Nature, the natural, and the animal are often treated as a set of universally understood, static categories that neatly separate the human from the non-human. These categories generally offer a set of rules by which humans and non-humans interact. Inspired by Mackenzie Cooley’s scholarship, which challenges these assumptions by demonstrating how humans in the early modern period aimed to “perfect nature,” please join the Eisenberg for a graduate student workshop that will explore how interactions between humans, animals, environment, and ideas of “the natural” have been used to create and challenge notions of order.

Participants: Grant Halliday, Jenny Flores, Ira Anjali Anwar, and Wanhan Xing
Henry Cowles (moderator)

This event presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.