Interspecies Interactions Animals and Humans between the Middle Ages and Modernity

About this book

Interspecies Interactions surveys the rapidly developing field of human-animal relations from the late medieval and early modern eras through to the mid-Victorian period. By viewing animals as authentic and autonomous historical agents who had a real impact on the world around them, Interspecies Interactions concentrates on an under-examined but crucial aspect of the human-animal relationship: interaction.

Each chapter provides scholarly debate on the methods and challenges of the study of interspecies interactions, and together they offer an insight into the part that humans and animals have played in shaping each other's lives, as well as encouraging reflection on the directions that human-animal relations may yet take. Beginning with an exploration of Samuel Pepys' often emotional relationships with the many animals that he knew, the chapters cover a wide range of domestic, working, and wild animals and include case studies on carnival animals, cattle, dogs, horses, apes, snakes, sharks, and invertebrates. These case studies of human-animal interactions are further brought to life through visual representation, by the inclusion of over 20 images within Interspecies Interactions.

From 'sleeve cats' to lion fights, Interspecies Interactions encompasses a broad spectrum of relationships between humans and animals. Covering topics such as use, emotion, cognition, empire, status, and performance across several centuries and continents, it is essential reading for all students and scholars of historical animal studies.

Contents

List of figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword
      Erica Fudge
Introduction: Action, Reaction, Interaction in Historical Animal Studies
      Sarah Cockram and Andrew Wells

PART 1. EMPATHY, EMOTION AND COMPANIONSHIP
1. Emotions and the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Carnival of Animals
      Ido Ben-Ami
2. Sleeve Cat and Lap Dog: Affection, Aesthetics and Proximity to Companion Animals in Renaissance Mantua
      Sarah Cockram
3. Equine Empathies: Giving Voice to Horses in Early Modern Germany
      Pia Cuneo

PART 2. USE AND ABUSE
4. The Tale of a Horse: The Levinz Colt, 1721-29
      Peter Edwards
5. Animals at the Table: Performing Meat in Early Modern England and Europe
      Karen Raber
6. Blurred Lines: Bestiality and the Human Ape in Enlightenment Scotland
      Andrew Wells
7. ‘A Disgusting Exhibition of Brutality’: Animals, the Law, and the Warwick Lion Fight of 1825
      Helen Cowie

PART 3. SELF AND OTHER: IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION
8. Inveterate Travellers and Travelling Invertebrates: Human and Animal in Enlightenment Entomology
      Dominik Hünniger
9. Hungarian Grey Cattle: Parallels in Constituting Animal and Human Identities
      László Bartosiewicz
10. ‘The Monster’s Mouth…’: Dangerous Animals and the European Settlement of Australia
      Krista Maglen

Afterword
      Harriet Ritvo
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Sarah Cockram is Lecturer in History, c.1200-1600 at the University of Glasgow. Her publications include Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court (2013) and a co-edited special issue of the journal Renaissance Studies on 'The Animal in Renaissance Italy'.

Andrew Wells is a postdoctoral researcher (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) in the Graduate School of the Humanities (GSGG) at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany. He has published essays in History Compass, the Journal of British Studies, and History of European Ideas. His forthcoming book explores the interactions of racial and sexual concepts and identities in eighteenth-century British culture.