First AMAN-UK public seminar, 7th March 2024, 5pm GMT
Professor Christophe Chandezon (Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier)
A Continental Perspective: How Animals Took Their Place in Ancient History
At the beginning of our millennium, Animal History began to appear as a major historiographical trend. In recent years, it has tended to build bridges toward environmental history, but within it divergent approaches are now emerging. One of these main divergences is the opposition between an “Animal First” approach and a ”Human First approach”. These studies also participate more generally in the construction of the field of what is now called “Animal Studies”.
In this lecture I will seek to write the “archaeology” of the history of animals, from the end of the 19th century until around 2010. The perspective will be essentially German and French (hence the “continental” in the title). As in other areas of history, we can see that historiographical traditions on the continent differ clearly from those in Anglo-Saxon countries, despite occasional encounters. On the French side, I will also try to see how the history of animals, for classical Antiquity, has received the impact of the history of animals for other historical periods, particularly the medieval period.
The seminar will take place online: the link to attend will be available here shortly.