ABSTRACT
‘Learning to Look at Cats: Enskilment, Aesthetics, and Feline Agency’ continues to highlight the show experience by exploring in detail the standardisation of feline appearance through the creation and perpetuation of breeding standards and the visual enskilment of judges. It also interrogates the role that aesthetics plays within the cat fancy. The chapter argues that, through their enskilment and learning to look at cats, judges become trained in how to value cats, and are also given authority in their decision-making regarding which cats should be considered ‘ideal’ representatives of breeds and of cats in general. As such, this chapter looks at the objectification of cats and their aesthetic appearance. However, it also outlines and discusses other influences on the judging process, such as the behaviour of the cats and emotional and intersubjective relations. Additionally, the chapter delves into the expression of feline agency and human attempts to curtail this agency, arguing that cat agency is very much at stake at cat shows.
