ABSTRACT
MO R E T H A N T W E N T Y Y E A R S have passed since Donna Haraway published her now classic essay, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-36,” with its pointed analysis of the ways in which traditional natural history displays are gendered and inscribed in a matrix of class distinctions, white privilege, and Western colonialism. 1 While Haraway’s piece focused on the dioramas and taxidermy displays at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the patterns she revealed are also apparent in evolution exhibits, as suggested by Tony Bennett in Pasts Beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism . 2 In fact, analyzing displays on evolution has proved to be a popular topic among scholars. In Rethinking Evolution in the Museum, 3 Monique Scott examines how these exhibitions promulgate racist notions; in Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads , Steven Asma 4 explicates the rhetoric behind evolution installations in British, European, and US museums.
