The Memoria of Animals in the Pre-Modern Era: Adaption, Reflexion, and the Development of Alteritarian Forms of Commemoration

• Applicant: Dr. Fabian Jonietz
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 451909745

Over the last decades, human-animal relationships have received great attention in almost all fields of the humanities. Above all, disciplines such as social anthropology, philosophy and cultural studies have demonstrated how the handling of an animal’s loss is particularly crucial for better comprehending the relation of humans to non-human beings: On the one hand, the exploitation of the bodies of livestock ‒ used as a source of material and food ‒ is overwhelmingly dominating all cases by numbers. On the other hand, when it comes to the death of beloved pets, or of animals adored for their service in the military or in sports, the adoption of established funerary and commemorative forms and rituals give proof of human attempts to overcome, or to conceal the so-called "anthropological difference" (M. Wild).However, the honoring of deceased animals forms also a context which, from the beginning early modern period onwards, reflects the contemplation of the fugacity of human life, and an area that allows us to study the development of those models and changing norms with which humans face the loss of fellow men. This projects intends to investigate three aspects of the Memoria of animals which have been mostly neglected by previous scholarship: Firstly, today’s patterns of thought are not solely founded in the European Enlightenment, since the discourses during this period only continue practices and theoretical conversations regarding the burial, commemoration, and honoring of animals which started as early as in the 15th century. Secondly, the intensive and controversial discussion concerning a postmortal honoring of animals resulted in a vast number of documented funerals and celebratory monuments. These cases form an important aspect of early modern commemorative culture, but apart from some exceptions, this material has not been systematically explored and analyzed by scholarship. Thirdly, such practices and crafted memorials are not only of relevance for the relationship of humans towards animals in the pre-modern era when they imitate conventional forms of commemoration. Rather, the whole field of commemorating animals, due to the lack of normative regulations and its alterity, allowed pet owners and artists to explore creative modes to deal differently with death, and to explore experimental new ways of commemoration: by doing so, alternate models which implicitly reflect human death were developed, and thus the creation of memorials for animals had an enduring effect on the creation and shape of commemorative monuments for deceased humans.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Philine Helas; Dr. Nadir Weber