春水堂视频

Andrews wins NEH award to explore American history from 鈥榓n animals鈥�-eye view鈥�

Thomas G. Andrews, associate professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder, is writing a whole book exploring humanity鈥檚 relationships with the non-human animal world, but he can sum up his thoughts on the matter in a single word: messy.

Consider, as Andrews does in his essay, 鈥淏easts of the Southern Wild,鈥� how the child slave Charles Ball viewed the horse that bore him away from his mother to the plantation of his new owner: 鈥淐harles Ball rode into an uncertain future perched atop a trotting horse in his new master鈥檚 clutch,鈥� writes Andrews of a passage in Ball鈥檚 famous 1836 slave narrative,听The Life and Adventures of Charles Ball.

鈥淭he animal was hardly the agent of Ball鈥檚 suffering. Yet it populated Ball鈥檚 narrative nonetheless. The horse mattered, not just because it was present but also because it lent the Maryland slaveholder the power he needed to rip Charles Ball away from his mother.鈥�

And in his 2008 Bancroft Prize-winning bookKilling for Coal: Energy, Work, and Power in the Colorado Coalfield Wars of 1913-1914, Andrews examines both how mules were used and abused by miners, and how the men kept mice not just as mammalian stand-ins for the proverbial canary, but also pets.

The 鈥渕essiness鈥� is readily apparent on a glance at social media today, where some users both fawn over images of cute kittens and puppies and celebrate their abiding love of bacon, a product of the confinement and slaughter of animals more intelligent than cats and dogs.

Next year, supported by a $50,400 Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, he鈥檒l delve even deeper into the 鈥渞ange, complexity and richness of human-animal relationships in the last 600 years of American history.鈥� He鈥檚 signed a contract to publish the resulting book with Harvard University Press, which also will publish his latest work,听Coyote Valley: Deep History in the High Rockies, in October.

"The root of the word 鈥榚ducation鈥� means 鈥榯o lead outward.鈥� The goal should not simply be to figure out how one can be a cog in this sort of bigger system and punch out a role to provide a livelihood.鈥�

Andrews is a specialist in the social and environmental history of the American West. He first grew interested in the subject of human-animal relationships while researching听Killing for Coal. He later created a senior seminar on the topic at California State University, Northridge.

鈥淚 think I鈥檓 as confused as a lot of people. I wouldn鈥檛 say I have a totally clear ethical perspective on human-animal relationships,鈥� he says. 鈥淎s a historian, I鈥檓 interested in complexity, and what I鈥檓 really interested in is how messy our relationships with animals really are.鈥�

Such complexity鈥攆or example, contrast American Indians鈥� use of dogs as hunting companions, beasts of burden and a source of food to the view of many Americans that they are members of the family鈥攊s ripe for deeper examination.

鈥淭he way I鈥檓 imagining it, I鈥檒l probably start out by really focusing on pets and livestock to get at that contradiction, that whole set of weirdnesses,鈥� says the Boulder native, whose father is an emeritus faculty member at CU-Boulder, and whose mother was a long-serving staff member at the university.

Andrews is one of 36 scholars, journalists and writers to receive the first Public Scholar awards, which are part of a new NEH initiative to 鈥渂ring humanities into the public square鈥� and promote publication of deeply researched nonfiction work that is 鈥渁ccessible to general readers.鈥�

At a time when many politicians, parents and even some educators view higher education as primarily an avenue to getting a high-paying job, the humanities are experiencing a steep decline in the number of students majoring in those fields of studies. Andrews is alarmed at this trend.

鈥淭he root of the word 鈥榚ducation鈥� means 鈥榯o lead outward.鈥� The goal should not simply be to figure out how one can be a cog in this sort of bigger system and punch out a role to provide a livelihood,鈥� he says.

鈥淚nstrumental education is necessary, but it鈥檚 woefully insufficient. 鈥� I just haven鈥檛 met that many business or thought leaders who earned their undergraduate degrees in business. The real guiding lights in the contemporary world learned to think in ways that extend far beyond the narrow instrumentalist conception of education so ascendant today.鈥�

Clay Evans is a free-lance writer in Boulder.