Tell your friends about ASI:
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Human-Animal Studies Newsletter
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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
This month, I have a very important announcement to make.
After 15 years with ASI as the Human-Animal Studies Program Director, I’ll be stepping down from my position in September.
These 15 years have been an incredible experience for me, and being involved with developing the field of human-animal studies—a non-existent field when I was in graduate school—has been incredibly rewarding. I’m going to stay involved in the field, and will continue writing and researching, but am hoping to find some new challenges and opportunities for me in this new phase of my life and career.
For a short time, until my replacement is hired, I’ll continue to answer my ASI email and will continue to update the website and track resources, so please do continue to send me your resources. In the meantime, please see the job posting, below, for my job, and I’d love it if you’d share it with anyone who you think might be a good fit. And of course if you have any questions, please do reach out to me.
I’ll be in touch again before I leave, so it’s not goodbye yet!
Margo
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The Animals & Society Institute is looking for a passionate individual with expertise in human-animal studies to become our new Human-Animal Studies (HAS) program director. The job is up to 20 hours per week and can be remote. This person will be responsible for overseeing ASI’s HAS programs and communicating with scholars and students around the world.
Program Responsibilities:
· Manage ASI’s current HAS programs which includes the Summer Institute, International Development Program, Defining Human-Animal Studies video series, undergraduate paper prize,
Sloth
, and more
· Work with Executive Director to set program strategies involving creating processes deadlines, milestones, budgets, and monitoring performance.
· Develop
extensions of scholarship to policy and practice (e.g., encourage scholars to address policy and practice implications of their research
· Keep in contact with scholars and students around the world, and especially with those who have participated in ASI programs
· Be an advocate for human-animal studies; give talks and presentations at conference occasionally.
· Assist Executive Director with grant proposals as needed
Communication Responsibilities:
· Oversee and update all the HAS pages on the ASI website and create new resources
· Keep up to date on publications in HAS to update the News section of the ASI website and New Research Corner
· Maintain the HAS listserv
· Create the monthly HAS newsletter and content for ASI newsletter
· Work with the ASI staff to help with promotion or fundraising as needed
Qualifications:
· PhD related to human-animal studies (MA/MS may be considered)
·
Experience managing programs and/or interest in developing skills in program development and evaluation}
· Excellent writing and editing skills
· Excellent interpersonal skills
· Excellent organizational skills
· Excellent communication skills
· Skills with WordPress, Microsoft Word and Excel, PowerPoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more
· Fundraising skills are a bonus
· Video creation and social media skills are a plus
· Resume/CV
· Cover Letter
· A writing sample
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Funding and Job Opportunities
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NYU Animal Studies
is thrilled to announce that we are now accepting submissions for a new award and workshop on ending factory farming. We invite graduate students and early career faculty (i.e., faculty within 5 years of graduation) in any field to submit new or recent (i.e., unpublished or published within one year of submission) work related to this topic. We will select up to three papers for a $1,000 award and funded travel to NYU for a workshop on ending factory farming. The NYU Animal Studies Workshop on Ending Factory Farming will be a one-day event in Spring 2020. Each selected author will present their work to an audience of NYU Animal Studies faculty, students, and community members. There will also be a keynote address and a dinner. This workshop will be an excellent opportunity for authors to discuss their research and meet other people working in this important and neglected space. We welcome papers in any field in the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences that can contribute to our understanding about ending factory farming. Please email jeffsebo@nyu.edu by
September 1
with the subject heading “Award and Workshop Submission” and the following materials in PDF format: CV, short cover letter, and 8000 word paper draft.
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There is a new HAS
major program at Eckerd College
! ”
The Animal Studies major at Eckerd College helps students become more knowledgeable about animals and their various relationships with humans, introduces them to multiple ways of understanding animals and their relationship to humankind, and provides experiences that allow students to apply and expand this knowledge. As a student majoring in Animal Studies, you will also minor (or double major) in a subject of your choosing. This additional course of study will help you think critically about human relationships with animals across disciplines, as well as to envision a wider range of professional careers."
The University of
Winchester Centre for Animal Welfare
has just released a series of 29 short YouTube videos that provide 5-10 minute summaries of key animal welfare concerns relating to the farming, transportation and slaughter of all major farmed species, as well as aquaculture and fisheries, animals and alternatives within scientific research and education, the use of animals for entertainment, hunting and whaling, companion and wild animals, including birds and exotics, animal abuse and forensics, and more. Related topics include animal disaster management, climate change and biodiversity loss, Brexit and farm animal welfare, breed-specific legislation, and plant-based diets.
