Human zoos : science and spectacle in the age of colonial empires / edited by Pascal Blanchard ... [and others] ; translations by Teresa Bridgeman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Blanchard, Pascal.

Standardized Title:

Zoos humains, XIXe et XXe siècles. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Anthropology--Exhibitions.

Anthropology.

Human zoos.

Human body--Social aspects.

Human body.

Ethnology--Exhibitions.

Ethnology.

Racism.

Anthropology--History.

History.

Ethnic attitudes--History.

Ethnic attitudes.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

x, 445 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, (some color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Human zoos, forgotten symbols of the colonial era, have been totally repressed in our collective memory. In these 'anthropo-zoological' exhibitions, 'exotic' individuals were placed alongside wild beasts and presented behind bars or in enclosures. Human zoos were a key factor, however, in the progressive shift in the West from scientific to popular racism. Beginning with the early nineteenth-century European exhibition of the Hottentot Venus, this thoroughly documented volume underlines the ways in which these exhibitions affected the lives of tens of millions of visitors, from London to New York, from Warsaw to Milan, from Moscow to Tokyo. Through Barnum's freak shows, Hagenbeck's 'ethnic shows', French-style villages negres, as well as the great universal and colonial exhibitions, the West invented the 'savage', exhibited the 'peoples of the world', while in many cases preparing for or contributing to their colonization. This first mass contact between 'us' and 'them', between the West and elsewhere, created an invisible border. Measured by scientists, exploited in shows, used in official exhibitions, these men, women and children became extras in an imaginary and a history that were not their own.

Human Zoos puts into perspective the 'spectacularization' of the Other, a process that is at the origin of contemporary stereotypes and of the construction of our own identities. This is a unique book on a crucial phenomenon, which takes us to the heart of Western fantasies and allows us to understand the genesis of identity in Japan, Europe and North America.

Contents:

Human Zoos: The Greatest Exotic Shows in the West: Introduction / Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Gilles Boetsch, Eric Deroo, Sandrine Lemaire 1

Part I The Specificity of the Human Zoo: Histories and Definitions

1 From Wonder to Error: Monsters from Antiquity to Modernity / Rosemarie Garland-Thomson 52

2 The Hottentot Venus: Birth of a 'Freak' (1815) / Gilles Boetsch, Pascal Blanchard 62

3 Barnum and Joice Heth: The Birth of Ethnic Shows in the United States (1836) / Benjamin Reiss 73

4 London, Capital of Exotic Exhibitions from 1830 to 1860 / Nadja Durbach 81

5 When the Exotic Becomes a Show / Robert Bogdan 89

6 Ethnographic Showcases: Account and Vision / Raymond Corbey 95

7 From Scientific Racism to Popular and Colonial Racism in France and the West / Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Sandrine Lemaire 104

8 Human Zoos: The 'Savage' and the Anthropologist / Gilles Boetsch, Yann Ardagna 114

9 The Cinema as Zoo-keeper / Eric Deroo 123

Part II Models of the Human Zoo: Populations On Display

10 American Indians in Buffalo Bill's Wild West / Sam Maddra 134

11 The Ethnographic Exhibitions of the Jardin Zoologique d'Acclimatation / William H. Schneider 142

12 The Onas Exhibited in the Musee du Nord, Brussels: Reconstruction of a Lost File / Peter Mason 151

13 Meeting the Amazons / Suzanne Preston Blier 159

14 Hagenbeck's European Tours: The Development of the Human Zoo / Hilke Thode-Arora 165

15 Africa Meets the Great Farini / Shane Peacock 174

16 India and Ceylon in Colonial and World Fairs (1851-1931) / Catherine Servan-Schreiber 195

17 Seeing the Imaginary: On the Popular Reception of Wild West Shows in Germany, 1885-1910 / Eric Ames 205

18 Billy the Australian in the Anthropological Laboratory / Roslyn Poignant 220

19 Dr Kahn and the Niam-Niams / Bernth Lindfors 229

20 Photography and the Making of the Other / Elizabeth Edwards 239

Part III National Identities: The Human Zoo in Context

21 Colonial Expositions and Ethnic Hierarchies in Modern Japan / Arnaud Nanta 248

22 The Imperial Exhibitions of Great Britain / John MacKenzie 259

23 The Congolese in 'Imperial' Belgium / Jean-Pierre Jacquemin 269

24 Freaks and Geeks: Coney Island Sideshow Performers and Long Island Eugenicists, 1910-1935 / Tanfer Emin Tunc 276

25 Africans in America: African Villages at America's World's Fairs (1893-1901) / Robert W. Rydell 286

26 The 1904 St Louis Anthropological Games / Fabrice Delsahut 294

27 From the Diorama to the Dialogic: A Century of Exhibiting Africa at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History / Mary Jo Arnoldi 307

28 Human Zoos in Switzerland / Patrick Minder 328

29 Living Ethnological and Colonial Exhibitions in Liberal and Fascist Italy / Guido Abbattista, Nicola Labanca 341

30 Exhibiting People in Spain: Colonialism and Mass Culture / Neus Moyano Miranda 353

31 The Zoos of the Exposition Coloniale Internationale, Paris 1931 / Herman Lebovics 369

Postface: Situating Human Zoos / Charles Forsdick 377.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 393-445).

ISBN:

1846311233

9781846311239

1846311748

9781846311741

OCLC:

233548877