Telling scientific stories is a multispecies affair. Non-human animals have been instrumental to studies of the world’s natural order, as model organisms for the human body, as experimental objects, as livestock to be cared for, and as theoretical proxies for human social organizations. Furthermore, the role of animals in labor, sustenance, and commerce has driven the concerted research of biologists, veterinarians, naturalists, and ethologists. These papers collectively examine the particular ways in which scientific practitioners have taken an interest in non-human organisms from the Early Modern period to today. From amoebae to megafauna, this session addresses the scientific production of knowledge regarding non-human life forms, and in turn queries the ways such knowledge feeds the construction of new forms of life. By spanning a broad range of morphologies – amoebae, insects, small mammals, and large mammals – these papers pay attention to how scientific knowledge is shaped by the bodies of creatures themselves and constructs relationships between species. By uniting early modernists with modernists, this panel explores the deep history of multi-species relations, while highlighting how changes in scholarly practices, economies, ontologies, and political concerns intersect across species divides.
