Overview

Gorgeous Beasts takes a fresh look at the place of animals in history and art. Refusing the traditional subordination of animals to humans, the essays gathered here examine a rich variety of ways animals contribute to culture: as living things, as scientific specimens, as food, weapons, tropes, and occasions for thought and creativity. History and culture set the terms for this inquiry. As history changes, so do the ways animals participate in culture. Gorgeous Beasts offers a series of discontinuous but probing studies of the forms their participation takes. This collection presents the work of a wide range of scholars, critics, and thinkers from diverse disciplines: philosophy, literature, history, geography, economics, art history, cultural studies, and the visual arts. By approaching animals from such different perspectives, these essays broaden the scope of animal studies to include specialists and nonspecialists alike, inviting readers from all backgrounds to consider the place of animals in history and art. Combining provocative critical insights with arresting visual imagery, Gorgeous Beasts advances a challenging new appreciation of animals as co-inhabitants and co-creators of culture. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Dean Bavington, Ron Broglio, Mark Dion, Erica Fudge, Cecilia Novero, Harriet Ritvo, Nigel Rothfels, Sajay Samuel, and Pierre Serna.

Full Product Details

Author:   Joan B. Landes ,  Paula Young Lee ,  Paul Youngquist
Publisher:   Pennsylvania State University Press
Imprint:   Pennsylvania State University Press
Volume:   2
Dimensions:   Width: 17.80cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.975kg
ISBN:  

9780271054018

ISBN 10:   0271054018
Pages:   258
Publication Date:   28 September 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Joan B. Landes, Paula Young Lee, and Paul Youngquist 1 Animal Subjects: Between Nature and Invention in Buffon’s Natural History Illustrations Joan B. Landes 2 Renaissance Animal Things Erica Fudge 3 The Cujo Effect Paul Youngquist 4 On Vulnerability: Studies from Life That Ought Not to Be Copied Ron Broglio 5 The Rights of Man and the Rights of Animality at the End of the Eighteenth Century Pierre Serna Translated by Vito Caiati and Joan B. Landes 6 Calling the Wild Harriet Ritvo 7 Trophies and Taxidermy Nigel Rothfels 8 Fishing for Biomass Sajay Samuel and Dean Bavington 9 Daniel Spoerri’s Carnival of Animals Cecilia Novero A Conversation with the Artist Mark Dion Joan B. Landes, Paula Young Lee, and Paul Youngquist Bibliography About the Contributors Index

Reviews

The essays in this book explore the important, sometimes ambiguous roles that animals play in human culture. E. K. Mix, Choice

The essays in this book explore the important, sometimes ambiguous roles that animals play in human culture. </p>--E. K. Mix, <em>Choice</em></p>

The essays in this book explore the important, sometimes ambiguous roles that animals play in human culture. E. K. Mix, Choice

Gorgeous Beasts is a gorgeous book. As the essays revel in the physicality of animal bodies in order to reveal why and how animals matter in history and art, so the volume celebrates the physical book. Extensively illustrated, expertly designed, and printed on sumptuous paper, it embodies the best of the exhibition catalogue and the scholarly text. Like a finely curated art exhibit, it speaks to the myriad and contradictory ways that animals matter through individual works that are a pleasure to behold, read, and contemplate. --Amy Nelson, American Historical Review

Author Information

Joan B. Landes is Walter L. and Helen Ferree Professor of Early Modern History and Women’s Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Paula Young Lee is an independent scholar and the editor of Meat, Modernity, and the Rise of the Slaughterhouse (2008). Paul Youngquist is Professor of English at the University of Colorado.

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