Immersi con gli animali

Nel riconsiderare il giardino zoologico di di londra del XIX secolo e l’Hagenbeck Tierpark di Amburgo dell’inizio del XIX secolo, questo saggio indaga la storia e le conseguenze dell’entusiasmo contemporaneo per le mostre “immersive” negli zoo. Si sostiene che i nuovi e migliori mondi proposti dagli zoo contemporanei siano il risultato di appassionati e designer che provano a gestire l’”eloquenza” degli animali in ambientazioni iper-mediate che sbandierano paesaggi naturali che sono tutto tranne che naturali

[Review] Peta Tait. Fighting Nature: Travelling Menageries, Animal Acts and War Shows. Sydney University Press, 2016.

On October 23, 1903, William Temple Hornaday, the director of the New York Zoological Park, wrote to a Mr C. L. Williams, then responsible for ‘Hagenbeck’s Animal Show,’ which was touring the United States. At the time, the show was to be seen at the Grand Opera House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but it was missing one of its star performers, the famous lion-tiger hybrid ‘Prince’ who had been part of the show for over a decade, making his debut in the United States as part of Hagenbeck’s exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Prince was in New York instead of with the show because he was ill and it was hoped that the relative quiet and expert care available at the zoological park would help him recover. Alas, according to the letter, Prince ‘would require fully another month of convalescence’ before he would possibly be ready to ‘resume his work.’ ‘He yet feels so much under the weather,’ Hornaday writes, ‘that he lies in his den all day and never comes out willingly.’ In the end, Prince died in New York and Hornaday, following instructions from Williams, sent the carcass to a local taxidermist with instructions that the skin should be tanned for the purpose of making a rug, the claws should be removed, and, along with the skin, skull, and bones, sent to Williams, who could then be found at the Empire Theater in Frankford, PA

Imagining Zoos

Beginning with paintings of dodos and cassowaries by the Flemish artist Roelandt Savery, this essay traces continuities between early-modern European menageries and 21st-century zoos. Arguing that modern zoos persist in attempting to present an imaginary world of superabundance, the article shows how today’s zoo simulations, mid-20th-century zoo-themed board games and toys, and a mid-19th-century paper zoo echo older attitudes toward “nature,” the “natural,” and the “exotic.

Kokoschka, Munch: What i did on my summer vacation

honors thesisCollege of HumanitiesHistoryHarold BaumanAnand A. YangRaised in our culture and educated in our schools, students today are, at least in principle, asked to re-examine the thought of their teachers. Such Ideals have not always been pre-eminent. Indeed, It appears that in the last century, traditionalism, or what was taken as such, reached levels, in the arenas of social conduct, of almost total fanaticism. Without doubt, our contemporary "protector-s of the good· would appear shocicinoly liberal when compared to their nineteenthcentury colleagues. And yet it often seems to be the case that the more steadfast the position of one camp, the more vociferous the demands of its opposition. There seems to be something about modern youth which strives for self-expression and, perhaps more Importantly, there appear to exist certain qualities in post-eighteenth century societies which are especially receptive and conducive to the ideas associated with change