From 1880 to 1882, two impresarios toured the decaying body of a dead whale throughout the United States as a sideshow exhibition called the “Prince of Whales.” The dead whale show lay at the intersection of two important vectors in environmental humanities research: oceans and energy. This essay explores some of the epistemological and ontological problems posed by the whale show, demonstrating that methods and theories drawn from the history of the senses, media studies, and infrastructure studies can enrich the environmental humanities by offering new approaches to materiality and putrefaction.

中文翻译：

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鱼出水面：“鲸鱼王子”杂耍与环境人文

从 1880 年到 1882 年，两位经理在美国各地巡视了一头死鲸的腐烂尸体，作为一个名为“鲸鱼王子”的杂耍展览。死鲸展位于环境人文研究中两个重要载体的交叉点：海洋和能源。本文探讨了鲸鱼表演带来的一些认识论和本体论问题，证明从感官史、媒体研究和基础设施研究中汲取的方法和理论可以通过提供解决物质性和腐败问题的新方法来丰富环境人文学科。