| The sight of a wild animal regularly triggers in the Euro-American viewer a desire for a kind of knowledge that asserts control over the animal and thus of the human experience of it. My study critiques the invasive ways animals are "watched" and, through the critique, articulates a morality of looking that is less self-serving and more accepting of the limits of what we can know about wild animals. In separate chapters, I investigate the practices of naming, collecting/killing, and seeking eye contact with animals. The order of the three reflects a trajectory of supposed intimacy: encase the animal in human language, kill the animal and reproduce it (science, taxidermy, art), and finally seek living acknowledgement from animals---make them look at us.; Following an introduction, the first chapter focuses on naming birds, and examines the process of learning names, discusses the use of field guides, the role of taxonomy, and the common birder habits of listing and counting birds. The second chapter investigates collecting as a souvenir hunt, discussing the careers of John James Audubon and Edward O. Wilson (among others), the practice of scavenging bones, and the display of dead animals in dioramas. The third chapter, on eye contact, examines the human lover's desire for communion with the animal beloved, as that desire is played out in the writings of Barry Lopez, Doug Peacock, and Thoreau, as well as at zoos and in nature photography.; Also cited as evidence throughout the study is my own substantial experience as a watcher of wild animals. I participate uneasily in the practices I critique, and that ambivalence inspired this intellectual inquiry. My intent was to figure out how we human lookers can be attentive not just to animals but to ourselves, to the ways we watch and see and think about wild animals---to the ways we use them. |
