Poultry Science, Chicken Culture: A Partial Alphabet

by Susan Merrill Squier

Poultry Science, Chicken Culture is a collection of engrossing, witty, and thought-provoking essays about the chicken-the familiar domestic bird that has played an intimate part in our cultural, scientific, social, economic, legal, and medical practices and concerns since ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Organized as a primer, the book reaches beyond narrow disciplines to discover why individuals are so fascinated with the humble, funny, overlooked, and omnipresent chicken.

          Spanning fascinating and diverse fields, Susan Merrill Squier assesses the chicken as the focus of film, photography, and visual art in many media; details some of the roles played by chickens and eggs in the development of embryology, biology, and regenerative medicine; traces the iconic figure of the chicken (and the chicken thief) in political discourse during the 2008 presidential election; demonstrates the types of knowledge that have been lost as food production moved from small-scale farming to industrial agriculture; investigates the connection between women and chickens; analyzes the fears and risks behind the panic around avian flu; and scrutinizes the role of chicken farming in international development. A combination of personal passion and surprising scholarly information, Poultry Science, Chicken Culture will change forever the way you think about chickens.

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was due back to the library before I could read every page so I'm marking it as "abandoned" instead of "read," but I pretty much loved everything i read in it. I mean, it's a book about chickens and culture in the voice of a women's studies professor. Since I'm in love with keeping chickens and I went to a women's college (where *every* class is a women's studies class!) this was right up my alley. If you don't really like reading academic cultural studies about chickens, both in a big-ag way and a backyard flock context, then maybe you should skip this book. But if that sounds appealing to you, you should definitely check this out post-haste. Dude, how many chicken books have you ever read that reference Donna Haraway? I rest my case.