Asma attempts to define the purpose of taxidermy through learning about the process and through examining various specimens that portray its uses in culture and science. Beginning with Foma (as a questionable specimen), Asma questions the difference between what we find to be scientific or what we find to be lurid and spectacular, and where one can draw a line. Is this definition based on culture? Do Russians find scientific worth in something Americans find disturbing? “Stuffed” animals, or mounts, can be argued as being nothing more than symbols for man’s power and ability to conquer what is considered unmanageable, and that it serves very little scientific or educational purpose. Is a collection of trophies—TV stools made of elephant feet, bear rugs, and lamps made of antelope hooves—a symbol of power or a conveyance of ecological relations? And, in comparison, how does an individual’s collection of trophies differ from that of a museum’s collection? Asma describes the taxidermy process performed by the Jonas brothers and those done by Dr. John Bates as being different processes with different purposes and results—one creating a database and providing knowledge, and one providing spectacle. Or, it can be argued that both perform the same work, that both are “successful in igniting that same peculiar curiosity—part sensual, part intellectual.”
Hi Amber, I just finished reading both readings for class today. I have to say taxidermy and the good vs. evil fight that museum curators go through was much more of a lively read than I originally thought. I emphasize with the fine line between art and frivolity, science and elitism. I also can see why museologists and everyone in the natural history industry are also shaking in their boots about doing business with people in big business. One can't survive without the other I think. In the "Flesh-eating" reading I had some knowledge about how this was achieved but I didn't know the rabbit hole went that far. The Czar who displays abnormal children and pickles his dead lover's head is not only daunting but sooo yester-century. I don't think that that scientists get enough props as artists because it's a precise learned art to but a cadaver on display without having it look like a "baseball mit." Taxidermy is a classic case of art and science living happily together.
Taxidermy is a very interesting case in that those involved must take something that is dead, remove all the parts that make the specimen a living thing, provide some kind of structure, and make the specimen appear to be living again. The taxidermists also has a lot of power over how others will interpret the specimen, just as the museum as an institution in general has control over the public’s experience at the museum. Furthermore, the idea of trophy taxidermy, something very far from scientific inquiry, was very interesting. The brochure for the Jonas Brothers company states that “THIS BOOK IS FOR MEN…real sportsmen…Real men who thrill to the outdoors” meaning that taxidermy is a representation of one’s manliness. These ideas remind of the book Manliness and Civilization that addresses White American Man’s struggle for manliness at the end of the 19th century; men were torn between the Victorian sense of civilized man and the new idea of manliness that emerged in America with ideas of the frontier. However, I disagree that taxidermy solely expresses someone’s sense of manliness. Taxidermy used to be very closely tied to scientific inquiry before scientific knowledge grew so advanced that scientists were able to research things not visible to the naked eye. Taxonomy is also very difficult, as shown in the text. Although categorizing and creating classification systems are beneficial and encoded in our human history, western ideas of taxonomy are so domineering and eventually instill very particular ways of thinking into the public without considering all the other ways of categorizing. These different classification systems provide other ways of looking at the world and therefore create new, perhaps, better ways of thinking.
A positive aspect of taxidermy is the opportunity it creates for people to study each and every detail of the frozen-in-motion animals, that otherwise, would never be an option. Living animals are constantly in motion,and in a way, it is cruel to strip them of this mobility and freeze them in one stance for the rest of time. However, it is fascinating as well to be able to get so close to predators such as lions and grizzly bears. Personally, I find taxidermy interesting for scientific purposes, but for collections, or aesthetic reasons, or as a machismo conquest, I think it borders on fetishism. "for the collector, the object is a sort of docile dog which receives caresses and returns them in its own way; or rather, reflects them like a mirror constructed in such a way as to throw back images not of the real but of the desirable". This quote struck me as odd, because, if this is the reason people collect mounted animals, it makes me wonder why they don't have actual living animals such as dogs instead of having a relationship with a deceased animal. I agree that taxidermy is a window into the history of life, however there is a very thin line distinguishing taxidermy for historical purposes and taxidermy for other, personal, ego related purposes. In the second reading, I was especially drawn to Locke's attempt to understand the way in which human beings come to know things. His argument that all knowledge originates from sensation and reflection is something I have often pondered myself. The theory that we get all of our ideas from experience; we're not born with them, seems obvious now, but it provokes interesting questions such as, which comes first, essence or existence?
