CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Szczygielska, Marianna |
|---|---|
| Title | BECOMING (WITH) ANIMAL OTHERS. IS THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL MACHINE SET UP IN THE ZOO? |
| Summary | The aim of my research is to problematize the role of the zoological garden in constructing the human/nonhuman boundary. By discussing the zoo in its historical context and emphasizing the interconnectedness of colonialism, the birth of the nation state, and the emergence of scientific disciplines in the nineteenth century that influenced the zoo’s development into its current state as a modern public institution, I argue that the zoo is a paradigmatic biopolitical space. My major theoretical tools are posthumanist theory and the framework of biopolitics. I apply the posthumanist approach of Donna Haraway, complicating it with Giorgio Agamben’s biopolitical critique. The concept that is most central to this dissertation is Agamben’s idea of the “anthropological machine”, which enabled me to tackle philosophical problems of human/animal relations, within the scope of the ontology of becoming and the epistemological project of breaking binary oppositions. I also include a case study of the Budapest Zoological Garden. I argue that the anthropological machine, being an optical device that creates the division between human and animal, can be challenged by the idea of “the gaze”. As a subversive tool for becoming (with) animal others, what I term “the zoological gaze” opens up a space to think of relational ontologies. By demonstrating how animals’ “gazing back” can destabilize the anthropocentric approach that has dominated philosophical thinking, I argue for centrality of vision in posthumanist theory. |
| Supervisor | Anna Loutfi |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/szczygielska_marianna.pdf |
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