Animal Lovers Research Articles

Editors’ Page

1 EDITORS’ PAGE E ach fall, we feature the winning story of the Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction. The prize, now in its sixth year, was established to honor the memory of Liza Nelligan, a writer and editor who earned her ma from the English Department here at Colorado State University. This year, the prize was awarded to Angela Mitchell for her story “Animal Lovers,” selected by Robert Boswell, who says of the piece: “‘Animal Lovers’ surprises the reader at every turn. The lives of her quietly self-destructive characters seem to extend beyond the parameters of the story. They are controlled by forces beyond their ability to understand, but now and again they intuit their presence. The story permits the reader to think that it’s going to become predictable, but it turns away from the expected and takes the reader to a place that no one will anticipate. This is a much stranger story than it first appears and quite wonderful.” Though it was entirely unintentional, one might assume we had a theme in mind for this issue, as all three stories touch on the decision to have—or not have—children: In Angela Mitchell ’s “Animal Lovers,” a woman who doesn’t want children ends her marriage and pursues a new life; in Colette Sartor’s “Bandit ,” a couple dealing with miscarriage struggles with trying again; and in Yelizaveta Renfro’s “A Catalogue of Everything in the World,” a young woman grapples with both the disorder in her life and an unplanned pregnancy. And in her awp Intro Journals Award–winning essay, “The Missing Pictures,” Sarah Fang explores her grandmother’s internment in a World War ii Japanese-American camp while pregnant and single, and the resultant silences, gaps, and glossings-over. We also have nonfiction from Lee Gutkind—a short, compelling piece on the peculiar nature of revenge and forgiveness—as well as a fantastic assemblage of poetry selected by Matthew Cooperman. Welcome to the fall issue! —sg —— colorado review 2 B ank run, home run, clean house, sell house, house calls, health calls, cat calls, pig flu, white lie, yellow cake, black man, white house . . . The list of our acuities bewilders and suborns. At this writing, new missiles are rising over Iran, Roman Polanski is being held in a Swiss jail, and Americans think Wal-Mart best symbolizes our national character. Unsettling to be sure, but it sure ain’t boring. And neither is the poetry . What I see in this issue’s poems is a pattern of oppositions, balancing acts that, in their radical equivocations suggest a radical openness in tone and mode. Take Gillian Conoley’s hyperreal poem “[Sound of Freeways Directing the Cosmos Back to Its Start],” how “Death’s got some spiraled plenitude in the distance between clocks, / both a velocity and a stasis at large”; or Mark DuCharme’s “Imagine another fucked-up noise / At which schemes are somehow blown wide open” (“The Unfinished ”). Speed and expansion (our steady state). It’s something of what poet David Wojahn has observed lately as a necessity for capaciousness, an “immediacy that is never less than artful [to] the large spectrum of human emotion in all of its general messiness and contradiction.” Still, in all that range certain strategies emerge: a gallows wit that thumbs back at the very undertaking of poetry (Michael Burkard’s strange intimacies, H. L. Hix’s interrogative charms, Alan Michael Parker’s committee happiness); a locally observed nature (Merrill Gilfillan’s damselflies; Kimberly O’Connor’s awp Intro Journals Award– winning “Thrush:”); citational inhabitations (Martha Ronk, Barry Schwabsky, Philip Jenks & Simone Muench); simulations and adjacencies (John Gallaher and Jordan Stempleman); and long poems (Sally Keith’s Muybridge-Smithson excursus, the august flight of Chad Sweeney). We’re also pushing back with translations: two experimental Austrians, Hans Carl Artmann (b. 1921, d. 2002) and Barbara Hundegger (b. 1963), translated by the supremely resistant Rosmarie Waldrop (who also graces us with a prose poem). May you find something solid (something tasty) to shore against the ruins. —matthew cooperman ...

