Abstract

‘Critical animal historiography’ arguably emanates from ‘critical animal studies’, which evolved from ‘animal studies’. After briefly tracing these connections and developments, this chapter considers the question to what extent, if any, it is meaningful to regard other-than-human animals as subjects of and as both agents and recipients in history, as individual subjects of experience who impact and who are impacted by historical processes. The notion, especially, of animals being considered subjects of history gives rise to two additional issues. The first concerns the possible conflict between experiential perspectives (or subjective experiences) and history. The second concerns animals’ standpoints. Do animals have standpoints at all? If they do, is it possible to represent these in non-anthropocentric ways and without erroneously anthropomorphising other-than-human animals? This chapter constitutes a critical contribution to the work done by Steven Best, Richard Kahn, Anthony Nocella II, and others. Rejecting relativism, it is critical of some of the epistemological commitments of critical animal studies while endorsing the normative conclusions drawn by these authors.