Entangled encounters at the National Zoo : stories from the animal archive / Daniel Vandersommers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vandersommers, Daniel, 1984- author.

Series:

Environment and society (University Press of Kansas)

Environment and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National Zoological Park (U.S.)--History--19th century.

National Zoological Park (U.S.).

National Zoological Park (U.S.)--History--20th century.

Zoo animals--Washington (D.C.)--History--19th century.

Zoo animals.

Zoo animals--Washington (D.C.)--History--20th century.

Washington (D.C.).

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

xii, 345 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2023]

Summary:

"Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo is a biographical study of a single historical zoo, the National Zoological Park of Washington, D.C., from 1887 to 1920. Each chapter centers animals, and each looks from a different angle at the influential science of popular zoology in order to shed new light on the complex, entangled relationships between humans and animals. Daniel Vandersommers's goal is twofold. First, through narrative, he shows how zoo animals always ran away from the zoo. This is meant literally: animals escaped frequently. Even more, though, this is meant figuratively. Living, breathing, historical zoo animals ran away from their cultural constructions, and these constructions ran away from the living bodies they were made to represent. His book shows that the resulting gaps produced by escapes - by runaway animals - contain concealed, distorted, and erased histories worthy of uncovering. Second, the book shows how the popular zoology fostered by the National Zoo shaped every aspect of American science, culture, and conservation during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Between the 1880s and World War I, as intellectuals debated Darwinism and scientists institutionalized the laboratory, zoological parks appeared suddenly at the heart of nearly every major American city, captivating tens of millions of visitors. Vandersommers follows stories previously hidden within the historical zoo in order to help us reconsider the place of zoos and its inhabitants in the twenty-first century"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: At the Entrance Gate

1. Origins of a National Zoo

2. Runaway Animals

3. The Crossroads of Science and Popular Culture

4. Animal Activism and the Zoo-Networked Nation

5. Zoo Conservation and Its Discontents: Chasing Bighorn Sheep

6. The Zoonotic Nature of Tuberculosis

Conclusion: The National Zoo Movement

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-334) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Vandersommers, Daniel, 1984- Entangled encounters at the National Zoo

ISBN:

9780700635689

0700635688

9780700635696

0700635696

OCLC:

1376003490