Wolves in the City of Domesticated Women: The Queer Wild of Olivia Rosenthal

• Authors: Paulina Szymonek
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In 2009, in the city of Nantes, a pack of six wolves was released in a public park as part of Stéphane Thidet’s art installation. A book of short stories accompanied the event. One of the authors involved was Olivia Rosenthal, who then incorporated her story into the novel Que font les rennes après Noël? (2010), in which captive wolves are reintroduced to the city. In this post-natural environment, animals provide a semblance of the wilderness for residents, yet remain enclosed in an extended zoo designed by man – an act that domesticates both sides of the fence by  separating humans from wolves. Rosenthal’s protagonist is one of such captives. Her life and the lives of animals are presented in parallel narratives. She grows up in a strictly controlled environment, and social standards are imposed on her. In a semi-autobiographical vein, Rosenthal explores issues of queer and gender marginalization as well as emancipation. At the same time, she seeks to dismantle the binary oppositions that place animals, women, and non-heteronormative persons on the other side of the fence. Relying on queer ecofeminist theory developed by Greta Gaard (1997) as well as trans-species urban theory formulated by Jennifer Wolch (1998), this paper argues that we should challenge the hierarchical approach to human and non-human life, as it silences differences and denies voice, rights, and agency to women, non-heteronormative persons, and animals. Tracing inspirations behind Olivia Rosenthal’s novel, this paper also contemplates the ethics of using live animals in Stéphane Thidet’s La Meute (2009) as well as Mircea Cantor’s Deeparture (2005) – two art installations that place captive wolves in an artificial environment.

Keywords

EN

wolves; animal studies; queer ecofeminism; trans-species urban theory

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej
• Journal: New Horizons in English Studies
• Year: 2021
• Issue: 6

Dates

published

2021

online

2021-10-10

Contributors

author

Paulina Szymonek

• University of Silesia

References

• Baratay, Éric. 2008. La société des animaux, de la Révolution à la Libération. Paris: La Martinière.
• Baratay, Éric. 2012. Le Point de vue animal, une autre version de l’histoire, Paris: Seuil.
• Botkin, Daniel B. 2004. Beyond the Stony Mountains: Nature in the American West from Lewis and Clark to Today. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Cantor, Mircea (@mirceacantor). 2015. “Today celebrating 10Y since I filmed #DEEPARTURE in #Paris at Yvon Lambert Gallery.” Instagram, March 17, 2015. https://www.instagram.com/p/0UZJfwHsLE/
• Cruse, Philippine. 2010. “Sous le règne animal d’Olivia Rosenthal.” Viabooks. Accessed September 16, 2020. http://www.viabooks.fr/interview/olivia-rosenthal-sous-le-regne-animal-18775.
• Deeparture. 2005. Directed by Mircea Cantor.
• Gaard, Greta. 1997. “Toward a Queer Ecofeminism,” Hypatia 12 (1): 114-115.
• Gopnik, Blake. 2007. “The Idea: Predator, Prey, Provocative.” Washington Post, October 28, M10. https://hirshhorn.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/TWP_MirceaCantor_10.28.pdf.
• Hirshhorn. 2007. “Black Box: Mircea Cantor.” Hirshhorn Museum. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/black-box-mircea-cantor/.
• Klan du Loup. 2009. “’La Meute’: une animation sur le Loup, qui se dit ‘Oeuvre d’Art.’” Klan du Loup. Accessed November 9, 2020. https://www.loup.eu/meute-thidet-animation-loup-art/.
• Mai, Joseph. 2016. “Un tissu de mots”: Writing Human and Animal Life in Olivia Rosenthal’s “Que font les rennes après Noël?” Mosaic 49 (3): 56-62.
• Mathieu, Florent. 2020. “Des loups en plein centre-ville de Grenoble à la faveur du confinement?” Place Gre’Net. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://www.placegrenet.fr/2020/04/01/des-loups-en-plein-centre-ville-de-grenoble-a-la-faveur-du-confinement/289206.
• Meijer, Eva. 2019. When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy. New York: NYU Press.
• Mulholland, Rory. 2017. “Wolves are living on the outskirts of Paris, wildlife groups claim.” The Telegraph. Accessed September 16, 2020. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/17/wolves-living-outskirts-paris-wildlife-groups-claim/.
• Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. New York: Routledge.
• Ritzel, Kate and Travis Gallo. 2020. “Behavior Change in Urban Mammals: A Systematic Review.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8:576665. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2020.576665.
• Rosenthal, Olivia. 2014. “Je n'irai pas au zoo de Vincennes.” Le Magazine des écrivains. Accessed November 28, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20140720022231/http://www.magazine-litteraire.com/mensuel/544/je-n-irai-pas-au-zoo-vincennes-05-06-2014-123194.
• Rosenthal, Olivia. 2019. To Leave with the Reindeer, trans. Sophie Lewis. London: And Other Stories.
• Télénantes. 2009. “Nantes: Les loups envahissent les Douves.” Dailymotion. Accessed November 9, 2020. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9j9y9.
• Thidet, Stéphane. 2009. “La Meute.” Accessed September 16, 2020. http://www.stéphanethidet.com/selected-works/article/la-meute.
• Ting, Selina. 2011. “Interview: Mircea Cantor.” InitiArt Magazine. Accessed November 28, 2020. http://web.archive.org/web/20200610063439/http://www.initiartmagazine.com/interview.php?IVarchive=24.
• Vallet, Romain. 2011. “Olivia Rosenthal: c’est important, le multiple.” Hétéroclite. Accessed September 16, 2020. http://www.heteroclite.org/2011/05/olivia-rosenthal-assises-du-roman-2011-1937.
• Warren, Karen. 1990. “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12: 125-146.
• Weber, Thierry. 2009. “Album - La Meute de Stephane Thidet.” Le blog estuaire Nantes Saint-Nazaire. Accessed November 9, 2020. http://estuaire-nantes-st-nazaire-2007-2011.over-blog.com/album-1400921.html.
• Wilson, Alexander. 1992. The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez. Cambridge: Blackwell.
• Wolch, Jennifer. (1998) 2010. “Zoöpolis.” In Metamorphoses of the Zoo: Animal Encounter after Noah, ed. Ralph R. Acampora, 221-243. Plymouth: Lexington Books.
• Woodroffe, Rosie, Simon Thirgood, and Alan Rabinowitz. 2005. “The Impact of Human-Wildlife Conflict on Natural Systems.” In People and Wildlife, Conflict or Co-existence?, eds. Rosie Woodroffe, Simon Thirgood, and Alan Rabinowitz, 1-12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.17951/nh.2021.6.51-62