Wild Things Research Articles

Where the wild things are: a lesson on surviving and transforming anger

I have been wanting for a year now to write a reflective piece on Maurice Sendak’s illustrated children’s story ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ (Sendak, 1963). It has felt like a long time to pause; on...

A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule. By Jonathan Schlesinger. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2017. xii, 271 pp. ISBN: 9780804799966 (cloth, also available as e-book).

A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule. By Jonathan Schlesinger. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2017. xii, 271 pp. ISBN: 9780804799966 (cloth, also available as e-book).

Where the wild things are: urbanization and income affect hunting participation in Tuscany, at the landscape scale

In the last few decades, hunters decreased in Italy, reshaping human-wildlife conflicts and constraining the budget of wildlife agencies. Socioeconomic dynamics connected with modernization reduced hunter recruitment in Northern America, by changing the value orientations of the younger generations, as well as social support towards hunting. Despite similar dynamics characterized Europe in the last few decades, no study addressed their effect over the decrease in hunting participation in Mediterranean European context. We modeled the effect of the percentage of urbanized soil, the average per capita income, the aging index of residents, the ratio between utilized agricultural area and the total agricultural area, the density of farmers per hectare of utilized agricultural area, the province, and the hunting district, over the observed variation in the proportion of hunters over the resident population between 2001 and 2011, at 258 municipalities in Tuscany, Central Italy. Both the proportion of urbanized surface and the average income at each municipality showed a nonlinear, negative, association with the variation in the proportion of hunters. Our findings agree with previous studies exploring the effect of the so-called “forces of modernization” over hunting decline in Northern America. Future studies could adopt socioeconomic variables reflecting modernization to model hunting variation at the Italian level. Policy makers can therefore use these estimates to better account for the numerical decrease of hunters in wildlife management policies, tailoring financing policies for wildlife agencies.

Where are the wild things? Animals in western medieval European History

AbstractDespite the humanities' “animal turn,” the historiography of western European medieval animals is limited. Social historians have examined specific (usually economically important) species, and cultural historians have analyzed the symbolism of animals in the Middle Ages, but few are interested in the animals themselves. Drawing on the highly interdisciplinary field of Critical Animal Studies and other fields of history, I suggest ways that medieval historians could embrace the animal turn to study the experiences of real animals and animal–human entanglements of the Middle Ages.

Bruce Handy: Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult

Bruce Handy: Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult

ARDEO: From Page to Stage

ARDEO: From Page to Stage Jacqueline E. Lawton (bio) In 2003, my mother, who had worked for many years as a nurse, was injured while working with a patient. Initially, she was told that the pain she felt was associated with arthritis. It wasn’t until she had an MRI that she understood the true extent of her injury. She had her first back surgery in 2008 and went back to work. She couldn’t afford not to work and continued to push through excruciating pain. It wasn’t until after her second surgery in 2010 that her body no longer allowed her to put in the long, strenuous hours of a nurse. As I watched her healthcare team attend to the needs of her body, I longed for them to address her psychological health: how this injury would shift who she is in the world. On the other hand, outside of asking her how she was adjusting and encouraging her through physical therapy, I myself didn’t know what more I could do to help her or patients like her adjust to life after dramatic physical change for her or for other patients like her. Sometimes, however, the stars align and a change of circumstances place you exactly where you need to be in order to accomplish something unexpected and extraordinary. In January of 2015, a couple of weeks after I started my new job as an assistant professor in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I attended a fascinating discussion about science and theatre. Hosted by the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Science (NAS), JD Talasek, the director of cultural programs at NAS, gathered Washington, D.C.–area theatre artists, administrators, and scholars to gauge their interest in producing and writing plays about science. After a roundtable of introductions, choreographer, performer, and educator Liz Lerman spoke about her recent project, The Matter of Origins. Key points from her talk that resonated with me were: • Both theatre and science exist in a space of inquiry. Artists and scientists seek knowledge and understanding about the world through their work. • Artists can help scientists communicate thoughts, discoveries, and challenges to a wider public community in compelling and creative ways. • Scientists can help artists see the power and impact of the research and discovery. • Also, scientific research structures can help artists understand the importance, even the necessity of failure in the development of a new work. This meeting was invigorating and deeply informative. It inspired research for a new play that I was beginning to write called Among These Wild Things, which explores intersections between human rights and genetics. It also reignited an interest in narrative medicine that began as I watched my mother recover from her multiple surgeries. I felt called to focus on a play that would put narrative medicine at the center of its explorations. When I returned to Chapel Hill, I shared this idea with Adam Versenyi (chair of the Department of Dramatic Art) and he introduced me to Bruce Cairns, the director of the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center. Together, Dr. Cairns and I began to think of ways to collaborate. Our opportunity came in April 2015 when I applied for and was awarded a Kenan Creative Collaboratory grant to [End Page E-1] research, write, and develop ARDEO, a one-act play inspired by personal narratives of healthcare practitioners and patients at the Jaycee Burn Center. With the support of Jules Odendahl-James, who served as our dramaturg and research consultant, and Nicole Damari, a UNC–Chapel Hill medical student who helped me craft research questions and took and transcribed copious notes, I got to work. In February, I spoke with former patients and healthcare practitioners. I spent the first two weeks of March researching the history of the Jaycee Burn Center, the educational backgrounds and career paths of various healthcare professionals involved in catastrophic medical care, and the varied recovery journeys of burn victims. From the end of March and all of April I wrote the play. In May, we had a weeklong new-play development workshop and rehearsal. With...

