"The putative mission of zoos - education and conservation - yield doubtful results, education because its information relies on description and exposition instead of narrative, conservation because only a few large, showy vertebrates receive the most effort. By controlling reproduction and restricting evolution, zoos reduce animals to artifacts - unattached ecological fragments - and ultimately revoke their ontological status as part of the natural world." "Spotte's argument assumes manifestations that impinge on contemporary theories of art, film, literature, photography, and science, the whole anchored securely by the twin poles of semiotics and simulation. This willingness to grapple with high-level theory - and to take intellectual risks - sets Zoos in Postmodernism apart from other treatments of zoos in contemporary western literature."--BOOK JACKET.

Political Animals offers a unique study and perspective on the relationship between politics and the art found in American zoos and aquariums. Jesse Donahue and Erik Trump examine the ways that zoos and aquariums have successfully served as sculptural gardens for the masses and have incorporated art and architecture that convey political messages about both the patrons and the animals. This book demonstrates how art has been used for a range of economic and political purposes including providing jobs, a medium to reach out to minority interest groups, a fundraising tool, and a surrogate for the animals themselves. Donahue and Trump skillfully analyze and compare zoos to other areas of public art to highlight the calculated strategies on the part of the zoos that have incorporated a range of artistic styles for different audiences. Incorporating photographs of zoo and aquarium art from around the country, Political Animals is an exciting and captivating text for the mind and eye.

Metamorphoses of the Zoo marshals a unique compendium of critical interventions that envision novel modes of authentic encounter that cultivate humanity's biophilic tendencies without abusing or degrading other animals. These take the form of radical restructurings of what were formerly zoos or map out entirely new, post-zoo sites or experiences. The result is a volume that contributes to moral progress on the inter-species front and eco-psychological health for a humankind whose habitats are now mostly citified or urbanizing.

In The Postmodern Animal, Steve Baker explores how animal imagery has been used in modern and contemporary art and performance, and in postmodern philosophy and literature, to suggest and shape ideas about identity and creativity. Baker cogently analyses the work of such European and American artists as Olly and Suzi, Mark Dion, Paula Rego and Sue Coe, at the same time looking critically at the constructions, performances and installations of Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys and other significant late twentieth-century artists. Baker's book draws parallels between the animal's place in postmodern art and poststructuralist theory, drawing on works as diverse as Jacques Derrida's recent analysis of the role of animals in philosophical thought and Julian Barnes's best-selling Flaubert's Parrot.

"Themed spaces have, at their foundation, an overarching narrative, symbolic complex, or story that drives the overall context of their spaces. Theming, in some very unique ways, has expanded beyond previous stereotypes and oversimplifications of culture and place to now consider new and often controversial topics, themes, and storylines."--Publisher's website.

Instead of summing up the various perspectives of scholars and the variety of ideas to which the term postmodernism has been assigned, this text lets this diversity speak for itself. By bringing together articles and essays on the impact of the postmodern temper on an eclectic range of subjects, Berger presents a few of the many ways different theorists have come to terms with postmodernism, while examining manifestations of postmodernism in the culture of everyday life.