Savages and Beasts:
Rothfels, Nigel & Fullam, Lisa
DON'T FEED THE HUMAN BEINGS Free worship resources — to help end hunger housands of churches across the T country celebrate Bread for the World Sunday as an opportunity to renew their...
...If zoos are not the solution to such problems, perhaps they can still create an awareness of the natural world that might inspire public concern for the survival of animals in the wild...
...What made the human zoo shows successful was the illusion that they rep-resented an entire exotic culture, and subsequently Hagenbeck's animal exhibitions tried to depict what life in the wild is "really" like...
...Now the fact of their captivity is demurely hidden from visitors by glass and moats...
...There is an inescapable difference between what an animal is and what people think an animal is....[Elach generation seems to remake its animals," he writes...
...His account centers on animal dealer/zoo entrepreneur Carl Hagenbeck of Germany, whose innovations included the unbarred environments of contemporary zoos...
...The "Lapland" exhibit was a great success, and exhibits of other groups of people from various exotic locales followed...
...Habitat encroachment endangers many species...
...A group of reindeer imported by Hagen-beck was accompanied by a group of six T ADDRESS CITY STATE ZIP Seeking Justice...
...Your purchase of a T-shirt or a tote bag sup-ports various conservation efforts...
...Rothfels might also have acknowledged that there is a real educational value in the exhibition, as humanely as possible, of animals...
...Kathy Grieb of Virginia Theological Seminary are all available free of charge to help churches and worshipping communities observe Bread for the World Sunday on October 24—or another suitable Sunday in October or November...
...the new humility (which perhaps can be seen also in the work of Rothfels's Harvard colleague E. O. Wilson,) calls us instead to listen more acutely to the voices of the natural world...
...CHURCH HISTORY from BELOW ,11111111.111 Sami, along with their tents, weapons, Christian Community in History Volume 1: Historical Ecclesiology Roger Haight S. J. I n the first of two volumes, Roger Haight charts the history of the Church's self-understandings from the origin of the church in the Jesus movement to the late middle ages...
...Still, Rothfels is eager to question the realities of contemporary zoo management...
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...This is far from traditional church history—abstract, idealist and a historical—rather, Haight's analysis is concrete, realist and historically conscious...
...With animals, of course, that danger does not exist...
...and a preaching resource by Dr...
...Rothfels deftly shows how such human zoos reflected preexisting stereotypes about the lives of "savages," while doing little to advance anthropological under-standing...
...Walk into any modern zoo, and you'll see animals separated from you by moats or glass, with no bars in sight...
...This analysis includes an unsettling history of Hagenbeck's exhibition of human beings, which began in the 1870s...
...It is doubtful that wildlife will be preserved if most people never see any...
...But he fails to ask whether the animals share his discomfort over animal captivity, or how we could discern the answer to that question...
...J 1 1 Washington, DC 20001 1 1 1 Bread for the World "Will you please stop saying that it's a jungle out there...
...Haight develops a Comparative Ecclesiology based on the history and diverse theologies of the worldwide Christian movement from the Reformation to the present...
...And of course it is not just the animals that are remade: the shifting narrative of how we portray wildlife in zoos reflects our shifting understanding of the relationship of humankind to the natural world generally...
...Rothfels dismisses the traditional signs of animal contentment such as longevity, general health, successful propagation, and absence of stereotypical behaviors (like pacing in the endosure, self-mutilation, etc...
...special prayers for the day...
...The polar bears live in a small slice of what looks like the Arc-tic, the animals of the veldt graze with-out predators on a small plain...
...Perhaps, in the biosphere, a similar enlightenment is underway...
...Rothfels reminds us of the troubling questions about animal captivity...
...Volume 2 will be available in February 2005...
...After all, it was the recognition that our earth is just one small planet in a vast universe that launched modern astronomy...
...DON'T FEED THE HUMAN BEINGS Free worship resources — to help end hunger housands of churches across the T country celebrate Bread for the World Sunday as an opportunity to renew their commitment to ending hunger in God's world...
...Human beings, it is true, suffer when imprisoned, even if they are physically surfeited in every way...