Jonathan Schlesinger. A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule.

Jonathan Schlesinger. A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule.

Where the Wild Things are: Learning from Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener

Places are pedagogical; and they teach through a range of ways. In recent public pedagogy discourse Biesta (2014) puts forth three forms of public pedagogy. These three forms of publicness are; pedagogy for the public; pedagogy of the public; and pedagogy in the interests of publicness. What Biesta offers with these views of pedagogy in the public sphere, is an understand of the ways we teach and learn in public places, and how that pedagogy is performed. In particular a pedagogy in the interest of publicness sees grassroots community led pedagogy that acts in the interest of publicness. This provides a lens to examine how pedagogy and knowledge is held in public spaces. alter

A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of the Qing Rule, written by Jonathan Schlesinger

A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of the Qing Rule, written by Jonathan Schlesinger

“Keeping Some Wildness Always Alive”: Posthumanism and the Animality of Children’s Literature and Play

This article explores posthumanism as a philosophy that emphasizes human relationships with the natural world by examining representations of animality, both in children’s literature (e.g. titles such as Where the Wild Things Are, Wild, Virginia Wolf, and No Fits, Nilson!) and in children’s play in order to better understand the significance of philosophy in children’s literature and lives. By fostering a feeling of “necessary wilderness,” or connection to nature (Almond, 2011, p. 110), and by practicing a sense of being in nature, “keeping some wildness always alive” (Lerman, 2012, p. 311) through literary engagement and animal play, the authors suggest that children and adults can maintain an interconnectedness with the natural world, even when they cannot be in it themselves. Through a mixed methods approach that combines educational theory, ecocriticism, and qualitative research, we discuss links between children’s stories and bodies, identifying how becoming animals through narrative engagement and play reflects posthumanist theory in practice, and encourages a child’s embodied knowledge of nature. The authors also speak to the ways that embodied education approaches that encourage animal play and “expressive literary engagement” [Sipe, 2002, pp. 476–483]) can support a shifting and necessary worldview informed by posthumanism, suggesting that philosophical change is necessary if humanity aims to survive the ecological and technological changes to come.

Where the Wild Things Were: Victor of Aveyron and the Pre-Emptive Critique of Developmental Disability in the Early Modern Novel

Where the Wild Things Were: Victor of Aveyron and the Pre-Emptive Critique of Developmental Disability in the Early Modern Novel

Book selection for shared reading: Parents’ considerations and researchers’ views

This qualitative study explores parents’ considerations in selecting narrative picturebooks to read with their children. Participants included 104 middle-socioeconomic status parents (84 mothers, 20 fathers) of young children (51 boys, 53 girls; Mage = 61.26, SD = 9.52). We presented parents with two translated children’s books whose content was previously unfamiliar to them: Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1991) and Julia Donaldson’s Where’s My Mom? (2008). A semi-structured interview stimulated the conversation surrounding what parents consider is a good book to read to their children, what they like in a good children’s book, and why. Parents’ responses highlighted some main considerations: purpose behind their reading, illustrations, centrality of the written text and structure. We highlight how these elements are similar to and different from those that have emerged from research in children’s development, literacy and literature, and recommend how parents, practitioners and the research community can dialogue in ways that may enhance adult–child book interactions.

Where the wild things are: animal victimization in federal environmental crime cases

Although there has been a marked increase in studies of animal abuse from a variety of socio-legal and green criminological perspectives in the past two decades, we have a limited empirical understanding of the extent of animal victimization in environmental crime prosecutions in the United States. In order to better understand the nature and distribution of animal victimization in environmental crime prosecutions, we employ a content analysis of federal environmental crime cases, 2001–2011. Out of 972 cases, results show identifiable animal victimization plays a role in six percent of cases. Although animal victimization in environmental crime may be extensive, its role in environmental prosecutions appears secondary. We conclude with possibilities of expanding animal protection via wildlife and environmental law connections.

