218 research outputs found
Saying nothing concerning the same: on dominion, purity and meat in early modern england
No full textThyis chapter attempts to highlight some of the paradoxes that surround conceptualizations of meat eating in early modern England
Introduction
No full textAn introduction to this book which addresses and reassesses the variety of ways in which animals were used and thought about in Renaissance culture, challenging contemporary as well as historic views of the boundaries and hierarchies humans presume the natural world to contain
Animal encounters
No full textErica Fudge reviews Animal encounters: human and animal interaction in Britain from the norman conquest to world war one by Arthur McGregor
Happy Birthday Shakespeare : Andersonian Library Blog
No full textIn this guest post, Erica Fudge helps us celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthday by exploring the vast array of library resources that keep his works and legacy alive
Veterinary science : humans, animals and health
No full textThis living book is a collection of open access materials bringing scientific papers to a humanities audienc
You are what you eat
No full textThis essay traces the strange history of flesh avoidance in seventeenth-century England
Introduction - veterinary science
No full textThis introduction - co-written with Clare Palmer - sets up the following selection of open access essays in the 'living book': Veterinary Science: Animals, Humans and Health online at: http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Veterinary_scienc
Calling creatures by their true names : bacon, the new science and the best in man
No full textThis chapter looks at the nature of the human, particularly the concept of the body and the shifting borders between human and non-human
Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality and Humanity in Early Modern England
No full textEarly modern English thinkers were fascinated by the subject of animal rationality, even before the appearance of Descartes's Discourse on the Method (1637) and its famous declaration of the automatism of animals. But as Erica Fudge relates in Brutal Reasoning, the discussions were not as straightforward-or as reflexively anthropocentric-as has been assumed. Surveying a wide range of texts-religious, philosophical, literary, even comic-Fudge explains the crucial role that reason played in conceptualizations of the human and the animal, as well as the distinctions between the two. Brutal Reasoning looks at the ways in which humans were conceptualized, at what being "human" meant, and at how humans could lose their humanity. It also takes up the questions of what made an animal an animal, why animals were studied in the early modern period, and at how people understood, and misunderstood, what they saw when they did look. From the influence of classical thinking on the human-animal divide and debates surrounding the rationality of women, children, and Native Americans to the frequent references in popular and pedagogical texts to Morocco the Intelligent Horse, Fudge gives a new and vital context to the human perception of animals in this period. At the same time, she challenges overly simplistic notions about early modern attitudes to animals and about the impact of those attitudes on modern culture
Perceiving animals : humans and beasts in early modern english culture
No full textThe boundaries between human and beast forged a rugged philosophical landscape across early modern England. Spectators gathered in London's Bear Garden to watch the callous and brutal baiting of animals. A wave of 'new' scientists performed vivisections on live animals to learn more about the human body. In "Perceiving Animals", the British scholar Erica Fudge traces the dangers and problems of anthropocentrism in texts written from 1558 to 1649. Meticulous examinations of scientific, legal, political, literary, and religious writings offer unique and fascinating depictions of human perceptions about the natural world. Views carried over from bestiaries - medieval treatises on animals - posited animals as nonsentient beings whose merits were measured solely by what provisions they afforded humans: food, medicine, clothing, travel, labor, scientific knowledge. Without consciences or faith, animals were deemed far inferior to humans. While writings from the period asserted an enormous biological superiority, Fudge contends actual human behavior and logic worked, sometimes accidentally, to close the alleged gap. In the Bear Garden, even a man of the lowest social rank had power over a tortured animal, sinking him, though, below the beasts. The beast fable itself fails to show a true understanding of animals, as it merely attributes human characteristics to beasts in an attempt to teach humanist ideals. Scholars and writers continually turned to the animal world for reflection. Despite this, scientists of the period used animals for empirical and medical knowledge, recognizing biological and spiritual similarities but refusing to renege human superiority. Including an insightful reexamination of Ben Jonson's Volpone and fascinating looks at works by Francis Bacon, Edward Coke, and Richard Overton, among others, Fudge probes issues of animal ownership and biological and spiritual superiority in early modern England that resonate with philosophical quandaries still relevant in contemporary society
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