Early Modern Social History Symposium
Next week, on Wednesday 28th May, I’ll be speaking at the FORWARD Network Early Modern Social History Symposium at Nottingham Trent University. I’m going to talk about non-human animals in early-modern society: how we can bring them into social history and why we need to. The keynote speaker will be Lucy Worsley, and they also have what should be a fascinating paper on black dance by Rodreguez King-Dorset.
You can download a leaflet with more details here.
I’m very grateful to Rita Wierzbicki for inviting me to speak at what should be a very exciting event.
Abstract of my paper below:
Non-human animals were a vital part of early-modern society. There has been increasing interest in the non-human in cultural history but less attempt to include animals in social history. Animals were used to symbolize and justify “natural” hierarchies through ideas such as the Chain of Being, but there is more to this than abstract ideas. Karl Steel has recently suggested that the human was constructed not just through imagining differences between humans and animals, but also through very real domination of animals. When people were deprived of the right to hunt, or had their animals taken away, they were effectively being deprived of their humanity.
Competition for finite and unequally distributed resources is a basic part of social and political history. Animals were part of this competition because they were used as resources by humans, because they helped humans to produce and transport resources, and because they competed with humans for access to resources. In some places landlords enclosed open fields into sheep pastures; in others enclosure rioters drove their animals onto enclosed arable land. Symbolic protest combined with the fact that animals and people needed to eat. The authority and wealth of social superiors could be undermined by attacking their animals.
Civil war increased competition for resources. Horse ownership was particularly contested since horses were vital to armies and to the economy. Voluntary contributions from minorities of militant men and women could not sustain armies for long. In 1642-43 the English parliament faced increasing problems in getting enough horses and found that attempts to take them by force were inefficient and counterproductive. Property rights had to be negotiated. But horses were not inanimate objects and would not always do what humans wanted them to do. The pressures of civil war revealed how unstable the animal-human boundary could be.
Comment by Karl Steel — 5:06 pm, 19 May 2008 [permanent link to this comment]
This looks really exciting: I don’t suppose you can email me the paper when you get a chance?
All best,
KS
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 7:11 am, 20 May 2008 [permanent link to this comment]
I’ll probably post it here afterwards.