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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Animals & society
Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London tells the remarkable
story of Obaysch the hippopotamus, the first 'star' animal to be
exhibited in the London Zoo. In 1850, a baby hippopotamus arrived
in England, thought to be the first in Europe since the Roman
Empire, and almost certainly the first in Britain since prehistoric
times. Captured near an island in the White Nile, Obaysch was
donated by the viceroy of Egypt in exchange for greyhounds and
deerhounds. His arrival in London was greeted with a wave of
'hippomania', doubling the number of visitors to the Zoological
Gardens almost overnight. Delving into the circumstances of
Obaysch's capture and exhibition, John Simons investigates the
phenomenon of 'star' animals in Victorian Britain against the
backdrop of an expanding British Empire. He shows how the entangled
aims of scientific exploration, commercial ambition, and imperial
expansion shaped the treatment of exotic animals throughout the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Along the way, he
uncovers the strange and moving stories of Obaysch and the other
hippos who joined him in Europe as the trade in zoo animals grew.
'A fascinating microscopic and telescopic look at the life of
Victorian England's most famous animal. John Simons' richly
exhaustive account of nineteenth-century hippomania engages with
imperialism, Orientalism, progress, and the cultural history of
Europe where Obaysch, captured from an island in the Nile River,
had the misfortune to spend his life as a blockbuster attraction at
the London Zoo. Poignant and empathetic, this account of an
animal's appropriation and exploitation is one of those books that
unfurls more about its moment in time than you could have imagined
when you picked it up.' Professor Randy Malamud, Georgia State
University
There is now widespread agreement that many non-human animals are
sentient, and that this fact has important moral and political
implications. Indeed, most are in agreement that animal sentience
ought to constrain the actions of political institutions, limiting
the harms that can be perpetrated against animals. The primary aim
of this book is to show that the political implications of animal
sentience go even further than this. For this book argues that
sentience establishes a moral equality and a shared set of rights
amongst those creatures who possess it. Crucially, this worth and
these rights create a duty on moral agents to establish and
maintain a political order dedicated to their interests. This book
is devoted to sketching what this 'sentientist politics' might look
like. It argues in favour of a ' sentientist cosmopolitan
democracy': a global political system made up of overlapping local,
national, regional and global communities comprised of human and
non-human members who exist within shared 'communities of fate'.
Furthermore, the institutions of those communities should be
democratic - that is to say, participative, deliberative and
representative. Finally, those institutions should include
dedicated representatives of non-human animals whose job should be
to translate the interests of animals into deliberations over what
is in the public good for their communities.
Provides cross-disciplinary perspectives on the study of animals in
humanitiesThis volume critically investigates current topics and
disciplines that are affected, enriched or put into dispute by the
burgeoning scholarship on Animal Studies. What new questions and
modes of research need come into play if we are to seriously
acknowledge our entanglements with other animals? World-leading
scholars from a range of disciplines, including Literature,
Philosophy, Art, Biosemiotics, and Geography, set the agenda for
Animal Studies today. Rather than a narrow specialism, the 35 newly
commissioned essays in this book show how we think of other animals
to be intrinsic to fields as major as ethics, economies as
widespread as capitalism and relations as common as friendship.The
volume contains original, cutting-edge research and opens up new
methods, alignments, directions as well as challenges for the
future of Animal Studies. Uniquely, the chapters each focus on a
single topic, from 'Abjection' to 'Voice' and from 'Affection' to
'Technology', thus embedding the animal question as central to
contemporary concerns across a wide range of disciplines.Key
FeaturesProvides in one work prominent scholars in animal studies
and their reflections on the trajectory of the fieldEmbeds the
'animal question' as central to contemporary concerns across a wide
range of disciplinesBrings discourses from the sciences into
dialogue with the arts and humanitiesOpens up new methods,
alignments, directions and challenges for the future of animal
studiesAfterword from Cary Wolfe (Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie
Professor of English, Rice University)
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Chicken
(Paperback)
Annie Potts
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No creature has been subject to such extremes of reverence and
exploitation as the chicken. Hens have been venerated as cosmic
creators and roosters as solar divinities. Many cultures have found
the mysteries of birth, healing, death and resurrection
encapsulated in the hen's egg. Yet today, most of us have nothing
to do with chickens as living beings, although billions are
consumed around the world every year. In "Chicken" Annie Potts
introduces us to the vivid and astonishing world of Gallus gallus.
The book traces the evolution of jungle fowl and the domestication
of chickens by humans. It describes the ways in which chickens
experience the world, form families and friendships, communicate
with each other, play, bond, and grieve. "Chicken" explores
cultural practices like egg-rolling, the cockfight, alectromancy,
wishbone-pulling and the chicken-swinging ritual of Kapparot;
discovers depictions of chickenhood in ancient and modern art,
literature and film; and also showcases bizarre supernatural
chickens from around the world including the Basilisk, Kikimora and
Pollio Maligno. "Chicken "concludes with a detailed analysis of the
place of chickens in the world today, and a tribute to those who
educate and advocate on behalf of these birds. Numerous beautiful
illustrations show the many faces (and feathers and combs and
tails) of Gallus, from wild roosters in the jungles of Southeast
Asia to quirky Naked-Necks and majestic Malays. There are chickens
painted by Chagall and Magritte, chickens made of hair-rollers, and
chickens shaped like mountains. The reader of "Chicken "will
encounter a multitude of intriguing facts and ideas, including why
the largest predator ever to walk the earth is considered the
ancestor of the modern chicken, how mother hens communicate with
their chicks while they're still in the egg, why Charlie Chaplin's
masterpiece required him to play a chicken, whether it's safe to
take eggs on a sea-voyage, and how "chicken therapy" can rejuvenate
us all. This book will fascinate those already familiar with and
devoted to the Gallus species, and it will open up a whole new
gallinaceous world for future admirers of the intelligent and
passionate chicken.
Living with Animals is a collection of imagined animal guides-a
playful and accessible look at different human-animal relationships
around the world. Anthropologists and their co-authors have written
accounts of how humans and animals interact in labs, in farms, in
zoos, and in African forests, among other places. Modeled after the
classic A World of Babies, an edited collection of imagined Dr.
Spock manuals from around the world-With Animals focuses on
human-animal relationships in their myriad forms. This is
ethnographic fiction for those curious about how animals are used
for a variety of different tasks around the world. To be sure,
animal guides are not a universal genre, so Living with Animals
offers an imaginative solution, doing justice to the ways details
about animals are conveyed in culturally specific ways by adopting
a range of voices and perspectives. How we capitalize on animals,
how we live with them, and how humans attempt to control the
untamable nature around them are all considered by the authors of
this wild read. If you have ever experienced a moment of "what if"
curiosity-what is it like to be a gorilla in a zoo, to work in a
pig factory farm, to breed cows and horses, this book is for you. A
light-handed and light-hearted approach to a fascinating and
nuanced subject, Living with Animals suggests many ways in which we
can and do coexist with our non-human partners on Earth.
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