Find them here!
The Institute for Human-Animal Connection at the University of Denver is excited to spread the word about our newest professional development program: the Canine-Assisted Intervention Specialist Certificate (CAIS). This competency-based certificate provides animal-assisted practitioners working with dogs evidence of a higher level of training and knowledge than one's peers, advancing ethical practice and professionalism in the field of AAI.
Ethics: A focus on choices related to canine welfare, sources of canines, duration of canine work, training methods, retirement, advocacy for canines, matching canines with AAI, and more.
Knowledge: The theoretical foundation of canine learning, meanings of canine behavior, incorporating planned and unplanned canine behavior into AAI sessions, understanding various training methods and their implications for AAI, training plan development, canine health and wellness needs, and more.
Skill: Training plan implementation, ability to match training methods with individual canines, demonstration of two of the four quadrants of training in practice, accurate interpretation of canine behavior, and more.
By completing this 7 month professional development certificate program, students earn 21 continuing education units transcripted by the University of Denver. These continuing education units are widely accepted by professional licensing boards. The next cohort begins in January 2020. For more information and to apply,
visit this link.
Harvard Law School has announced the launch of the new
Animal Law & Policy Clinic
. Animal protection is one of the fastest developing areas of public interest law. Reflecting this interest, the number of schools in the United States offering Animal Law courses has increased dramatically from only nine institutions in the year 2000 to 167 such law schools today. The Animal Law & Policy Clinic will provide students with direct hands-on experience in litigation, legislation, administrative practice, and policymaking, both in the U.S. and internationally. The clinic will work on a broad range of issues affecting farmed animals, wildlife, animals in captivity, and the overarching threat to all forms of life from climate change. Establishing such a clinic at HLS will leverage all of Harvard University’s institutional strengths and resources to develop creative strategies utilizing law, science, and public policy. These educational opportunities will enable Harvard Law School students to make crucial contributions to the field while HLS trains a new generation of leaders for the animal protection movement.
Researchers at the Erasmus University are investigating the impact of client suicide on mental health professionals, both with respect to emotional and professional consequences. Have you ever lost a client or patient to suicide, share your experiences and help vital research by completing the
15-min survey here.
Finally, the following survey on AAI practices was created by researchers at Oakland University to better support practitioners academically who incorporate Animal Assisted Interventions into their practice. Please help us by sharing your opinions on education and training opportunities related to dog behavior for providers.
This anonymous survey
should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Your participation is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Amy Johnson at
johnson2@oakland.edu
or Emily Tronetti at
emily@healtohowl.com
.
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Following are some of the books coming out that we are excited about!
Blattner, C. (2019). Protecting Animals Within and Across Borders: Extraterritorial Jurisdiction and the Challenges of Globalization. Oxford University Press.
de Backer, C., Dare, J., & Costello, L. (Eds.). (2019).
To Eat Or Not to Eat Meat: How Vegetarian Dietary Choices Influence Our Social Lives
. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Horowitz, A. (2019). Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond. Scribner.
Kaiser, K. R. (2019).
An Ethics Beyond: Posthumanist Animal Encounters and Variable Kindness in the Fiction of George Saunders
(Vol. 154). Universitat de València.
Kevany, K. M. (Ed.). (2019).
Plant-Based Diets for Succulence and Sustainability
. Routledge.
Kogan, L., & Erdman, P. (Eds.). (2019).
Pet Loss, Grief, and Therapeutic Interventions: Practitioners Navigating the Human-Animal Bond
. Routledge.
Marceau, J. (2019).
Beyond Cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment
. Cambridge University Press.
McCorry, S. and Miller, J. (Eds). (2019).
Literature and Meat since 1900
. Palgrave Macmillan.
Mwangi, E. (2019).
The Postcolonial Animal: African Literature and Posthuman Ethics
. African Perspectives.
Nettleton, C. (2019).
The Artist as Animal in Nineteenth Century Literature
. Springer.
Parkinson, C. (2019). Animals, Anthropomorphism and Mediated Encounters. Routledge.
Wolloch, N. (2019).
The Enlightenment’s Animals: Changing Conceptions of Animals in the Long Eighteenth-Century
. Amsterdam University Press.