Orangutans: behavior, ecology, and conservation

This abundantly illustrated look at orangutan life tells the story of one of the most fascinating members of the great ape family. In Orangutans, conservation biologist Junaidi Payne presents an informative and compelling description of the lives of orangutans, from their habitat and behavior to the complex intricacies of orangutan society, with discussions of such topics as the differences between wild and captive creatures and characteristics of age and sex. He provides information on orangutan conservation and rehabilitation as well, discussing threats to orangutan welfare and strategies for safeguarding orangutans in the future. Extraordinary color photographs by award-winning photographer Cede Prudente reveal little-seen aspects of orangutan life in the rainforest and showcase the breathtaking landscapes of Borneo and Sumatra. Orangutans also includes a map of orangutan distribution and information on where to see orangutans in the wild. Orangutan tours attract thousands of visitors each year. This stunning book offers a souvenir or a preview. Animal lovers, natural history students, fans of wildlife photography, and those interested in ecology and conservation will also find a place for Orangutans on their bookshelves or coffee tables.Junaidi Payne, a conservation biologist with World Wildlife Fund for Nature--Malaysia, is the author of Wild Malaysia and This is Borneo. Cede Prudente is a professional conservationist and photographer. His photograph of a swinging orangutan won the Best Still Photography Award at the 2007 Wildlife Asian Film Festival.

New Zealand Vegetarians: At Odds with Their Nation

AbstractThis qualitative study, conducted between August and December 2006, explored the opinions and experiences of New Zealanders who challenge orthodox attitudes to the use and consumption of nonhuman animals. To date, New Zealand (NZ) has under-investigated the perspectives of those who oppose animal farming, the eating of nonhuman animals, and the exploitation of nonhuman animals. Agriculture substantially influences the economy and cultural heritage of the nation. Given that national identity in New Zealand strongly associates with farming and meat production, this paper investigates how vegetarians living in this country experience and challenge prevalent imagery and ideas about New Zealand. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which “kiwi” vegetarians are disputing the dominant image of New Zealand as “clean and green” and a land of "animal lovers" and how they are experiencing mainstream (meat-loving) kiwi culture in their everyday lives. The paper also examines some of the more positive aspects for vegetarians of living in New Zealand.

Dragonhaven (review)

Reviewed by: Dragonhaven April Spisak McKinley, Robin Dragonhaven. Putnam, 2007342p ISBN 978-0-399-24675-3$17.99 R Gr. 8-10 Although Jake has lived at the Smokehill dragon preserve his whole life, he has never seen one of the preserve's residents up close until a hike leads him to a dying [End Page 147] dragon and her struggling newborns. Suddenly, Jake's entire life revolves around the lone surviving dragonlet, whom he has named Lois, that he is now trying to raise. Since there's not much information about rearing young dragons, Jake spends the next three years muddling through, relieved and pleased by Lois' small successes and thriving health. Lois gives Jake an entrée into the private world of the Smokehill animals, where he discovers telepathic communication is possible between the dragons and humans. Whether this new discovery will be enough to save the preserve against mounting public distrust is unclear, though Jake knows he will risk everything to save Lois and the others. While Jake's narration sometimes focuses more on Lois' development than on the adventure, McKinley delivers an impeccably well-developed and haunting world of gritty isolation, populated by mysterious and majestic dragons and the self-sacrificing humans dedicated to saving them. Any animal lover will recognize the fierce dedication and appreciation Jake has for his animal neighbors, even if these particular friendly creatures are eighty feet long and they breathe fire. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship (review)

Reviewed by: Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship Deborah Stevenson Hatkoff, Isabella Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship; by Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff, and Dr. Paula Kahumbu; illus. with photographs by Peter Greste et al.Scholastic, 2007 [40p] ISBN 0-439-89959-1$16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 2-4 Many audiences are now familiar with the story of Owen, the hippopotamus orphaned by the 2004 tsunami and now dwelling in a Kenyan wildlife park, and his surprising friendship with the Aldabran tortoise Mzee. Though this labels itself a sequel to Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (BCCB 5/06), it's more a revisitation with a slightly different focus. The text briefly recapitulates the story of Owen's sea rescue, travel to Haller Park, and meeting with Mzee, and [End Page 253] it then goes on to look in more detail at the relationship between the two, their behaviors, and the possible pitfalls of this friendship. This title pushes the boundaries of the story's implications a little harder than its predecessor (the optimistic morals seem particularly implausible in light of the multitudes who weren't spared in the tsunami), but it also offers intriguing and closely observed descriptions of the two animals' interactions, noting, for instance, that they've developed an oral communication that is neither tortoise nor hippo in its nature; the book is also straightforward and realistic about issues that the park keepers face, such as Owen's unhealthy tendency to eat a tortoise diet rather than a hippo diet and the risk that he might pose to the delicate-shelled Mzee as he continues to increase in size. This book is chock full of color photos, a few clearly constrained by circumstances but many of them striking and vivid portraits that convey the beauty of the location as well as the comradeship of the two animals. Browsers will find much to nibble on just in the images, while animal lovers in particular will find the enhanced details of this pair's friendship well worth perusal. A concluding section offers a bit more information on subjects ranging from Kenya to hippos to the tsunami. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Outlaw Varjak Paw (review)

