Her Wilderness Will Be Her Manners

Her Wilderness Will Be Her Manners is a book-length poem that explores the representation of women in American natural history museums through language and visual collage, challenging the notion of nature as pure and unpopulated and reshaping notions of nature and the natural.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 96 pages
\n Publication date: 05 October 2021
\n Publisher: Fordham University Press
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An electrifying feminist poetics combining language and visual collage to explore gender, landscape, taxidermy, and the idea of a "natural body" is presented in the innovative book-length poem Her Wilderness Will Be Her Manners. This captivating exploration delves into the intricacies of natural history dioramas, taxidermy, landscape, and women naturalists. Through the lens of seeking "Womans Work" in American natural history museums, the book offers a thought-provoking journey. It raises questions such as why the contributions of taxidermist and naturalist Martha Maxwell, the first person to create a "habitat group" display in the United States, and Delia Akeley, the wife of the "father of modern taxidermy," have been largely erased.

Sarah Mangold skillfully mines language from natural history texts and taxidermy manuals from the 1800s to explore the perception and reception of women in male-dominated scientific pursuits. She also examines the doctrine of nature as pure, unpopulated, and outside historical and political time. Her Wilderness Will Be Her Manners is a stunning work of visual and textual collage that creates a vibrant textual ecology. It utilizes language as landscape, reshaping notions of nature and the natural, offering a thought-provoking and immersive experience.

\n Weight: 180g\n
Dimension: 152 x 228 x 12 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780823297702\n \n