S9E2: Modernity with Erica Hill and Susan Nance
Erica Hill and Susan Nance join Claudia on the show to discuss “modernity.” They discuss what this relatively messy shorthand means for history and for understanding human–animal relations. They try to unpack what is meant by modernity and touch on everything from industrialization to concealment and consumption.
Erica Hill is President's Arctic Professor at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska. She is an archaeologist with broad research interests in how humans and animals lived together in the past. She has published extensively on Indigenous human engagement with marine mammals in the North Pacific and has worked in Iceland, Peru, and the US Southwest. Her most recent edited volume is Reimagining Human–Animal Relations in the Circumpolar North (2024) with Peter Whitridge.
Susan Nance is Professor of History and affiliated faculty with the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. She is the author of various books and articles, including Rodeo: An Animal History (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and Animals in Nineteenth Century America: A History in Documents (Broadview Press, 2026—forthcoming). Susan is also Co-Lead Editor at Animal History, the first scholarly journal dedicated to the histories of animal life and human-animal relationships. Her current research documents the nature and scope of the trade in biologically-wild animals in the 20th century United States through a study of Las Vegas. https://susannance.com/
Mentioned:
Rodeo: An Animal History by Susan Nance
The Historical Animal by Susan Nance
Reimagining Human-Animal Relations in the Circumpolar North edited by Peter Whitridge and Erica Hill
Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development by Jennifer Robinson
What Is Animal Prehistory? by Shumon T. Hussain
Man and the Natural World by Kieth Thomas
Hundreds trying to storm Wisconsin beagle research facility on the CNN
"The early modern period have thus generated feelings which would make it increasingly hard for men to come to terms with the uncompromising methods by which the dominance of their species had been secured. On the one hand, they saw an incalculable increase in the comfort and physical well-being or welfare of human beings. On the other, they perceived a ruthless exploitation of other forms of animate life. There was thus a growing conflict between the new sensibilities and the material foundations of human society. A mixture of compromise and concealment has so far prevented this conflict from having to be fully resolved. But the issue cannot be completely evaded and it can be relied upon to recur re-recur. It is one of the contradictions upon which modern civilization may be said to rest, about its ultimate consequences. We can only speculate" - Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World (1983).
Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; the Sonic Arts Studio and the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab) for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John (Website) for the logo. This show is produced and hosted by Claudia Hirtenfelder.