Steve Baker – författare

From Mickey Mouse to the teddy bear, from the Republican elephant to the use of "jackass" as an all-purpose insult, images of animals play a central role in politics, entertainment, and social interactions. In this penetrating look at how Western culture pictures the beast, Steve Baker examines how such images--sometimes affectionate, sometimes derogatory, always distorting--affect how real animals are perceived and treated.Baker provides an animated discussion of how animals enter into the iconography of power through wartime depictions of the enemy, political cartoons, and sports symbolism. He examines a phenomenon he calls the "disnification" of animals, meaning a reduction of the animal to the trivial and stupid, and shows how books featuring talking animals underscore human superiority. He also discusses how his findings might inform the strategies of animal rights advocates seeking to call public attention to animal suffering and abuse. Until animals are extricated from the baggage of imposed images, Baker maintains, neither they nor their predicaments can be clearly seen.For this edition, Baker provides a new introduction, specifically addressing an American audience, that touches on such topics as the Cow Parade, animal imagery in the presidential race, and animatronic animals in recent films.

Animals have always been compelling subjects for artists, but the rise of animal advocacy and posthumanist thought has prompted a reconsideration of the relationship between artist and animal. In this book, Steve Baker examines the work of contemporary artists who directly confront questions of animal life, treating animals not for their aesthetic qualities or as symbols of the human condition but rather as beings who actively share the world with humanity.The concerns of the artists presented in this book-Sue Coe, Eduardo Kac, Lucy Kimbell, Catherine Chalmers, Olly and Suzi, Angela Singer, Catherine Bell, and others-range widely, from the ecological to the philosophical and from those engaging with the modification of animal bodies to those seeking to further the cause of animal rights. Drawing on extensive interviews he conducted with the artists under consideration, Baker explores the vital contribution that contemporary art can make to a broader conception of animal life, emphasizing the importance of creativity and trust in both the making and understanding of these artworks.Throughout, Baker is attentive to issues of practice, form, and medium. He asks, for example, whether the animal itself could be said to be the medium in which these artists are working, and he highlights the tensions between creative practice and certain kinds of ethical demands or expectations. Featuring full-color, vivid examples of their work, Artist Animal situates contemporary artists within the wider project of thinking beyond the human, asserting art’s power to open up new ways of thinking about animals.

A hilarious story of a disillusioned head teacher preparing for an OFSTED inspection while coping with an incompetent reality TV crew, truculent teachers and a lot of pigs!

What do you get if you blend a downtrodden head teacher, a hostile school inspector, an incompetent reality TV film crew, an ice cream factory and a load of unruly pigs? A hilarious novel from the pen of Steve Baker, a brilliant writer and school behaviour specialist.Outstanding tells the story of a school inspection set against the backdrop of a struggling school in a semi-rural setting. Educating Norfolk have been invited in to film the cash strapped school and just happen to arrive at the same time as the inspectors - with hysterical results. Meanwhile, a war erupts between the neighbouring ice cream factory and a local pig farmer in which the school is collateral damage. Plus, an idealistic recently appointed inspector, confronted with the reality of his judgements and their consequences, is forced to make a life-changing decision.  Steve skilfully weaves these elements together and leads the unhappy protagonists towards a magnificent and heartwarming climax.As a teacher, behaviour specialist and award winning education non-fiction author, Steve Baker brings insider knowledge and sharp wit to this brilliantly crafted debut novel. Combining satire and social commentary, this hilarious book captures the heart of the chaos and pressures of modern-day teaching.A highly entertaining read for teachers of all levels seeking a light-hearted escape from the pressures and stresses of their day job.

In The Postmodern Animal, Steve Baker explores how animal imagery has been used in modern and contemporary art and performance, and in postmodern philosophy and literature, to suggest and shape ideas about identity and creativity. Baker cogently analyses the work of such European and American artists as Olly and Suzi, Mark Dion, Paula Rego and Sue Coe, at the same time looking critically at the constructions, performances and installations of Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys and other significant late twentieth-century artists. Baker's book draws parallels between the animal’s place in postmodern art and poststructuralist theory, drawing on works as diverse as Jacques Derrida’s recent analysis of the role of animals in philosophical thought and Julian Barnes’s best-selling Flaubert’s Parrot.

Die zweite Ausgabe der interdisziplinären Fachzeitschrift Tierstudien widmet sich dem Thema "Tiere auf Reisen". Tiere sind, das macht sie neben anderem aus, nicht an einen Standort gebunden. Sie reisen auf eigene Initiative: Kröten wandern weite Strecken, Lachse ziehen flussaufwärts zu ihren Laichplätzen und Vogelschwärme suchen sich Winterquartiere auf anderen Kontinenten. Tiere begleiten aber auch Menschen auf deren Reisen bzw. werden von Menschen auf Wege gebracht, die sie selbst nie gegangen wären. In zehn Aufsätzen und einer Fotostrecke werden u.a. Zirkus- und Zootiere auf großer Fahrt begleitet, Bienenwanderungen in der globalisierten Welt in den Blick genommen, Hunde als Erzähler und Protagonisten im Roman untersucht oder der Hundespaziergang als historisches Phänomen betrachtet. Problematisiert werden Anthropomorphisierungstendenzen, die Einbettung von Tieren in hegemoniale Strukturen sowie territoriale und kategoriale Grenzübertretungen durch Tiere. Ein Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit elektronischer Tierkennzeichnung zur Rückverfolgbarkeit von Transportwegen, ein anderer liest Mickey Maus als kommerzialisierten Grenzgänger zwischen Mensch, Tier und Technizität. Dass Tierwanderungen nicht immer glücklich ausgehen, wird im Künstlerinlay und einem Aufsatz zum tierlichen Tod im Straßenverkehr deutlich.