Why look at dead animals?

Abstract

Lion Attacking a Dromedary was a sensational object for its first viewers at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867. As an entity or thing, it provoked a powerfully visceral response and, as the current essay explores, it remains a difficult object to view or display today. As we now know, the Verreaux brothers embedded human remains in the figure of the rider that had formerly been assumed to be just a clothed mannequin. (I have elected to exclude any image of this controversial diorama containing human and other animal remains because it is not necessary for this theoretical inquiry). This essay suggests that theoretical tools derived from Material Ecocriticism and Monster Theory that may help us to think about, or alongside, the affective power of this disturbing taxidermy assemblage, ever aware that this piece draws its power from the theatrical, colonial violence of extraction and extinction.