Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity
New York University Press (1998)
A caged animal in the heart of the city, thousands of miles from its natural habitat, neurotically pacing in its confinement . . . Zoos offer a convenient way to indulge a cultural appetite for novelty and diversion, and to teach us, albeit superficially, about animals. Yet what, conversely, do they tell us about the people who create, maintain, and patronize them, and about animal captivity in general? Rather than foster an appreciation for the lives and attributes of animals, zoos, in Randy Malamud's view, reinforce the idea that we are, by nature, an imperial species: that our power and ingenuity entitles us to violate the natural order by tearing animals from the fabric of their ecosystems and displaying them in an "order" of our own making. In so doing, he argues, zoos not only contribute to the rapid disintegration of our ecosystems, but also deaden our very sensibilities to constraint, spatial disruption, and physical pain. Invoking an array of literary depictions of animals, from Albee's Zoo Story and Virginia Woolf's diaries to the films of Harold Pinter and the poetry of Marianne Moore, Reading Zoos links culture, literature, and nature in an engaging and accessible introduction to environmental ethics, animal rights, cultural critique, and literary representation.
|Keywords||Animal rights Zoos Social aspects Human-animal relationships Captive wild animals|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
|Buy the book||$57.56 used $207.37 new Amazon page|
|Call number||HV4708.M35 1998|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
Webcams to Save Nature: Online Space as Affective and Ethical Space.Ike Kamphof - 2011 - Foundations of Science 16 (2):259-274.
Between “Wild” and “Tame”: Placing Encounters with Sirocco the Kakapo Parrot in Aotearoa/New Zealand.Michelle E. Main & Charlotte N. L. Chambers - 2014 - Society and Animals 22 (1):57-79.
From Harrods to Africa: The Travels of a Lion Called Christian.Jopi Nyman - 2012 - Society and Animals 20 (3):294-310.
Similar books and articles
Attitudes to Animals: Views in Animal Welfare.Francine L. Dolins (ed.) - 1999 - Cambridge University Press.
Zoo Animal Welfare.Dita Wickins-Dražilová - 2005 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 19 (1):27-36.
Animal Ethics: Toward an Ethics of Responsiveness.Kelly Oliver - 2010 - Research in Phenomenology 40 (2):267-280.
Zoos and Animal Rights: The Ethics of Keeping Animals.Stephen St C. Bostock - 1993 - Routledge.
Added to index2009-01-28
Total downloads39 ( #130,915 of 2,158,893 )
Recent downloads (6 months)11 ( #32,071 of 2,158,893 )
How can I increase my downloads?