Since at least the 1990s, the topic of animals has been receiving attention from scholars wishing to explore the relationships between these and human beings in such fields as ecology, archeology, zoology, literature, and history. English-language scholarship in the humanities has explored human-animal relationships in terms of health, animal husbandry, domestication, food, and public hygiene (i.e., William H. McNeill, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Richard W. Bulliet, Madeleine Ferrières, and Martha Few and Zeb Tortorici). Worthy of special note is JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life, edited by G. M. Pflugfelder, and B. L. Walker: this pioneering 2005 work addresses animals’ roles in Japanese cultural contexts ranging from religious rituals and regional identity to natural resources and food production.