Reviewed by: The Outlaw Varjak Paw April Spisak Said, SF The Outlaw Varjak Paw; illus. by Dave McKean. Fickling/Random House, 2006 [256p] Library ed. ISBN 0-385-75042-0$18.99 Trade ed. ISBN 0-385-75044-7$16.95 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-6 The indomitable cat hero from Varjak Paw (BCCB 9/03) returns in this sequel that not only advances Varjak's story but also answers questions that remained from the earlier text. The mysterious "Way" (an extrasensory ability and way of life that very few cats are able to develop) alluded to in the earlier novel is clarified through Varjak's visits with Jalal, his Mesopotamian spiritual guide who instructs him in the Seven Skills that give cats extraordinary power. In addition, groups of characters who were gathering forces in the first novel have now coalesced into two main groups headed toward a traditional clash of good (Varjak, cat ally Holly, with whom a romance is blossoming, and dog friend Cludge) versus evil (the mysterious and dangerous feline Sally Bones and her growing gang of enforcers of her ever-changing laws). The dramatic buildup is satisfyingly tense, and Varjak must push himself to his limits to be a match against Sally Bones. Said's insight into realistic cat behavior (most of the cats are easily distracted from their mission by the smell of a plump mouse) helps to create a complete other-world view of the relatively ordinary cityscape in which the cats dwell. It is doubtful that readers will ever look at the sewer in the same way again after glimpsing it from the perspective of the beleaguered felines seeking sanctuary. As well as being a well-written sequel, this is a successful standalone novel that will be popular with animal lovers and those looking for adventurous stories in the vein of Kenneth Oppel's bat-centered Silverwing Trilogy (Silverwing, BCCB 1/98). Reviewed from an unillustrated galley. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Pets Help Teach in Speech-Language Pathology Sessions

Pets Help Teach in Speech-Language Pathology Sessions

Do Animals Have Feelings?

Animal lovers insist their fellow creatures experience joy, sympathy, fear and grief, but scientifically, it is hard to say

ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room (review)

Reviewed by: ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room Deborah Stevenson Jackson, Donna M. ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room. Houghton, 2005 [96p] illus. with photographs ISBN 0-618-43663-4$17.00 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7 Going ER one better by making the patients cute and fuzzy, ER Vets focuses on the state-of-the-art emergency vet clinic at Colorado State University. The book provides some information about the history of veterinary medicine in general and some of these hospital staffers in particular, but the main stories here are those of the animals. Jackson, who researched on-site at the hospital and took most of the book's photographs herself, intersperses accounts of specific cases—a dog hit by a car, a foal with oxygen deprivation, a hypothermic snake—with discussion of emergency-room veterinary care in general, while sidebars provide information about topics such as common emergency-room abbreviations and human foods with devastating pet consequences. Though the non-linear organization makes this more a detailed scrapbook than a narrative (and the important issue of cost is never touched upon), the book makes effective use of its exciting and inviting material, making clear that the high-pressure, wildly varied work in the emergency room is indeed a specialization that requires particular abilities as well as interest in animals. The pictures are key in this photodocumentary, and while the setting sometimes limits photographic options, the images are informative and affecting; reproduced x-rays and 'scope pictures add crucial internal views and familiarize readers with the vets' own tools. The heavily visual layout is occasionally a little overbusy, but the captions and chapter titles keep text chunks easily manageable. This will be an easy sell to animal lovers of various reading levels, and they may also get some ideas about future career options. Extensive end matter includes a list of suggested reading, relevant websites, a glossary, source notes, and an index. Copyright © 2005 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Grzimek's animal life encyclopedia

Gale proudly presents the first completely revised and updated version of this acclaimed set in 30 years. Some reviewers call Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia the best reference work on animals ever published. Others call it the legacy left to us by famed zoologist and animal lover, Bernhard Grzimek. The accolades and praise go on for the newest addition to Gale's line of reference titles. The original 13-vol. set, published in Germany in the late 1960s, is internationally renowned for its scientific reporting, coverage and illustrations, and serves as a major point of reference for researchers and students studying the animal kingdom. Thorough articles familiarize readers with animals found everywhere on the globe, detailing their life cycles, predators, food systems, overall ecology and much more. Staying true to the original scientific pedigree, Gale enlisted prominent advisors and contributors from the international scientific community to incorporate recent developments in the animal world. Our new editions of Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia are sure to serve the needs of students at every academic level.

