Guest Editor's Introduction: Seeing, Looking, Watching, Observing Nonhuman Animals
Author: Marvin, Garry
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Trophy Shots: Early North American Photographs of Nonhuman Animals and the Display of Masculine Prowess
Brower, Matthew

ABSTRACT
This essay examines the relationship between the display of nonhuman animal trophies and masculinity through an analysis of progressive-era American wildlife photography. In the 1890s, North
American animal photographers began circulating their images insporting journals and describing their practice as a form of hunting. These camera hunters exhibited their photographs as proof
of sportsmanship, virility, and hunting prowess.
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Designer Cows: The Practice of Cattle Breeding Between Skill and Standardization
Author: Grasseni, Cristina

Abstract:
Cattle fair arenas are panopticon-like spaces that are instrumental in dissecting the cow's body into functional parts or traits. The arena aestheticizes a partitioning gaze that is codified in a marking system: the "linear evaluation protocol" for milk cows. The positioning of the nonhuman animal body into a highly artificial context allows one to view the cow as a self-standing object, ready to be partitioned. The exhibition space of the cattle fair and the surveying eye of the cattle fair judge aim to recreate a laboratory space within the relatively "artisanal" and approximate context of the breeding practice. However, there are several limitations, down sides, and contingencies that contrast the project of standardization of the skilled practice of breeding.
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Falling in Love with Horses: The International Thoroughbred Auction
Cassidy, Rebecca

Abstract:
Based on fieldwork in Newmarket, England, and Kentucky, this paper examines the acts of looking that take place at international thoroughbred horse auctions. Racehorse caretakers (owners) employ bloodstock agents to select the yearling thoroughbred who will make the best racehorse as a 2-year-old and, hopefully, successful stallion or broodmare after retiring from the track as a 4- or 5-year old. The paper assesses the criteria used to assess yearlings: pedigree, conformation, and "that something extra."The paper concludes that the ambiguous status of the bloodstock agent derives from the liminal task the agent performs, communicating with a young, nonhuman animal to discover the animal's essential properties. Selecting yearlings depends upon a process of divination that mitigates against the characterization of western thought as "rational" and opposed to decision-making processes conventionally thought of as "non-normal" or irrational.

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Zoos and Eyes: Contesting Captivity and Seeking Successor Practices
Acampora, Ralph

Abstract:
This paper compares the phenomenological structure of zoological exhibition to the pattern prevalent in pornography. It examines several disanalogies between the two, finds them lacking or irrelevant, and concludes that the proposed analogy is strong enough to serve as a critical lens through which to view the institution of zoos. The central idea uncovered in this process of interpretation is paradoxical: Zoos are pornographic in that they make the nature of their subjects disappear precisely by overexposing them. The paper asserts that the keep are thus degraded or marginalized through the marketing and consumption of their very visibility and criticizes the pretense of preservation. Furthermore, the paper subjects the related framework of captivity to Foucauldian analysis and critique—we see that the "zoöpticon" deserves designation as an island of power in the carceral archipelago of hegemonic social institutions mapped by Foucault. Hence, this paper suggests that the zoo as we know it be phased out in favor of richer and less oppressive modes of encountering other forms of life; toward this end, the paper explores and assesses alternative approaches to, and practices of, nonhuman animal spectatorship and cross-species conviviality.

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