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The
Canadian Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law
just released a special issue called Beyond Humanity: New Frontiers in Animal Law (Volume 5, Issue 1, 2019).
Find it here
!
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE: On the edge of the Anthropocene: crossing borders in southern African environmental history. This special issue will engage critically with the very idea of the ‘Anthropocene’ and examine it over the short term and longue durée, acknowledging that the “environment” is itself a contested idea with a history of its own. Thus this special issue wants to cross borders: geographic, temporal and disciplinary. So
SAHJ
calls for papers adopting a fresh approach to understanding the Anthropocene from the perspective of the global south and more specifically from the perspective of southern African environmental history.
I am looking for papers that engage with the following themes, and I am open to other ideas:
- How histories of the southern African environment can impact on current policy in the Anthropocene.
- Colonial histories of animals or human-animal relations and conservation’s troubled history
- Historical human-animal studies, including historical analyses of animals and indigeneity
- Dirty histories: pollution and contamination of the environment
- The environmental histories of southern African cities
- Vernacular approaches to environmental history
- Environmental histories of migration and immigration; dislocation and diaspora
- Environmental histories of inequality and reparation ecology.
- Comparative case studies between southern Africa history and other contexts
- Ecological imperialism and the environmental history of invasive species
- Beyond “environmental agency”: new paradigms of analysis
Contact: Professor Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University,
sss@sun.ac.za
Special Issue of
Monash Bioethics Review
on “Moral Duties to Novel Beings”
Guest Edited by: Julian Koplin (University of Melbourne) and Christopher Gyngell (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute). Scientific advances are making it possible to create new kinds of beings. Organisms that contain both human and animal cells (human-animal chimeras) have been created to model human disease, and might be used in the future to generate human organs for transplant. Human brain organoids (which resemble miniature in vitro human brains) are now used to study brain development and neurodegenerative disorders. Genome editing has been used to create monkeys with ‘humanised’ brains, revealing new insights into the genetics of human cognition. Synthetic embryos formed from stem cells are being used to study early human development. The brains of dead animals have been partially “revived” hours after the animal was slaughtered, potentially paving the way for brain resuscitation in humans. Submission Deadline:
December 31.
This Special Issue is planned for publication in the second half of 2020. We are seeking papers between 4,000 and 10,000 words. When submitting online (via the journal website below), please be sure to indicate that your submission is intended for this Special Issue on Moral Duties to Novel Beings.
The
Journal of Sustainable Tourism
is accepting submissions for a
special issue on wildlife and tourism
. This special issue will include theoretical and empirical papers exploring the impacts of tourism on wildlife. Manuscripts within the special issue will critically evaluate especially the impacts - positive and negative - of current forms and practices of wildlife tourism on the conservation status of wild species, and on the welfare of individual animals. It will establish correlates of good and bad outcomes in both captive and wild settings. The issue will also address tourists’ values and responsibilities, with respect to wildlife tourism, as well as the responsibilities and duties of institutions that act as gatekeepers to wildlife tourism experiences - including the provision of information on impacts to customers and ensuring distribution of benefits among local stakeholders and wildlife. The deadline for submissions is
October 1
.
The interdisciplinary journal
Animals
invites submissions to a special issue on the following topic: Animal Ethics: Questioning the Orthodoxy. Guest editors: Herwig Grimm and Susana Monsó (Messerli Research Institute Vienna). Deadline for submissions:
September 30
.
It has become commonplace to refer to the success of animal ethics and the animal turn in philosophy. Since Singer and Regan published their ground-breaking works more than forty years ago, animal ethics has become an institutionalised field of research. This is mirrored in the appearance of entire journals, book series, text books, BA, MA and PhD programmes, conferences, research institutes, etc. devoted to it. To use a metaphor, animal ethics is no longer a toddler, but a teenager, full of energy, beginning to question its heritage and its future. This Special Issue aims to channel this rebellious spirit in order to help lay down the foundations for a prosperous adulthood. Therefore, we invite submissions that call into question the orthodoxy in animal ethics. With this Special Issue, we aim to deliver an overview of new solutions to canonical problems and new problems that were previously unseen. We expect to map out new directions in the field of animal ethics and contribute to clarifying the self-understanding of the discipline. Please kindly note that for submissions to this special issue there is a word limit of 8,000 words (references not included). Further information can be found in this
link
. Informal inquiries can be sent to:
susana.monso@vetmeduni.ac.at
The editors are organizing a special issue on the psycho-social impact of human-animal interactions (HAIs) on health in the
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
.
