Toward an Animated History of Technology wins SHOT 2026 Tarr Envirotech Article Prize
We are pleased to announce that the Animal History article, “Toward an Animated History of Technology,” by Christian Zumbrägel, has won the Society for the History of Technology’s (SHOT) 2026 Tarr Envirotech Article Prize.
Animal History Co-Lead Editor Daniel Vandersommers says of the prize-winning article, “With astute historiographical reflection and a palpable desire to push the history of technology toward new horizons, Christian has fashioned a must-read essay for any scholar or student interested in how animals and technologies have overlapped across the centuries. “Toward an Animated History of Technology” is a timely and lively read with humbling implications, as well as a great introduction to an entire special issue on animals and the history of technology.”
What happens to the history of technology when we take animals seriously as agents rather than as objects of control? Christian Zumbrägel’s compelling essay answers by proposing an “animated history of technology” — one that treats technological change as the product of dynamic interactions among humans, animals, artifacts, and infrastructures.
—2026 Tarr Envirotech Article Prize Committee
With a series of examples—ladders built to facilitate eels crossing a dam, sparrow-excluding nest boxes, “raccoon-proof” garbage bins—the author explores the role of animals in technological change, and—in the words of the Prize Committee—“models how attention to animals can cut across the histories of technology, environment, science, and medicine to open new cross-disciplinary paths.”
The Animal History special issue, Animals and the History of Technology, is available online at online.ucpress.edu/ah, where Christian Zumbrägel’s prize-winning introduction, “Toward an Animated History of Technology: A Conceptual Introduction” has been made free to read for a limited time.
Recommend Animal History to Your Library
Animal History publishes cutting-edge historical research on the histories of animals and human-animal relationships, documenting the impacts animals have had on global histories, cultures, languages, technologies, and environments as well as the impacts that humans have had on animals and their pasts, cultures, and lives.