Tag: Animal Studies

Victorian Horse Shows: Spectacle, Leisure, Commodity

Victorians on Display

Horse shows, stalwarts of summer rural life, began as a Victorian phenomenon. Materialising in both London and Dublin in 1864 as responses to a sharp decline in the equine population, they coincided with the increasing promotion of leisure as an antidote to the pressures of modern work.[1]  Leisure pursuits were allied to ‘the quickening pulse of commercial enterprise which did much to enlarge and glamourize leisure,’ and horse shows quickly became busy marketplaces catering to pleasure and social ambition.[2] Previously

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Humans vs. Animals: Reimagining the Role of Martians in H.G. Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’

Other, Television Shows

If you have ever read or heard of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898), then you will be familiar with its role in the literary world of science fiction fantasy and reality. With the recent launch of a new BBC three-part adaptation of Wells’ classic tale, there is no better time to discuss the novel in a new light, reimagine the role of Martians and provide new critical insight into the relationship between the human and the

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Anna West, Thomas Hardy’s Sheep

Other

Anna West is an early career researcher in English literature. She recently completed her doctorate at the University of St Andrews, where she was a recipient of a Macpherson scholarship and the Rutherford prize. Her first monograph, Thomas Hardy and Animals, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2017. Follow her on twitter: @a_west19. This post accompanies her JVC article ‘“Rot the Genuine”: Moral Responsibility and Far from the Madding Crowd’s Cancelled Fragment’, which can be downloaded here.      

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