American Beasts

In American history, animals are everywhere. They are a ubiquitous presence in myriad historical, literary, biographical, scientific and other documents and narratives of the American past - a past that, just like the present, was characterized by a multiplicity of relations between humans and other animals, ranging from intimate co-existence to outright hostility and violence. While such quintessentially 'American' species as the bison, the mustang or the grizzly continue to roam the discursive, imaginary and, now to a much lesser degree, the geographical spaces of the nation, the less 'formidable' creatures of civilization have been of an even more vital importance to the genesis of modern American culture: the many domesticated animals whose labor and bodies have sustained and continue to sustain American society; the ensemble of species that became the focus of an emerging American pet culture, particularly in the context of middle-class conceptions of family life and domesticity. And yet, it is precisely their ubiquity in the American past and present which underlines all the more forcefully the at best shadowy presence of nonhuman animals in the traditional strands of American history. Arguing for a post­anthropocentric approach to historiography, American Beasts explores different aspects of human-animal relations and their transformation between the early national period and the end of the Progressive Era: from the cultural politics of pet-keeping in the United States and the role of animals and animality in the contexts of slavery and emancipation to the emergence of animal athletes at the turn of the twentieth century. Taken together, the contributions to this volume show not only that an adequate understanding of American history and culture requires us to consider the multifaceted and often problematic relations between humans and animals, they also highlight how a stronger concern with animals and animality allows us to address the complex intersections between the history of human-animal relations and American histories of race, gender or sexuality.