News Bulletin - Australian Animal Studies Group

ANIMALS AND SCIENCE: From Colonial Encounters to the Biotech Industry edited
by Maggie Bolton and Cathrine Degnen. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011
What exactly does a focus on animals bring to anthropological
studies of science? This is a question that the various contributors
to this edited collection set out to answer. This range of studies
explores the intersections between animals and science across
different ethnographic settings and in different historical periods.
The contributions to this volume look at what it means to be human,
the place of human beings vis à vis other species on this planet,
our ideas of what nature and culture are, the limits to our ideas of
kinship, the ethical debates that surround science, together with
their interpretation by both scientific communities and the lay public,
and the moral comportment of scientists.
Through focusing on science, the contributors not only
demonstrate that people elsewhere have different relationships
with, and knowledge of, beasts (and that different possibilities of
relating to animals exist within our own Western worldview), but
further suggest that our Western knowledge about animals and their positions in society, arrived at
through Western science and the social sciences, is itself in need of rethinking—to incorporate
other ways of knowing. This volume contends that accounts in which animals meet science provide
important theoretical insights for anthropologists and can set new agendas for theory in
anthropology and science studies.
Maggie Bolton is based at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and has published in journals
such as the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and The Sociological Review. Cathrine
Degnen is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Newcastle University, UK.
WILD AND DANGEROUS PERFORMANCES: Animals, Emotions, Circus by Peta Tait.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
Elephants, lions, tigers and leopards evoked fascination and awe,
fear and excitement in the twentieth-century circus. Wild and
Dangerous Performances: Animals, Emotions, Circus explores what
happened when big cats roared on cue and elephants danced
together. Acts in live circus and cinema reveal how humans
anthropomorphize animals with their emotions. Trained animals
became caught up in scientific precepts from Darwin on emotions
and in opposition to animal performance.
This history considers acts by Carl Hagenbeck, Frank Bostock,
Alfred Court, Clyde Beatty, Mabel Stark, Patricia Bourne, Damoo
Dhotre, Gunther Gebel-Williams and others in leading international
circuses. Their acts featured: Nero, the horse riding lion, Rajah, the
wrestling tiger, Sonia, the waltzing leopard, and Champion, lying like
a fur collar across the trainer's shoulders.
Animals embody a phenomenology of transacted emotions and
feelings in culture, recently exemplified by Christian, the lion.
Contributing to the growing scholarship in animal studies, this fascinating study has much to offer
to anyone interested in circus animal performance, performance history, animal emotions and
animal rights and ethics.
Peta Tait is Professor and Chair of Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University, Australia.
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