...Rothfels's work elucidates how zoos offer a carefully scripted version of how human beings should understand animals...
...Nigel Rothfels's engaging study, Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo, traces the evolution of zoos from the menageries of powerful rulers, to entertainments for the bourgeois of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the self-proclaimed "conservation centers" of today...
...Lisa Fullam is assistant professor of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley...
...Rothfels describes the massive slaughter involved in capturing and transporting animals for zoos in the early days (which is part of the reason modern zoos seek to breed animals in captivity), and details the behind-the-scene aspects of the wholesale animal trade today...
...This year marks the 30th anniversary of Bread for the World as a Christian citizens' movement...
...Most obviously, of course, the animals in modern zoos, in the safe simulacra of their native environments, are still captive...
...Using the methodology developed in the Dynamics of Theology and Jesus Symbol of God, Roger Haight achieves what he calls an historical ecclesiology, or ecclesiology from below...
...Ending Hunger...
...The history of the Hagenbeck Animal Park (which still exists today) embodies the transformation of the basic "narrative" of the zoo from a message of dominion over nature to one of solicitous care for animals...
...The task of the human "exhibits" was to demonstrate on schedule various aspects of the daily life of their native lands, such as hunting, cooking, games, and crafts...
...Another problem was how quickly the "primitives" began to adopt European modes of dress, language, commerce, and social mores...
...Hagenbeck's experience in running the people shows was an important influence in his re-design of the zoo into moated mini-habitats...
...To request FREE resources: 1-800-82-BREAD (1-800-822-7323) or visit www.bread.org ^ YES, please send me a sample of the free worship bulletin inserts and information about Bread for the World Sunday...
...Christian Community in History Volume 1: Historical Ecclesiology 512pp HC 0-8264-1630-6 $34.95 Available Now Christian Community in History Volume 2: Comparative Ecclesiology 512pp HC 0-8264-1631-4 $34.95 Available February 2005 FROM GOOD BOOKSTORES OR TO ORDER CALL 1-800-561-7704 Commonweal 34 September 24, 2004...
...Despite Rothfels's generally critical attitude, he does acknowledge that zoos have been important in saving some species from extinction (in the case of the giant panda and others, of course, zoos can have the opposite effect...
...That humility might span the spectrum from small acts of environmental awareness—where do all those Neon Tetras in the pet store come from?—to a broader reflection on the connection of humankind to nonhuman creation...
...Savages and Beasts can help us take an important step toward a new humility in our attitudes toward wildlife...
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...Lisa Fullam he days of zoo animals being kept in tiny barred enclosures, slowly driven mad by confinement, isolation, and plain bad care are over...
...If nothing else, zoos provide an opportunity for wonder that, it may be hoped, will shade into respect...
...How-ever, he fails to provide evidence that captivity is in fact a cause of animal suf-fering...
...You might see a short description of the animals' natural habitat, and how the zoo is working to ensure that the species continues to survive in the wild, or how the zoo is trying to breed the animal in captivity lest it become extinct altogether...
...We speak volumes about ourselves in the wildlife narratives embedded in zoos...
...She is also a doctor of veterinary medicine...
...The people shows ended in the 1930s, partly because it was increasingly difficult to find participants sufficiently "primitive" to fit the prevailing stereo-types...
...They just weren't "wild" enough...
...NAME PLEASE PRINTSavages and Beasts The Birth of the Modern Zoo Nigel Rothfels Johns Hopkins Lltti.~ctsity Press, $34,95, 364 pp...
...But do animals suffer in a similar way, or is thinking they do inadmissibly anthropocentric...
...In sum, as this fascinating book makes clear, the zoo is a better mirror of humanity than it is a window into the wild world beyond...
...WALLY LITTMAN 1 1 1 1 Commonweal 3 2 September 24, 2004 sleds, and other cultural accoutrements...
...But the modern zoo is a direct descendent of those earlier prisons for animals, and while much has changed, there are important ways in which contemporary zoos fulfill cultural functions not all that different from their harsh predecessors...
Vol. 131 • September 2004 • No. 16
