[Sci-tech-public] STS Circle, January 30th - Irus Braverman - (Please RSVP)

[STS]

*STS Circle at Harvard*
[image: image.png]

*Irus Braverman*
*University of Buffalo, State University of New York, Law and Geography*
*
*
on

*The Nature of Zoos: Captive Animal Networks in North America*
Monday, January 30th
12:15-2:00 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106

[image: image.png]

Lunch is provided if you RSVP.
Please RSVP to sts
<sts at hks.harvard.edu>@hks.harvard.edu<sts at hks.harvard.edu>by 5pm
Thursday, January 26th.
*
*
*Abstract:* My presentation begins with the story of Timmy, the oldest male
gorilla in North America. Timmy’s story parallels the dramatic
transformations undergone by North American zoos over the last several
decades. While early zoos and menageries were dedicated largely to
entertaining the public, modern zoos emphasize conservation and education
as their central institutional missions. Timmy’s story highlights the
various technologies that North American zoos use to govern captive
animals. First, it demonstrates how zoos naturalize their spaces, classify
their animals, and produce an experience of seeing for their human
visitors. Second, it highlights the everyday processes by which zoo animals
are named, identified, and recorded within the zoo world and how they are
then registered onto institutional and global databases and informational
networks. Thirdly, Timmy’s story exemplifies how animal bodies are
translated into laws, and how these laws manifest in the material world.
And finally, it calls attention to both the nature and the politics of the
zoo’s network, giving special attention to the importance of genetic
reproduction for the immediate survival of this network. Throughout,
Timmy’s story illuminates the pastoral power of zoos: their self-assumed
role as the animal’s exclusive human caregivers.

*Biography*: Irus Braverman is an Associate Professor of Law and an Adjunct
Professor of Geography at the University at Buffalo, State University of
New York. Her main interests lie in the interdisciplinary study of law,
geography, anthropology, and STS. Writing within this nexus, Braverman has
researched illegal houses, trees, checkpoints, public toilets, and zoos.
Braverman's first book, *House Demolitions in East Jerusalem: 'Illegality'
and Resistance* (2006, Hebrew), focuses on how planning laws and
regulations applied in East Jerusalem create a discriminatory urban
landscape and produce illegal spaces. Her second book, *Planted Flags:
Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine* (Cambridge University Press,
2009), describes how acts of planting and uprooting trees have facilitated
the struggle over land and identity in Israel/Palestine. In *The
Institution of Captivity: Governing Zoo Animals in North America *(forthcoming
2012, Stanford University Press), Braverman presents a mundane account of
zoo networks.


A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/
Follow us on Facebook: STS at Harvard <http://www.facebook.com/HarvardSTS>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/sci-tech-public/attachments/20120123/26eb8983/attachment-0001.htm
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 4628 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/sci-tech-public/attachments/20120123/26eb8983/attachment-0001.png