Search

VISUAL STORIES ABOUT PRIMATES AND PRIMATOLOGY AS STORIES OF SOMETHING MORE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 3 (29). P. 116-139

The aim of the study is to analyze a series of visual stories characterizing the cultural experience of perception of primates and primatology in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and in the United States from 1963 to the present. The object of the study is illustrative materials for the book The Chimpanzee Child and the Human Child (1935) by Nadezhda Ladygina-Kots; photo and film materials of the mid-1930s depicting experiments with chimpanzees that were conducted in the laboratory of Academician Ivan Pavlov in Koltushy; photos and videos of Jane Goodall’s field research work in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, presented in the publications of “National Geographic”; a series of films about the Planet of the Apes created by the 20th Century Fox during 1968–1973. The article argues that visual stories about primates and primatology are always stories about something more because they are another type of text that unfolds according to how we see and feel it, how we experience it, and what we still know about the objects that are reflected in these images. This article discusses the following questions: What did these stories tell their contemporaries about? What can they tell us today? What else can we learn about through these visualizations? The article shows that the visual narrative, presented in the illustrations for the book by Ladygina-Kots, can be considered not only as another type of narrative about research work, but also as a story about the private life of a female scientist, who turned it into a field of scientific experiment. Images of chimpanzees participating in the experiments of the scientists of Academician Pavlov’s laboratory, presented in the issues of the Ogonyok magazine of 1934 and 1935 and in the popular science film Rosa and Rafael, can be perceived as a fragment of a visual narrative about the greatness of Soviet science and the Soviet way of life. Photos and videos of Jane Goodall’s work in the African forest, which were produced by National Geographic, are undoubtedly a story about the hidden dream of Western civilization about how to return to the primitive paradise, which has long been lost. The epic film Planet of the Apes, created by Arthur Jacobs and his team, is nothing more than an experience of visualizing the long-standing fears of American society preoccupied with racial conflicts and the uncertainty of its future. Visual stories about primates and primatology are always stories about what else can be seen over time.

Keywords: visual stories, primates, primatology, Nadezhda Ladygina-Kots, Academician Pavlov’s chimpanzees, Jane Goodall, National Geographic, Planet of the Apes

SYMBOLS OF HUMAN DIGNITY AND IDENTITY PROTECTION: RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY FACING THE CHALLENGE OF THE BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION IN MEDICINE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 2 (32). P. 88-111

The article discusses the development of bioethics in Russia. Bioethics is viewed as a form of expert knowledge designed to protect human dignity and identity in the field of health care and biomedicine. The authors show that the emergence of bioethics was connected with the transformation of the Soviet healthcare system, which was replaced by a system based on the principles of market relations. The authors note that the situation in Russia is typologically similar to the situation in the United States, which emerged on the wave of neo-liberal economic reforms that led to the rapid development of biomedicine science and biotechnology. Like in the U.S., in Russia, the development of bioethics also took place in response to the biotechnology revolution in medicine, but its advance was interrupted by the dramatic collapse of the Soviet state. The emergence of the public-private healthcare system and the rapid expansion of biomedical technologies required an intellectual and moral response from a diverse group of experts analyzing problems associated with it. The two most active groups of the expert community could articulate this answer – philosophers associated with the system of academic institutions and theologians participating in the development of the official position of the Russian Orthodox Church. The article offers a general picture of the development of bioethics in Russia, taking into consideration the specific contributions of these two groups. The focus is on two historical stages in the development of bioethics: its emergence, associated with the transformation of the healthcare system, and the contemporary state, characterized by the rapid spread of biomedical technologies. The authors conclude that philosophers see their mission as to sound the alarm about the “pace” of the spread of biotechnology and the speed of change in human nature that they believe is possible. Theologians, on the other hand, see their mission as to signal the dangerous “temptations” of progress that invite humans to take the place of God and become creators of their own nature by replacing themselves with something completely different.

Keywords: biotechnology revolution in medicine, biomedicine, bioethics, history, Russia, philosophy, Orthodox theology