A Faithful Species: Religion and the Reimagining of the Human–Animal Divide, 1600-1830s

• Applicant: Dr. Ran Segev
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 557711263

My research project, A Faithful Species: Religion and the Reimagining of the Human–Animal Divide, aims to offer a new perspective on the human-animal divide by investigating the cases of religiously-minded authors who wrote on the topic in the early modern and modern eras. The human-animal distinction is fundamental to our society and very sense of self. The significance of religion in establishing the human-animal boundary is often taken for granted. Be it Christianity or Judaism, religion is acknowledged as a starting premise for the boundary by granting humans a special, superior status. This interpretation, however, merely points to a “problematic” beginning in the human-animal relationship. Aside from a few notable exceptions, little research has been conducted on how these religions continued to shape the human-animal border into modern times. Yet, between 1600 and the 1830s, a period that witnessed great changes in how people interacted with other species and with nature, numerous religious thinkers contemplated and wrote about humans, animals, and what made them different, but also what they shared in common. By ignoring these significant, non-canonical religious sources, scholars risk overlooking a polyphonic discourse on the human-animal divide, which frequently offered alternatives beyond anthropocentrism and speciesism that have enormous relevance today in an age of ecological catastrophe. This project sets out to fill this lacuna and radically change how we understand the interconnections between religion and animals in the dawn of modernity. Combining approaches and methods from cultural history, religious studies, history of knowledge, and environmental humanities, Faithful Species aims to rethink how religiously inspired writers from the cultural domains of England, France, and Spain approached the human-animal distinction during an era when long-lasting beliefs were questioned. This historically-grounded research project brings together Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish perspectives on the topic, and in so doing, will place the human-animal border at the heart of a modern story of inclusion and exclusion. Through a novel analysis of a corpus of sources, that include exegetical and ethical tracts, sermons, pamphlets, and natural histories, written by Christians and Jews in English, Spanish, French, and Hebrew, this monograph highlights the ambiguity and uncertainty of this seemingly fixed boundary. I argue that these sources, written in Europe and its colonies, not only reinforced the human-animal binary using “traditional” arguments but often also sought to challenge or nuance the perceived distinctions on spiritual and religious grounds. The project’s cross-confessional view allows me to forefront the human-animal boundary as a paradigm to rethink religion and the nonhuman world.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants