While historiography is dominated by attempts that try to standardize
and de-individualize the behavior of animals, history proves to be
littered with records of the exceptional lives of unusual animals. This
book introduces animal biography as an approach to the re-framing of
animals as both objects of knowledge as well as subjects of individual
lives. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective and bringing together
scholars from, among others, literary, historical and cultural studies,
the texts collected in this volume seek to refine animal biography as a
research method and framework to studying, capturing, representing and
acknowledging animal others as individuals. From Heini Hediger's biting
monitor, Hachikō and Murr to celluloid ape Caesar and the mourning of
Topsy's gruesome death, the authors discuss how animal biographies are
discovered and explored through connections with humans that can be
traced in archives, ethological fieldwork and novels, and probe the
means of constructing animal biographies from taxidermy to film,
literature and social media. Thus, they invite deeper conversations with
socio-political and cultural contexts that allow animal biographies to
provide narratives that reach beyond individual life stories, while
experimenting with particular forms of animal biographies that might
trigger animal activism and concerns for animal well-being, spur
historical interest and enrich the literary imagination.
