Acknowledgements 1. Overture: Themes and Variations Introduction Whence and wither the 'traditional' circus? 'Death to the circus' Clowns on the wane The body: from ritual to spectacle The human tragedy: "You! Wretched Gypsies!" 2. First Movement, Andante Sostenuto : The Time of the Gypsies Who are the Gypsies? Where do Gypsies come from? Contrapuntal development #1 Being a Gypsy: the bane or bliss of difference A deeper time perspective The circus enters history: Was Philip Astley a Gypsy? The art of survival Contrapuntal development #2: What is a name? Our inner Gypsy An ode to resilience On the flipside The evolution of space, time, and cultures 3. Second Movement Vivace Furioso : Animals A memory Hunger rules the world The human animal: the game of life and death Bear power The hyena men of Nigeria Wolves The death of a tigress Hunger never stops From non-animal humans to non-human animals The cage acts of yesteryears What is a wild animal? The antiquity of the animal circus: the elephants The antiquity of the animal circus: the predators Wild utopia Ethos, ethics, and the Peterson effect A self-defeating strategy Cultural entropy and semiotic panic 4. Third Movement, Adagio Lamentendo : Clowns Perplexed clowns Masks What is a clown? A detour to India: the Vidûshaka A modern master: Charlie Chaplin Two kinds of laughter The twilight of the clown: off-limit humor The clown and its discontents The white-face clown: the waxing and waning of a cultural hero Black face matters The crucifixion of the clown Free speech and the clowns: Is Jordan Peterson a trickster? 5. Fourth Movement, Maestoso Appassionato : Bodies What is a body? Modes of survival Life on the brink of death Epiphanies The body brought into play Greatness and misery of acrobats' bodies Negotiating one's own body: benefit-to-cost ratio Bodies unbound The visceral circus: bodies of fear and desire Technological evolution and the perception of risk For your eyes only: Eros at the circus From ritual to spectacle 6. Coda, Sforzando Resistance and resilience The downfall of the traditional circus The Anthropocene delusion The reign of anthropomorphism The return of the hyenas References Index.