Asma attempts to define the purpose of taxidermy through learning about the process and through examining various specimens that portray its uses in culture and science. Beginning with Foma (as a questionable specimen), Asma questions the difference between what we find to be scientific or what we find to be lurid and spectacular, and where one can draw a line. Is this definition based on culture? Do Russians find scientific worth in something Americans find disturbing?
ReplyDelete“Stuffed” animals, or mounts, can be argued as being nothing more than symbols for man’s power and ability to conquer what is considered unmanageable, and that it serves very little scientific or educational purpose. Is a collection of trophies—TV stools made of elephant feet, bear rugs, and lamps made of antelope hooves—a symbol of power or a conveyance of ecological relations? And, in comparison, how does an individual’s collection of trophies differ from that of a museum’s collection? Asma describes the taxidermy process performed by the Jonas brothers and those done by Dr. John Bates as being different processes with different purposes and results—one creating a database and providing knowledge, and one providing spectacle. Or, it can be argued that both perform the same work, that both are “successful in igniting that same peculiar curiosity—part sensual, part intellectual.”
Hi Amber, I just finished reading both readings for class today. I have to say taxidermy and the good vs. evil fight that museum curators go through was much more of a lively read than I originally thought. I emphasize with the fine line between art and frivolity, science and elitism. I also can see why museologists and everyone in the natural history industry are also shaking in their boots about doing business with people in big business. One can't survive without the other I think. In the "Flesh-eating" reading I had some knowledge about how this was achieved but I didn't know the rabbit hole went that far. The Czar who displays abnormal children and pickles his dead lover's head is not only daunting but sooo yester-century. I don't think that that scientists get enough props as artists because it's a precise learned art to but a cadaver on display without having it look like a "baseball mit." Taxidermy is a classic case of art and science living happily together.
ReplyDeleteTaxidermy is a very interesting case in that those involved must take something that is dead, remove all the parts that make the specimen a living thing, provide some kind of structure, and make the specimen appear to be living again. The taxidermists also has a lot of power over how others will interpret the specimen, just as the museum as an institution in general has control over the public’s experience at the museum. Furthermore, the idea of trophy taxidermy, something very far from scientific inquiry, was very interesting. The brochure for the Jonas Brothers company states that “THIS BOOK IS FOR MEN…real sportsmen…Real men who thrill to the outdoors” meaning that taxidermy is a representation of one’s manliness. These ideas remind of the book Manliness and Civilization that addresses White American Man’s struggle for manliness at the end of the 19th century; men were torn between the Victorian sense of civilized man and the new idea of manliness that emerged in America with ideas of the frontier. However, I disagree that taxidermy solely expresses someone’s sense of manliness. Taxidermy used to be very closely tied to scientific inquiry before scientific knowledge grew so advanced that scientists were able to research things not visible to the naked eye.
ReplyDeleteTaxonomy is also very difficult, as shown in the text. Although categorizing and creating classification systems are beneficial and encoded in our human history, western ideas of taxonomy are so domineering and eventually instill very particular ways of thinking into the public without considering all the other ways of categorizing. These different classification systems provide other ways of looking at the world and therefore create new, perhaps, better ways of thinking.
A positive aspect of taxidermy is the opportunity it creates for people to study each and every detail of the frozen-in-motion animals, that otherwise, would never be an option. Living animals are constantly in motion,and in a way, it is cruel to strip them of this mobility and freeze them in one stance for the rest of time. However, it is fascinating as well to be able to get so close to predators such as lions and grizzly bears. Personally, I find taxidermy interesting for scientific purposes, but for collections, or aesthetic reasons, or as a machismo conquest, I think it borders on fetishism. "for the collector, the object is a sort of docile dog which receives caresses and returns them in its own way; or rather, reflects them like a mirror constructed in such a way as to throw back images not of the real but of the desirable". This quote struck me as odd, because, if this is the reason people collect mounted animals, it makes me wonder why they don't have actual living animals such as dogs instead of having a relationship with a deceased animal.
ReplyDeleteI agree that taxidermy is a window into the history of life, however there is a very thin line distinguishing taxidermy for historical purposes and taxidermy for other, personal, ego related purposes.
In the second reading, I was especially drawn to Locke's attempt to understand the way in which human beings come to know things. His argument that all knowledge originates from sensation and reflection is something I have often pondered myself. The theory that we get all of our ideas from experience; we're not born with them, seems obvious now, but it provokes interesting questions such as, which comes first, essence or existence?