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Jakob von Uexkull founded Umwelt research with a clear idea – that humans are not qualitatively different than other species. Umwelt, literally “outer-world”, is the study of the organism in relation to the world around it, as well as the meaning that the world holds for that organism. Thus the world is a truly subjective place.
While von Uexkull’s theory has entered into the social sciences via semiotics, and biology via ethology, the authors of these chapters go between and beyond these disciplines to examine everything from cells to spiders to humans and culture. The authors adopt the framework of Umwelt theory to examine unique aspects of the natural world by relating the inner world of the subject and the objects to which that organism attends.
Introduction; Rosemarie Sokol Chang
Series Editor's Preface: The Culture of Relating.
Part I. Pre-Cultural Backgrounds: Environment As Linked To The Behaving Organism.
Chapter 1. From Cellular to Human Worlds; Brady Wagoner and Phillip Rosenbaum
Chapter 2. Complexities, Confusion, Choices: Reencountering Uexküll; Roger Bibace
Chapter 3. The Wisdom of the Web: Learning from Spiders; Jaan Valsiner and Emily Lescak
Part II. Turning To Humans: Culture Enters The Story.
Chapter 4. The Umwelt and Emotional Experience; Glenn Weisfeld
Chapter 5. From Mother's Mouth to Baby's World and Back Again: Shaping One's Attachments Through Vocalization; Rosemarie Sokol Chang
Chapter 6. The Mating Game: The Extension of Umwelt in the 21st Century; Sarah L. Strout and Leila Samii
Part III. The Meaning-making Minds On Social Borders.
Chapter 7. The Living, the Un-Living, and the Hard-to-Kill: Acting and Feeling on the Boundary; Alessandra Zimmerman and Jaan Valsiner
Chapter 8. Signifying Girlhood: Cultural Images of Girlhood and Semiotic Meaning-making by Girls in the 21st Century United States; Jessica L. Willis
Chapter 9. Heimweh or Homesickness: A Nostalgic Look at the Umwelt That No Longer Is; Rainer Diriwächter
Chapter 10. A Unified Topological Approach to Umwelts and Life Spaces; Lee Rudolph
Conclusion; Rosemarie Sokol Chang
Contributor Biographies and Contact Information.