Abstract
The paper takes accusations of cruelty to circus animals as a vantage point for the analysis of the circus. It relates the experience of cruelty invoked by animal acts to the spectators' perception of the animals' tamed bodies rather than to any actual offense to animals. It argues that circus animal training is a part of circus textualization of nature, which culminates in de‐realization of animal (and human) bodies. Through the self‐derealizations, circus conquers an illusionary totality of which it is a part. It dramatizes the ontological crisis of modernity and allows for its illusionary transcendence.
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