Animal welfare

J. M. Coetzee's brutal novel Disgrace questions popular understandings of criminality and victimhood by establishing parallels between its various characters and their actions. Through close reading of Coetzee's descriptions of protagonist David Lurie's behaviors and attitudes towards women, non-human animals, and people of color compared with descriptions of the mysterious trio of men who rape Lurie's daughter and coldly kill the dogs in her kennels, I argue that the line Disgrace draws between Lurie and these men is deliberately flimsy, ultimately all but disappearing if we look closely enough at their behaviors and descriptions rather than their justifications. I also argue that the novel's perpetrators rely upon archetypical "rapist" and "criminal" constructs, resulting in an inability for them to ever accurately address their own crimes, despite Coetzee's descriptive parallels. Ultimately, I read Disgrace as suggesting that there can be no resolution for violence so long as these mythical archetypes persist.

Once seen as entertainment organizations, many American zoos now strongly promote themselves as agencies of biodiversity conservation, a reorientation prompted in part by growing public concern about endangered species. Funding, research, conservation efforts, and captive breeding programs are the concrete tools that allow zoos to lay claim to their contributions, but it is their more subtle cues that leave a lasting impression with zoo visitors. The exhibits, layout, signage, and presentations reflect prevailing attitudes about nature, wildlife, exotic species, and shape ideas about how animals live their lives and what they are like in the wild. This project examines tensions between the public presentation of conservation goals and concrete contributions to conservation. Zoos are one of the few places where the public can see firsthand many animals in an up-close environment and the impact of zoos on the future of conservation may be dependent upon resolving such tensions.