070298 UE Guided Reading Economic and Social History (2026S)

And now animals too? An introduction to the history of human-animal relations and their methodological challenges

Historical scholarship has always dealt with the question of who actually makes history. For example, women's history and later gender history in the second half of the 20th century highlighted the historical power of non-male actors. The history of historical studies is characterised by shifting movements of inclusion and exclusion, which always reflect structural power relations. While the focus of historical influence on human actors was long undisputed, so-called human-animal studies and animal history began to question this anthropocentric assumption a good 20 years ago.
In this course, we have two objectives. First, we will develop an overview of current approaches in so-called animal history (historical human-animal studies, critical animal studies, multispecies histories, etc.). In a second step, we will address methodological issues in dealing with historical human-animal relationships and the question of which historical material (source base) we can use to analyse them (and how). In doing so, we will examine how historians can move from a history of and about animals (e.g. in trade, transport or warfare) to a history with animals in areas such as work or forms of housing and living.