De Moderne Tijd - Volume 2, Issue 3-4, 2018

Willem Bilderdijk and the animals

In 1817 the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk published De dieren (The animals), one of his shortest but less studied didactic poems. In this work he presented a curious view on animals and their origins. With this article, I would like to contribute to the field of animal studies, by analyzing Bilderdijk’s ideas on and his contacts with animals. The first part of this article presents a biographical overview of Bilderdijk’s association with animals on the basis of available (auto)biographical texts. In the second part his didactic poem is analysed. What parallels can be drawn between both perspectives?

The representations of animals and vegetarianism in the works of Herman Heijermans and other socially engaged writers of the fin de siècle

At the end of the nineteenth century, the perception of animals changed significantly due to the theory of evolution and other new ideas, which also affected a number of Dutch socialist-leaning writers. Utilizing the framework of literary animal studies, this article investigates how animals were represented in their works. Most of the examined writers present animals as sentient beings, which is also ref lected by their speaking out in favour of vegetarianism. Herman Heijermans takes a more ambivalent position: some of his writings show the possibility of animal agency, whereas in others, animals are subordinate to people’s needs and are objectified.

The subversive, domestic cat of Dutch artists, 1885-1910

The nineteenth century is often hallmarked as the epoch of the birth of the pet. The life of cats in the Netherlands improved especially thanks to two groups: a bourgeois and noble elite embracing the cat in imitation of English peers, and (poor) artists who looked particularly towards France where authors and painters such as Baudelaire and Manet had adopted the cat as their alter ego. In this article Dutch artists (especially the Tachtigers or Movement of Eighty) take centre stage. They did not uncritically copy French examples but modelled their own cats, both visually and literarily.

Sea snakes, Iguanodons and why Brussels did not receive its Diplodocus

In the opening years of the twentieth century, the Scottish magnate Andrew Carnegie used the donation of plaster casts of the dinosaur Diplodocusas a means to influence European heads of state in favor of his scheme for conflict arbitration. This contribution examines the way in which these casts became a border object between the worlds of science, high and popular culture, and politics, by looking at the history of the public assimilation of dinosaurs. Specifically, it focuses on an earlier example of such donations: the Iguanodons which were given away by the Belgian state and the Belgian king Leopold II personally, after 1890. These developments collided when Carnegie’s donation of a Diplodocus was cancelled after Leopold’s reputation began to suffer when details of the Congolese genocide became known to the public. This illustrates that for Carnegie, despite the cultural and scientific appeal of his donations, politics remained at the center of his campaign.

Instrumentalisation of the monarchy in dog breeding debates

Nineteenth century European rulers could not consider hunting or dog ownership a private choice. Regarding the role dog breeding had started to play in society, every decision made by the vips of that time was perceived as a political indication; the contemporary public discussed the choices and commented on them. Various groups and individuals even used them as argument to support their own claims. The article shows on two cases – firstly, the exploitation of Wilhelm II to the advantage of the dachshund lobby and secondly, a conflict between a hunting dog club and the ministry of agriculture – that the Emperor, long before 1918, was losing credit among influential parts of the society, based on new views on nature and animal treatment. Wilhelm’s hunting behaviour was perceived as obsolete and neither the use of the imperial authority as argument aimed at substantiating one’s claims could persuade the state bureaucracy that already oriented itself on scientific and transparent dog breeding policy.

A inconvenient part of the human-animal relationship

This article explores the rise of the animal protection movement and its propaganda to improve the humane killing of animals in the Netherlands. From 1880 onwards, veterinarians became advisors of animal protection societies because they were considered objective judges with scientific knowledge of animal physiology. Between 1880 and 1922 cruelty to animals decreased significantly by the development and introduction of asphyxiation cages for pets and stunning equipment for slaughter animals. Although criticized, ritual slaughter remained legal. The debate on killing methods for animals with the tensions between scientific knowledge and emotions has been with us for one and a half centuries and continues today.