Where the Rats Live

An introduction to audio stories about animals in Berlin from the project seminar “Animal Topographies” held at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and run by Britta Lange and Mareike Vennen (summer semester 2021).

Berlin has always been teeming with rats. Where can we find their stories? In this introduction, Britta Lange and Mareike Vennen attempt to locate the places that resound with the squeaking of rats: databases for animal voices and specific spaces such as the Animal Anatomy Theatre (Tieranatomisches Theater) in today’s Berlin-Mitte, where public livestock dissections were once carried out. They look at these places using the concept of animal topography.¹

Animal topographies are site-specific explorations that view places where animals have played a special role in the past or present: spaces where animals are kept, and places that they have occupied. The audio stories that can be heard here started with theoretical and historical examinations of urban animal topographies and different forms of movement, tracing historical and current routes. The auditive hunt for clues leads through Berlin sites both known and unknown, where it explores relationships between humans and animals.

This is an introduction to the audio stories about animals in Berlin that were played at Berlin’s Animal Anatomy Theatre between 4 October and 17 December 2021. They tell the stories of Cat Colonies, Dead Animals, Berlin’s Border Dogs, and Haunting Cattle .