REDUCTION OF STATE-ANXIETY BY PETTING ANIMALS IN A CONTROLLED LABORATORY EXPERIMENT

The effect on anxiety of petting an animal and the underlying mechanisms of such an effect were examined by a repeated-measures, within-session experiment with 58 non-clinical participants. Participants were exposed to a stressful situation in the laboratory – the presence of a Tarantula spider, which they were told they might be asked to hold – and then randomly assigned to one of five groups: petting a rabbit, a turtle, a toy rabbit, a toy turtle or to a control group. Participants’ attitudes towards animals were measured as potential moderators. State-anxiety was assessed at baseline, after the stress manipulation, and after the experimental manipulation. The main findings showed that petting an animal reduced state-anxiety. This effect could not be attributed to the petting per se, since it was observed only with animals and not with matched toys. The anxiety-reducing effect of petting an animal applied to both the soft cuddly animals and the hard-shelled ones. The anxiety-reducing effect applied to people with different attitudes towards animals and was not restricted to animal lovers. The discussion addresses possible emotional and cognitive foundations of the observed effects and their implications.

Behavior of Miniature Pet Pigs

Pigs are clean, intelligent, and entertaining animals. Because they are domesticated animals, they are not even as unusual a pet as a hedgehog or snake. The animal lover that buys a pig on impulse, however, is likely to have a disappointing experience. Those who acquire a pet pig with the most common preconceived but inaccurate notions are even more likely to be quickly disenchanted with their "exotic pet." Many pet owners will complain of the size that their pig attains; but if the pig were more manageable and better behaved, its ultimate size would probably be of less concern. Given the proper environment, diet and veterinary care, the miniature pig can be a terrific pet.

Travels in Southern Africa, Vol. 2 (review)

Perhaps the most telling moment in this book occurs when Adulphe Delegorgue, having set sail on a British ship from Cape Town to London in 1844, visits St. Helena. There, midway between the two continents of his adult life, Africa and Europe, Delegorgue sees the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte and describes his compatriot as the "colossus of glory" (284). Through his homage to Napoleon some twenty years after his death, Delegorgue fixes his historical moment and identifies the model by which he fashioned his persona as intrepid explorer, great white hunter, meticulous naturalist (remembered in the names of various species including a type of butterfly, Lycaena Delegorguei), and lover of animals. In this self-depiction, Delegorgue is above all a man of destiny who lives the "dangerous life" (213) and savors the freedom offered by southern Africa, unlike the colonial Boers and English whom he sees as hopelessly unimaginative and domesticated. The Boers are slightly superior to the English, he admits, but only because they were unmatched as oxen-drivers and were not the persecutors of Napoleon.

