“<i>Bear With Me</i> is a fascinating and deeply meditative two-hundred-year cultural history of America’s popular obsession with bears. Analyzing an impressive range of folklore, live entertainments, literature, film, toys, cartoons, television, posters, social movements, and social media, the distinguished historian Daniel Horowitz forcefully places bears - representational and real—at the center of the American experience.” - Janet M. Davis, author of <i>The Gospel of Kindness: Animal Welfare and the Making of Modern America</i> <br /> <br />“In this eye-popping survey of bears in American culture from the colonial period to the present, Daniel Horowitz tackles an enormous subject with a passion and a curiosity that prove contagious. Bears entered American culture in droves and under many guises. Horowitz has the audacity to embrace this complexity rather than explain it away.” - Jon T. Coleman, author of <i>Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation</i> <br /> <br />"This is a detailed, entertaining, and informative breakdown of bears in popular culture. . . . <i>Bear With Me</i> is a revealing cultural history that puts bears in popular culture, including Yogi Bear and Paddington, into greater context." - Ryan Prado <i>Foreword Review</i>

From teddy bears and Winnie-the-Pooh to Smokey Bear, Yogi Bear, and Cocaine Bear, American popular culture has been fascinated with real and fictional bears for more than two centuries. Bears are ubiquitous, appearing in advertisements, as logos for sports teams, and central characters in children’s books, cartoons, movies, and video games. In Bear With Me, Daniel Horowitz presents a vibrant history of the pedestrian and celebrity bears who have captured our imaginations and infiltrated our everyday lives. He shows that bears’ ability to represent and evoke both terror and comfort makes them well-suited for their omnipresence. Today, cultural depictions of bears largely encompass examples of human-bear relationships, reciprocity, and emotional engagement. Reminders that climate change threatens the lives of polar bears engender feelings of empathy while news of bear attacks drive us to fascinated fear. Whether examining the subculture of gay bears or the deadly consequences of anthropomorphizing animals, Horowitz charts the complexities and depth of American culture’s unique and enduring relationship with bears.
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Daniel Horowitz traces American popular culture’s two-century long fascination with bears, showing how teddy bears, Smokey Bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, and other real and fictional bears have embedded themselves in American culture.
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Preface. Polar Bears, Franz Boas, and Me  ix
Introduction  1
1. Folkloric Bears and Actual Ones: Sacred and Profane from the Bible to Contemporary Celebrities  11
2. The Stories of Hugh Glass: The Case of a Disappearing and Reappearing Dangerous Bear  33
3. Out of Hibernation and Into Children’s Literature  47
4. Grizzly Adams: Bears He Tamed, Those He Displayed, and Those Responsible for His Death  75
5. Captive Bears and Their Captors as Workers  95
6. Teddy Bear: Another One Quickly Disappears and Frequently Reappears  129
7. Off the Poster and Out of the Zoo: Smokey Bear Goes Everywhere  149
8. Out of the Closet: Bears in the Gay World  167
9. Timothy Treadwell and Marian Engel: Bears, Humans, and Dangerous Eroticism  181
Coda. Precarity and Polar Bears  203
Acknowledgments  211
Notes  215
Select Bibliography  245
Index
 
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781478028826
Publisert
2025-08-19
Utgiver
Duke University Press
Vekt
572 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
288

Forfatter

Biografisk notat

Daniel Horowitz is Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of American Studies, Emeritus at Smith College and the author of many books, most recently, American Dreams, American Nightmares: Culture and Crisis in Residential Real Estate from the Great Recession to the COVID-19 Pandemic.