Performance and Human-Animal Entanglements
1st Edition
Published on 12. February 2026
290 pages
978-1-040-84835-7 (ISBN)
Description
The volume explores how nonhuman animal lives are entangled with human interests, conflicts, and desires, highlighting the role of performance in these interactions. Drawing on diverse case studies, it unfolds across four thematic sections: Training Animals, Show Machines, Artistic Experiments, and Political Conflicts.
The book benefits readers by sharpening ethical and critical awareness of how animals are entangled in human culture, from circuses and museums to art, games, and social media. Its key features are a strongly comparative, interdisciplinary approach and a focus on less-studied regions and practices. It delivers these benefits through carefully structured thematic sections and rich case studies that reveal hidden mechanisms of representation, exploitation, and interspecies exchange. The book can be read as a coherent whole, tracing different dimensions of human-animal entanglements, but each chapter also functions as a self-contained case study.
The book is aimed at scholars, students, and activists in cultural and animal studies, performance and media studies, and related fields, as well as anyone interested in ethics and human-animal relations.
The book benefits readers by sharpening ethical and critical awareness of how animals are entangled in human culture, from circuses and museums to art, games, and social media. Its key features are a strongly comparative, interdisciplinary approach and a focus on less-studied regions and practices. It delivers these benefits through carefully structured thematic sections and rich case studies that reveal hidden mechanisms of representation, exploitation, and interspecies exchange. The book can be read as a coherent whole, tracing different dimensions of human-animal entanglements, but each chapter also functions as a self-contained case study.
The book is aimed at scholars, students, and activists in cultural and animal studies, performance and media studies, and related fields, as well as anyone interested in ethics and human-animal relations.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
18 Halftones, black and white; 18 Illustrations, black and white
File size
8,10 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-040-84835-7 (9781040848357)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Anna Wieczorkiewicz | Sylwia Siedlecka
Performance and Human-Animal Entanglements
Book
approx. 02/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€211.50
Not yet published
Persons
Prof. Anna Wieczorkiewicz is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Warsaw, Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. Her interdisciplinary research lies at the intersection of anthropology, philosophy, sociology, and literature. She is the author of books exploring representations of the body in museums, bodily practices, representations of cultural diversity, the cultural history of monstrosity, travel and tourism practices, and travel writing.
Sylwia Siedlecka is a literary scholar, cultural studies researcher, and writer, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Western and Southern Slavic Studies, University of Warsaw. Her work focuses on the cultures of Central Europe and the Balkans, with an emphasis on cultural performances, social imaginaries, cultural transfers, and the history and cultural metaphors of the circus.
Sylwia Siedlecka is a literary scholar, cultural studies researcher, and writer, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Western and Southern Slavic Studies, University of Warsaw. Her work focuses on the cultures of Central Europe and the Balkans, with an emphasis on cultural performances, social imaginaries, cultural transfers, and the history and cultural metaphors of the circus.
Content
Introductory Part 1. An Octopus Performs Human-Animal Entanglements 2. The Authors' Conceptual Frame Part I. Training Animals - Taming Emotions 3. Emotion and Animal Agency: Precedents in Performance and Circus 4. A Woman and a Bear on Stage: Interspecies Relationships in the Biographies of Maxi Niedermeyer 5. In Quest of Humanity: The (Re)presentation of Wolves in Contemporary Circus Performances Part II. Harnessed to the Show Machine 6. Conceptual Boundaries: Ethnographic Shows as a Stage for Human-Animal Relations Conceptual Boundaries 7. 'Botched' and Toxic Works of Taxidermy: The Afterlives of Dead Animals and the Paradigm of Conservation in Museum Collections 8. Mistreated Performers: Animals as Tourist Attractions in Croatia Part III. Blurring Boundaries of Scenes, Scenarios, and Species 9. A Performing Monkey: Human Nature in a Distorting Mirror? Reflections on the Polish Translation of the Melodrama 'Jocko, the Brazilian Monkey' 10. Odd Symbiosis: Parasites in Circus 11. Animal Presence in Gaming: Transformative Design and Play Practices Part IV. Involved in Human Conflicts 12. Dancing Bears and Jumping Tigers: Animals in the Circus and Nazi Ideology 13. Sharik the Dog and Stepan the Cat in Wartime Scenes. Transformations of the Idea of Heroism Performed by Animal Protagonists 14. From Forest to Facebook: The Role of Bears in Reflecting and Shaping Societal Polarisation
