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Human-Elephant Encounters in Music

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Animal Encounters

Part of the book series: Cultural Animal Studies ((CAS,volume 4))

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Abstract

Elephants and human music have been related in various cultures and various historical situations. This paper mainly tries to explore some of the connections between elephants and music in Western culture and some of the encounters between elephants and humans that have been generated or furthered by Western music. What happens when elephants listen to human music? What happens when they have to perform to this music? How is the concept of being a listening subject challenged by applying it to nonhumans? These questions are discussed in connection with several historical constellations of human-elephant relationships, from the ambiguous association of elephants with music in classical Rome to the 2014 documentary Music for Elephants and recent videos of seemingly dancing zoo elephants on the internet.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nürnberg, Deutschland

    Martin Ullrich

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  1. Martin Ullrich
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Correspondence to Martin Ullrich .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Erlangen, Germany

    Alexandra Böhm

  2. Nürnberg, Germany

    Jessica Ullrich

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© 2019 Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature

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Ullrich, M. (2019). Human-Elephant Encounters in Music. In: Böhm, A., Ullrich, J. (eds) Animal Encounters. Cultural Animal Studies, vol 4. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04939-1_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04939-1_18

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  • Publisher Name: J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-476-04938-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-476-04939-1

  • eBook Packages: J.B. Metzler Humanities (German Language)

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