Search results for ""Author Rachel Poliquin""

From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.

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Despite their humble appearance, beavers have a remarkable history. Ancient Greeks regarded beavers as models of chastity and prudence. Beaver fur drove the exploration of North America, and beavers are heralded as heroes, able to survive climate change by creating wetland habitats. This book explores our long infatuation with the beaver from North American mythology and Aesop's Fables to contemporary environmental politics. It also examines the facts and fictions of beaver democracies, beaver architecture and even, surprisingly, beaver-flavoured ice-cream. Beaver is a beautifully illustrated book, which will appeal to anyone interested in animal lore and in discovering extraordinary insights into animal biology.

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“Kids and adult alike will love poring over the different sections of this book and will delight in informing their friends and family members of the facts they've learned.”—School Library Journal ★ A perfect book for engaging kids in STEM: This illustrated tour of our “leftover” body parts (like the appendix, or even goosebumps) introduces readers age 7-11 to the bizarre and fascinating science of evolution. Welcome to the weirdest museum you’ll ever explore—the one inside your body. Did you know your amazing, incredible body is a walking, talking museum of evolution? In The Museum of Odd Body Leftovers, tour guides Wisdom Tooth and Disappearing Kidney lead readers through a wacky museum dedicated to vestigial structures: body parts that were essential to our ancestors but are no longer useful to us—even though they’re still hanging around. From goosebumps and hiccups to exploding organs and monkey muscles, each room in the museum shows us that these parts have stories to tell us about our past. By the time we make it to the gift shop, we’ll understand that evolution is not only messy and imperfect, but also ongoing. Our bodies are constantly changing along with the environment we live in—and there’s so much that is still unknown, just waiting to be discovered. Engaging, hilarious, and a visual treat, The Museum of Odd Body Leftovers is a place you’ll want to visit again and again.

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