A matter of life or death

“Animal rights hunger striker sends message from his deathbed,” announced the Observer in a front-page splash on 6 December, reporting a letter to his supporters from Barry Horne, who had refused food for the previous 60 days. “This is not for me, it is for every animal in every torture laboratory,” said Horne, who had been admitted to York District Hospital in the UK, from prison where he was serving an 18-year sentence for firebombing.The Observer accompanied the story by a second long piece headed “Animal lover ready to die to end vivisection” and an editorial saying that some animal experiments were “a cruel but necessary evil.”Horne's protest, later abandoned, was occasioned by the failure of the UK government to honour (yet) its pre-election pledge to support a Royal Commission to review the justification for animal experimentation. The Observer and many other newspapers amply described this political background, together with information about Horne's incendiary attacks on a variety of shops, including a cancer charity shop, in the south of England.A remarkable feature of the reportage was the almost total absence of scientific arguments over laboratory animals. Tabloid newspapers, in particular, treated the Horne story purely as news, while the broadsheets explored every possible angle except the science. Even those papers that criticised Horne's actions in editorials set a rather different tone in their (much more widely read) news pages through the use of terms such as “cruelty”, “vivisection” and “vivisector”.Journalists, seeking fresh perspectives, turned not to science but to human interest and the many nuances of protest. On behalf of the Times, Vanora Bennett visited York, recorded the “sullen group huddled outside the hospital grounds” and complained to her readers: “The night is bone-chilling, yet no one moves to make a space for me.” With far more important matters at stake, here was a reporter following the tradition of those who used to portray industrial actions solely in terms of pickets and braziers at the factory gate.Imminent martyrdom is, of course, news. At the same time, media neglect of its context, together with careless use of emotive language, can perpetuate stereotypes and impair understanding. Imminent martyrdom also calls forth sympathy, however horrendous the crimes for which someone like Barry Horne has been convicted. “Instinctively, one responds to his plight with compassion, the same compassion that goes out to cancer victims,” said the Times, while also recording the £3 million cost of the damage caused by his firebombing campaign on behalf of animal rights.The question that remains is why these human reactions so dominated coverage of the affair as to exclude from most accounts the underlying evidence about humane animal experimentation. Part of the answer lies with the scientific community itself, with decades of reluctance to engage in public discussion of these issues combined, on occasions, with willingness to defend the indefensible.In May 1990, the Independent published a story about an elderly, distinguished pharmacologist, working on under-anaesthetised rabbits at the National Institute for Medical Research in north London. This was based on first-hand videotape evidence obtained by undercover researchers on behalf of Advocates for Animals. The Medical Research Council, after a diligent enquiry, subsequently issued a report acknowledging mistakes at various levels within the Institute and elsewhere, and recommending appropriate changes. This did not, however, prevent some scientists from seeking to minimise the seriousness of what had happened, nor from trying to argue that the whole episode reflected little more than journalistic mischief.Of course, it's not surprising that scientists are often reluctant to go on record in the animal experimentation debate. The neuroscientist Colin Blakemore from Oxford University — a vocal defender of humane animal experimentation — was among those scientists threatened with death by an animal rights organisation in the eventuality of Horne's death. But extreme actions like these simply underline the need for better public understanding of the issues.When faced with a development such as Barry Horne's hunger strike, reporters and their editors do not simply respond to the immediate details of the event. They set the story within a framework determined in part by their understanding of what has gone before. If, through the failures of others, they have little awareness of the case for animal experimentation, then this will be reflected in their style of coverage.A singular error made by some medical researchers, vis-a-vis the media and the community at large, is to believe that the necessity of using animals in research and in safeguarding public health is self-evident. Despite the fact that UK legislation was thoroughly overhauled as recently as 1986, one good that might come from recent events would be an enquiry ensuring comprehensive ventilation, through the media, of the case for (and against) animal experimentation.

Problems and Benefits of Bird Ownership

Because research literature on human and avian interactions is limited, it seemed important to investigate the benefits and liabilities of pet-bird ownership. It was hypothesized that most pet bird owners would have other pet animals in addition to birds, that one-fifth of owners would have owned pet birds during childhood or adolescence, that they would report their birds provided physical and verbal companionship, and that most would admit to their being some real liabilities in owning birds. 50 men and 50 women bird owners were interviewed. Clearly, bird owners were also animal lovers, and their responses supported all the hypotheses. The primary benefits of bird ownership were friendship, companionship, and verbal interactions. The primary liabilities were messiness and noise. Respondents stated good bird owners needed to be patient, affectionate, and sensitively perceptive. These findings should help in training of both children and adults for careful nurturing of birds and other pets.

On God and dogs: a Christian theology of compassion for animals

Many of us keep pet animals; we rely on them for companionship and unconditional love. For some people their closest relationships may be with their pets. In the wake of the animal rights movement, some ethicists have started to re-examine this relationship, and to question the rights of humans to own other sentient beings in this way. In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Stephen Webb brings a Christian perspective to bear on the subject of our responsibility to animals, looked at through the lens of our relations with pets--especially dogs. Webb argues that the emotional bond with companion animals should play a central role in the way we think about animals in general, and--against the more extreme animal liberationists--defends the intermingling of the human and animal worlds. He tries to imagine what it would be like to treat animals as a gift from God, and indeed argues that not only are animals a gift for us, but they give to us; we need to attend to their giving and return their gifts appropriately. Throughout the book he insists that what Christians call grace is present in our relations with animals just as it is with other humans. Grace is the inclusive and expansive power of God's love to create and sustain relationships of real mutuality and reciprocity, and Webb unfolds the implications of the recognition that animals too participate in God's abundant grace. Webb's thesis affirms and persuasively defends many of the things that pet lovers feel instinctively--that their relationships with their companion animals are meaningful and important, and that their pets have value and worth in themselves in the eyes of God. His book will appeal to a broad audience of thoughtful Christians and animal lovers.

