics, religious and gender studies, the arts, and somaesthetics. The book also includes two new texts by Shusterman: an introductory essay in which he explains the trajectory of his intellectual development and a detailed response to the other contributors, which closes the book.
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Embodying Pragmatism is the first monograph in English devoted to Richard Shusterman, one of today's most interesting pragmatist thinkers in aesthetics. The book presents a comprehensive account of Shusterman's principal philosophical... more
Embodying Pragmatism is the first monograph in English devoted to Richard Shusterman, one of today's most interesting pragmatist thinkers in aesthetics. The book presents a comprehensive account of Shusterman's principal philosophical ideas concerning pragmatism, aesthetics, and literary theory (including such themes as interpretation, aesthetic experience, popular art, and human embodiment - culminating in his proposal of a new discipline called «somaesthetics»). As Shusterman's philosophical writings involve a dialogue with both analytic and continental traditions, this monograph not only offers a critical vision of contemporary pragmatist thought but also situates Shusterman and pragmatism within the current state of theory.
Research Interests: Experimental Psychology, Animal Studies, Animal Ethics, Anthrozoology, Audience and Reception Studies, and 15 moreAnimal Welfare, Facebook, Ecocriticism, Adolescent, Animal Husbandry, Facebook Studies, Female, Attitude, Animal Welfare Law, Aged, Anna Sewell Black Beauty, Adult, Animal Stories, Empirical Study of Literature, and Control Group
... ideas of Peirce, James, and Dewey, Susan Haack adds that "[this] style of neo-Pragmatism has been ... want to stress that 1 take Shusterman to be a representative of neopragmatism in the ... 7 In other words, as a... more
... ideas of Peirce, James, and Dewey, Susan Haack adds that "[this] style of neo-Pragmatism has been ... want to stress that 1 take Shusterman to be a representative of neopragmatism in the ... 7 In other words, as a neopragmatist Shusterman should be deemed mainly a continua-tor ...
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ABSTRACT
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The article is a critical response to Stefán Snævarr’s “Pragmatism and Popular Culture: Shusterman, Popular Art, and the Challenge of Visuality.”In its first part, I attempt to prove that several of Snævarr’s claims about popular culture... more
The article is a critical response to Stefán Snævarr’s “Pragmatism and Popular Culture: Shusterman, Popular Art, and the Challenge of Visuality.”In its first part, I attempt to prove that several of Snævarr’s claims about popular culture and new media, which form the basic premises of his diagnosis of the alleged intellectual decline of the West, are either dubious or wrong. Moreover, in the context of this diagnosis, Snævarr levels some serious accusations against Richard Shusterman’s theory of popular culture, which, I believe, are ungrounded and do not do justice to the latter’s approach. Henceforth, the remainder of the article is devoted to explaining in which aspects Snævarr’s interpretation of Richard Shusterman’s theory is misguided.
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The aim of this chapter is to delineate a “zone of proximity” between the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics. Focusing on the place of the body in these two thinkers’ philosophies, the chapter argues that... more
The aim of this chapter is to delineate a “zone of proximity” between the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics. Focusing on the place of the body in these two thinkers’ philosophies, the chapter argues that their somatic approaches are both primarily driven by the pragmatic question: “What can a body do?” Furthermore, the chapter is concerned with how both authors link the body and the affects to questions regarding the political. Besides exploring such convergences, the chapter also discusses a number of important differences in the two approaches, highlighting, for instance, Deleuze’s and Shusterman’s dissimilar perspectives on the concept of “health”.