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Nature Animal Rights

Zoo Studies

A New Humanities

edited by Tracy McDonald & Daniel Vandersommers

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Jun 2019
Category
Animal Rights
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773556904
    Publish Date
    Jun 2019
    List Price
    $140.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773556911
    Publish Date
    Jun 2019
    List Price
    $40.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773558168
    Publish Date
    Jun 2019
    List Price
    $120.00

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Description

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.

About the authors

Tracy McDonald is associate professor of history at McMaster University. Daniel Vandersommers is assistant teaching professor at the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities at Ball State University.

Tracy McDonald's profile page

Daniel Vandersommers is assistant teaching professor at the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities at Ball State University.

Daniel Vandersommers' profile page

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