Equines in Eighteenth-Century Thought

This book examines discriminations against horses in the literature and culture of the long eighteenth century alongside changing animal welfare and anticruelty activism. In doing so, it challenges period conceptions of what horses should look and behave like alongside systemic prejudice and normalized violence towards those who did not conform. It likewise follows literary discourses that sought to improve the lives and perceptions of horses with disabilities or those considered unideal in some way during a period of exploitative early capitalism. Monica Mattfeld is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Northern British Columbia, and she specializes in animal studies, disability studies, and the literature and history of eighteenth-century Britain. She has published on the interplay between animal and human disability, early modern horsemanship practices, theatrical animals, the early circus, and performances of gender. Mattfeld is the author of multiple animal-studies publications, including Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship. Endorsement: “Brilliantly attuned to the oft-unseen intersections of animal history and disability studies, this groundbreaking historical study introduces contemporary readers to the cast-off equine ‘jade.’ While the public suffering of ‘jades’ once served the cultural purpose of defining and maligning human disability, this book’s innovative excavation of this forgotten figure offers critically salient lessons from the past that can rousingly enliven more expansive, dynamic, and inclusive solidarities between people and animals today.” —Jeannette Vaught, Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities and Sustainability, California State University-Los Angeles, USA “In accessible prose, this book refocuses our attention on horses and humans as companion species (as distinct from ‘companion animals’) in the Early Modern period, with special attention to those most likely to be neglected and overlooked. In doing so, this book challenges us to examine how horse-human relations in the Early Modern period were shaped by, and contributed to, larger cultural formulations of gender, use value, and dis/ability.” —Richard Nash, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University Bloomington, USA