Food, darling, art motif: New LOEWE focus on the human-animal relationship

The new LOEWE priority "Animal - Human - Society. Approaches to Interdisciplinary Animal Research" will be funded for an initial period of three years with approximately 3.6 million euros. This was announced today in Wiesbaden by the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts. Scientists from agricultural sciences as well as from German studies, history, art studies, philosophy and theology are involved.

"With this approval, the state of Hesse also honors our extraordinarily broad interdisciplinary approach," said a pleased Prof. Dr. Winfried Speitkamp, head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History and  coordinator of the project. "We are using subject expertise concentrated in this combination only in Kassel. This broadens understanding and increases the relevance of the scientific contributions. The project has direct application relevance in the areas of animal husbandry, animal breeding, animal research, animal presentation, animal law and ethics," Speitkamp continues.

The relationship between humans and animals has been ambivalent since the beginning of civilization: animals are meat suppliers, but sometimes also best friends. Even in the early days of mankind, animals were among the first art motifs; at some times they were seen as embodiments of gods, while at other times humans used them as experimental objects. The new LOEWE focus is on current debates about the treatment of animals: What can ethical farm animal husbandry look like? What is man's attitude towards animals and what does it say about man's self-image?  What ultimately distinguishes humans from animals? The Kassel scientists ask about human-animal constellations in history and society. At the same time, forms of "creation" of animals are examined, whether through animal breeding (selection, premium), animal husbandry (farm animals, zoo animals), animal research (behavioral research, medical research), or animal representation (narrative, visual). "Given the multidimensionality of the topic, the project requires an interdisciplinary exchange on issues, methods and results," Speitkamp explained. "That's why we're tying in with a specific Kassel tradition of combining natural and cultural research that goes back to the Enlightenment." The project will start at the beginning of 2014.

The participating disciplines and their leaders in detail: Farm Animal Ethology and Husbandry (Prof. Dr. Ute Knierim), Animal Breeding (Prof. Dr. Sven König), Sociology of Rural Areas (Prof. Dr. Ulf Liebe), Agricultural History (Prof. Dr. Werner Troßbach), German Medieval Studies (Prof. Dr. Claudia Brinker-von der Heyde), Modern and Contemporary History (Prof. Dr. Winfried Speitkamp), Early Modern History (Prof. Dr. Anne-Charlott Trepp), Medieval and Modern Art History (Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt), Modern Art History (Prof. Dr. Alexis Joachimides), Theoretical Philosophy (Prof. Dr. Dr. Kristian Köchy), Catholic Theology/Biblical Theology (Prof. Dr. Ilse Müllner). 

To date, the University of Kassel has been involved in four LOEWE priority projects: ELCH (electron dynamics of chiral systems), VENUS (information technology design), Cocoon (cooperative sensor communication) and IPF (integrative fungus research). The State Offensive for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence - LOEWE for short - is a program with which the State of Hesse has been strengthening the research landscape and funding outstanding collaborative scientific projects since 2008. More about LOEWE and the previous Kassel projects at goo.gl/sMhJg and at www.proloewe.de.

Picture of Professor Dr. Winfried Speitkamp at
www.uni-kassel.de/uni/fileadmin/datas/uni/presse/anhaenge/2013/Speitkamp_Winfried_7.jpg

Info

Prof. Dr. Winfried Speitkamp
University of Kassel
Department of Modern and Contemporary History
Tel.: + 49 561 804-3120
E-Mail: speitkamp@uni-kassel.de