Zoo Studies
A New Humanities
An interdisciplinary collection that examines zoos from historical, philosophical, social, and cultural perspectives.
Do both the zoo and the mental hospital induce psychosis, as humans are treated as animals and animals are treated as humans? How have we looked at animals in the past, and how do we look at them today? How have zoos presented themselves, and their purpose, over time? In response to the emergence of environmental and animal studies, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, theorists, literature scholars, and historians around the world have begun to explore the significance of zoological parks, past and present.
Zoo Studies considers the modern zoo from a range of approaches and disciplines, united in a desire to blur the boundaries between human and nonhuman animals. The volume begins with an account of the first modern mental hospital, La Salpêtrière, established in 1656, and the first panoptical zoo, the menagerie at Versailles, created in 1662 by the same royal architect; the final chapter presents a choreographic performance that imagines the Toronto Zoo as a place where the human body can be inspired by animal bodies. From beginning to end, through interdisciplinary collaboration, this volume decentres the human subject and offers alternative ways of thinking about zoos and their inhabitants. This collection immerses readers in the lives of animals and their experiences of captivity and asks us to reflect on our own assumptions about both humans and animals.
An original and groundbreaking work, Zoo Studies will change the way readers see nonhuman animals and themselves.
"This is one of the first attempts to propose ideas and perspectives for a distinct field of zoo studies. There is a clear editorial voice here and a sense of issues being rethought and reworked. The contributors take the reader into the zoo in interesting ways, and beyond the zoo to explore issues such as conservation and cultural politics." Garry Marvin, University of Roehampton, London and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies
- Winner, Choice Outstanding Academic Title, Association of College and Research Libraries 2020