‘Staring into All Their Yellow Eyes’:Where the Wild Things Are, the 1960s, and the Vietnam War

Since its release in 1963, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are has been viewed from a psychological perspective as a literary representation of children's inner emotional struggles. This essay challenges that common critical assessment. We make a case that Sendak's classic picturebook was also influenced by the turbulent era of the 1960s in general and the nation's rapidly escalating military involvement in Vietnam in particular. Our alternative reading of Sendak's text reveals a variety of both visual and verbal elements that recall the conflict in South East Asia and considers the significance of the book's geo-political engagement.

John Gay’s Urban Aviary: Pastoral and Fabular Birds in The Beggar’s Opera

In the Spectator No. 5 (Tuesday, March 6, 1711), the essayist Joseph Addison criticizes Italian opera as a cultural form that privileges style over substance, the visual over the intellectual. Opera’s chief “Design,” writes Addison in the persona of Mr Spectator, “is to gratify the Senses.”1 Substantiating this claim, he reports that theatre managers have even arranged for real “Decorations,” sets with live animals and running water, to please London audiences. In this same essay, Mr Spectator relates an anecdote that supports his opinion of operatic stagecraft. His curiosity is piqued by a man on the street carrying a birdcage; the fictive observer is told that the birds will feature in an opera, a lavish pastoral in which “the Sparrows were to act the part of Singing-Birds in a delightful Grove.”2 Yet Mr Spectator reports that the birds eventually become a nuisance, for, as wild things as well as objects of metaphorical expression, they cannot be controlled: there have been so many Flights of them let loose in this Opera, that it is feared the House will never get rid of them; and that in other Plays, they may make their entrance in very wrong and improper Scenes, so as to be seen flying in a Lady’s Bed-Chamber, or perching upon a King’s Throne3

‘Where the wild things are’ – an insider’s experience of the contemporary drama classroom

‘Where the wild things are’ – an insider’s experience of the contemporary drama classroom

Shouting it out!

Let children test their vocal cords by giving them opportunities to shout out loud. Explore ideas of loud and quiet with action rhymes and Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

'Where the Wild Things Are'. Reflections on the State and Future of European Collective Redress

‘And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said ‘BE STILL’ and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all’. (M Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, HarperCollins Children's Books, New York 1963) Introduction Almost a decade ago, I started to dig into the topic of complex litigation and collective redress. My supervisor, who had written a PhD about res iudicata and had touched on the issue of the binding effect of a judicial decision on third parties, recommended me to talk with an American scholar, since the class action mechanism was seen as ‘the hallmark feature of the American legal system’. Over the course of the years, this (now) colleague, provided me with a wealth of information about American class actions. However, the very first book (s)he gave me was a children's book. It was Maurice Sendak's epic book ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. Since then, I have looked with boundless curiosity and inquisitiveness at the ‘wild things’. Over the years, and as in the book, they have looked tantalizing and enticing. Other times, I perceived them as unfriendly and menacing. Because in some places they are being ousted, the ‘wild things’ decided to move to other places, where they encountered other species. The fact that almost a decade later there is still much ado about the ‘wild things’ stands out like a sore thumb. In this chapter, I want to reflect about the state and future of European collective redress. The goal is to look at the broader perspective. Various (complex) litigation tools exist, which all aim at achieving collective redress. I see the latter as the goal or outcome of dispute resolution processes. The objective is not to sketch a comprehensive overview of what is going on in the (currently) 28 Member States, but to share some general observations that, according to me, should and could steer the sometimes highly controversial debate.

Where the wild things are: how dreams can help identify countertransference in organizational research

Where the study of organizations involves prolonged or deep engagement with informants, the research experience can generate psychodynamic reactions. Countertransference—or the redirection of a res...

Decolonizing the Curatorial

In a talk originally presented at the 2015 Munich conference for the “Show Me a World” project, scholar André Lepecki, drawing from postcolonial theory and critical black studies, puts forth a critique of the colonial tendencies within curatorial practice and the art system. Lepecki proposes decolonized curation as the imaginative affirmation of a wholly new collective sociability and finds a model for these relations in the notoriously “difficult to curate” art of Lygia Clark. As “wild things,” rather than objects of art, the works of Clark escape the colonized art system, offend curatorial reason, and question the assumed hierarchies of artists, objects, and subjects inherent within traditional curatorial practice.