This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Animals have long been objects of fascination in human culture, and yet have received scarce attention as historical subjects until recently. This module utilises innovative research in both Environmental History and Animal Studies to centre on the role of the non-human as historical actors. The focus of study here is the modern age, 1800 to the present day, a period that arguably saw a fundamental shift in the way we 'see' animals and nature. The rise of industrial processes, urban living as well as developments in science, imperial adventuring, cultures of recreation and shifting environmental values represent just some of the aspects that affected human perspectives on the natural world, and it is these that the module will explore. Specifically, the module considers such themes across two geographical areas – Britain and the United States – with a view to deconstructing our complicated relations with the natural world in the modern age.
Principal themes and topics for discussion include:
- Animal Studies and the social construction of the non-human
- Donna Haraway and 'cyborg ecology'
- Animals and Domestic Spaces: Pets and Animals as "people'
- Animals and the military-industrial complex: From horsepower to Warhorse
- Wilderness, conservation and 'the wild': species protection, zoos and national parks
- Animal Pursuit and Display: Hunting and taxidermy
- Museum cultures, empire and natural history
- Natural history filmmaking and the visual animal
- Ethics, animal rights and vivisection
- Sustainability, farming and the environmental revolution
- Animals as symbols and metaphors in literature and film
- When animals attack: horror and beastly creatures
A critical part of the course will be to explore cultures of collecting, display and preservation of animals, notably through field trips to museums, archives and zoos.
One three-hour session each week throughout the Autumn and Spring terms.
The module will be assessed by coursework and exam on a 40% coursework and 60% exam ratio.
Coursework
The coursework component will be assessed as follows:
1) 3 x 3000 word essays, each worth 20% of the coursework mark
2) One in-class test, worth 20% of the coursework mark
3) A 15 minute presentation, worth 20% of the coursework mark
Exams
The module will also be tested in 2 x two–hour exams – which will make up 60% (30% each) of the final mark for the module.
Adams, Carol and Donovan, Josephine (1995). Animals & Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations.
Arluke, Arnold and Clinton Sanders, (1996). Regarding Animals.
Armstrong, Susan and Richard Botzler. 2008. The Animal Ethics Reader.
Baker, Steve (2000). Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, and Representation.
DeMello, Margo, ed. (2010). Teaching the Animal: Human-Animal Studies Across the Disciplines.
Haraway, Donna. (1989). Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science.
Kalof, Linda and Brigitte Resl, eds. (2007). A Cultural History of Animals. Oxford and New York: Berg.
Rothfels, Nigel, ed. 2002. Representing Animals. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wolch, Jennifer and Emel, Jody (1998). Animal Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes
As a consequence of taking this module all students will have:
- Understand different approaches to environmental and cultural history (especially in relation to human interactions with landscapes and animals) and to appreciate the relative strengths/weaknesses of these approaches.
- Understand and evaluate the ways in which human societies have used animals and environments in the past (as economic resources, objects of social capital, etc) and how the non-human world has exerted an agency over historical processes of change.
- Assemble a wide range of disciplinary skills in order to assess, contextualise and critically reflect on the role of animals and environments in modern Anglo-American culture.
- Understand how the animal can be used as a carrier to explore pertinent themes in modern history, including notions of identity, ethics, landscapes of work, leisure and consumption.
- Appreciate the ways in which traditional histories of Britain and the United States can be enhanced or adapted by the perspective of environmental history, as well as exploring the value of a transnational/comparative vantage.
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The intended generic learning outcomes
As a consequence of taking this module all students will have:
- Enhanced their ability to critically assess and analyse primary and secondary sources.
- Improved their written and verbal communication skills.
- Practised independent study as well as working in a team.
- Learnt to use archives and other historical databases.
- Improved their ability to use information technology and other resources (through the preparation of essays and class presentation).
- Developed their reflective and analytical skills through the interpretation of a wide-range of different source materials.
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