Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity

by Randy Malamud

A caged animal in the heart of the city, thousands of miles from its natural habitat, neurotically pacing in its confinement . . .
Zoos offer a convenient way to indulge a cultural appetite for novelty and diversion, and to teach us, albeit superficially, about animals. Yet what, conversely, do they tell us about the people who create, maintain, and patronize them, and about animal captivity in general?
Rather than foster an appreciation for the lives and attributes of animals, zoos, in Randy Malamud's view, reinforce the idea that we are, by nature, an imperial that our power and ingenuity entitles us to violate the natural order by tearing animals from the fabric of their ecosystems and displaying them in an "order" of our own making. In so doing, he argues, zoos not only contribute to the rapid disintegration of our ecosystems, but also deaden our very sensibilities to constraint, spatial disruption, and physical pain.
Invoking an array of literary depictions of animals, from Albee's Zoo Story and Virginia Woolf's diaries to the films of Harold Pinter and the poetry of Marianne Moore, Reading Zoos links culture, literature, and nature in an engaging and accessible introduction to environmental ethics, animal rights, cultural critique, and literary representation.

1 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Randy Malamud is an American literary scholar, cultural critic, and Regents' Professor Emeritus of English at Georgia State University. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University and specializes in modern literature, ecocriticism, cultural studies, and human-animal relations. His scholarship explores the intersections of literature, ethics, visual culture, travel, and environmental thought. Malamud is the author of numerous influential books, including Reading Zoos, Poetic Animals and Animal Souls, An Introduction to Animals and Visual Culture, The Importance of Elsewhere, Email, Strange Bright Blooms, and CRASH! Aviation Disasters and the Cultural Debris Fields. Earlier in his career, he also published several studies on T.S. Eliot and modernist literature. In addition to his books, he has edited scholarly collections and written extensively for newspapers, magazines, and academic publications. His work has appeared in outlets such as The Atlantic, Salon, The New York Times, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Through his wide-ranging writing, Malamud examines how culture shapes human relationships with animals, nature, travel, and technology.