Birds and beasts of ancient Latin America

Elizabeth P. Benson provides an engaging overview of the depiction of animals in the pre-Columbian art of Latin America. Drawing on an extensive set of images (many of them previously unpublished) from the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Florida Museum of Natural History, she examines the practical, ritualistic, and mythic importance of animals in pre-Columbian life as well as the meanings that animals still have for the modern descendants of those indigenous peoples. Conveniently arranged by animal groups and beautifully illustrated, Benson's survey encompasses all artistic media and spans the pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Providing information on animals and the beliefs surrounding them, the cultural contexts of their depiction, and the cultures to which they were important, Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America will appeal to archaeologists, cultural hisorians, and anthropologists; to anyone interested in pre-Columbian art and mythology; and to modern-day bird and animal lovers.

Saint of Authority and the Saint of the Spirit: Paul Sabatier's Vie de S. François D'Assise

Men may glorify as discoveries some insignificant trifles that supply little or no evidence and bestow name of new documents on late accounts of doubtful authenticity, but there is nothing further to be known concerning St. Frances, and ... Bollandists, Chalippe and Papini, writing ore than a century ago, knew as much, more or less, concerning St. Francis, no new fact, episode, or saying had been added to his life. MGR. FALOCI (1902) The criticism of Franciscan origins is still in its infancy. PAUL SABATIER (1901) The divide separating two mentalities represented in epigraph runs like a fault line through later nineteenth century Roman Catholicism. On many theological fronts -- biblical studies, apologetics, ecclesiastical history -- proponents of traditional positions who considered everything of fundamental importance to have been said were confronted by expansions of critical methods who saw themselves mapping out little-explored territory. The traditional hagiography was not exempt; it too faced a critical revisionism characterized by methods and a mentality informed by historical criticism. The often oppositional relations between traditionalists and progressives formed part of context for Catholic reception of a nonCatholic's biography of St. Francis of Assisi. In November of 1893 Paul Sabatier (1858-1928) published at his own expense his Vie de S. Francois d'Assise.(1) Its author was an unknown; he had published nothing previously in Franciscan studies. Yet book enjoyed an almost instant success; by following March biography was translated into English and German. It received sufficient notice from Vatican to be placed on Index of Prohibited Books and from French Academy to be awarded crown of honor. Even those most opposed to its portrait of Francis acknowledged its influence.(2) Both popularity and influential character of Sabatier's biography invited comparison with another biography published three decades earlier: Ernest Renan's Vie de Jesus (1863).(3) It too was prefaced by a critical study of sources and like Sabatier's effort was suffused with a romanticism that permeated portrait of its principal subject. While a number of factors have been adduced to account or success of Sabatier's Vie de S. Francois,(4) two that it shares with Renan's Vie de Jesus are worth closer consideration here. On one level, Sabatier's liberal Protestantism appeared more palatable to Catholics than did Renan's overt rationalism. The former's critical conclusions were less extreme, treatment of his subject more respectful by comparison. But if application of method was more restrained, spirit which informed method was no more acceptable. On another level, their criticism converged; it naturalized miraculous and ultimately rationalized supernatural. To Catholic traditionalists historical criticism appeared to be a means of recreating Jesus or Francis into critic's own image and likeness. The Lives produced by such critics were less biographical representations of their subjects than presentations of a thesis. As such they took on character of novels -- fictionalized renderings more indebted to authorial imagination than to historical reality. In short, Sabatier, like Renan, had produced a roman-a-these. Or, more properly, given reactions to influenced conclusions of criticism, a roman-a-hypothse.(5) The spirit which traditionalists detected in these works and which made them uneasy was only partly rooted in historical criticism. That spirit also reenacted a romanticism which contributed to Franciscan revival and was a factor in popularity of both Renan's and Sabatier's Lives. As C. N. L. Brooke has observed, the nineteenth-century romantics found (or thought they found) a man after their own heart, a lover of mankind, a lover of animals, an apostle of liberty -- a libel romantic in thirteenth century. …

Review Essay: Animal Lovers: Intimate Interaction between Humans and Animals

(1995). Review Essay: Animal Lovers: Intimate Interaction between Humans and Animals. Anthrozoos: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 58-64.

Bertram M. Bernheim: A southern vascular surgeon

Bertram M. Bernheim: A southern vascular surgeon