ENGLISH

The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing

By Rachel Poliquin

Book information

Publisher
Penn State University Press
Year
2012
ISBN
9780271059617
DOI
10.1515/9780271059617
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
914 MB (958774322 bytes)
Series
Animalibus: Of Animals and Cultures; 1
Pages
272\270
Library
degruyter.com
Time added
2023-08-21 21:47:50

Description

From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.

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