The venue is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. This Special Issue, guest edited by Aubrey Fine, is open to any subject area related to the psycho-social benefits of human-animal interactions. The listed keywords suggest just a few of the many possibilities. Manuscripts should be submitted online at
www.mdpi.com
by
registering
and
logging in to this website
. Once you are registered,
click here to go to the submission form
. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. Please visit the
Instructions for Authors
page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this
open access
journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions. Deadline for manuscript submissions:
September 30
.
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Are you going to a conference this year? If so, we would love your help with distributing ASI flyers to promote our human-animal studies programs! If you’d like to help, please email
margo@animalsandsociety.org
. Thank you!
Ph. D. SUMMER SCHOOL:
Zoophthoria.
The exploitation and destruction of animals. September 4-5, Milan.
Email for more information:
zooftoria.milano@gmail.com
Animal Minds & Animal Ethics: Across Species, Across Disciplines.
September 23, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.
Participation is free, but if you plan to attend please register by sending an email to:
Susana.Monso@vetmeduni.ac.at
Rethinking Canid-Human Relations.
November 21-22, Brock University.
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Calls for Papers: Conferences
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American Comparative Literature Association conference, March 19-22, 2020, Chicago
Nature and Morality: (Non)Human Sexuality in Science and Literature
Recent work in the history and philosophy of science has focused on the moral authority of nature (Against Nature, Lorraine Daston, 2019; The Moral Authority of Nature, eds. Loraine Daston & Fernando Vidal, 2003), while feminist and queer studies have explored the relationship between sex(uality) and nature (The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America, Greta LaFleur, 2018; Anthropocene Feminism, ed. Richard Grusin, 2017; Queer Ecology, eds. Catriona Sandilands & Bruce Erickson, 2010; Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science, Londa Schiebinger, 2003). In this seminar, we aim to bring together these separate discussions to investigate the ways in which literature explores concepts of sexual morality with reference to the natural and (non)human world. Is nature the model for perfect morality? Is it an abject and taboo force that needs to be tamed by human intervention? Or can we ‘queer’ thinking about moral natures by finding different ways for sexual morality to relate to nature and the non-human world? We are particularly interested in exploring how different parts of nature – non-humans animals, plants, minerals, elements like water – are mobilized to inform concepts of sexual morality. This seminar also inquires how reference to morality and nature highlights the intersections of sex, gender and sexuality with race, whiteness, and indigeneity. In order to answer these questions and prompts, this seminar aims to bring together papers focusing on different literary traditions across historical periods.
We have two calls for Panels for the 2020 ICMS in Kalamazoo, to be held May 7-10, 2020.
The Beast Ethic: Forgotten by the Animal Turn.
Despite a growing body of exciting research on medieval animality, the beast epic, which should loom large in this area of interest, has largely remained on its side lines. Excellent recent studies on medieval animality, for instance by Sarah Kay and Peggy McCracken, have explored the human-animal boundary and human-animal encounters in a broad array of genres such as the bestiary, lay, chanson de geste and various kinds of romance. The beast epic, with its animal protagonists such as Reynard the fox and Burnellus the ass and its satirically transposed portrayal of human society, may seem as too obvious a choice. However, the genre, with its huge spectrum of figurative engagements with contemporary societal issues such as monastic or royal abuse of power and ranging from biting satire to playful humor, remains in many respects poorly understood and awaits a thorough engagement through the lens of the animal turn. How does our understanding of this often enigmatic genre change when moving away from a human-centered perspective? Where does the boundary between ‘animal’ and ‘human’ behavior lie in these texts? How does the ubiquitous physical and verbal violence in this tradition pierce through or stabilize such boundaries? What happens if non-human animals sound out the limits of human meaning-making through irony, parody and dissimulation? Seeking to draw the beast epic and animality studies together more fully, this panel invites 15-20 minute papers pertaining to medieval beast epics in their various Latin and vernacular manifestations, but also the long modern reception history of the genre and comparisons with traditions beyond the Latin West. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words together with a completed Participant Information Form to Robert Forke (
rforke@stanford.edu
) by
September 15.
Impound, Outlaw.
Organizers: Mead Bowen and Marissa Crannell-Ash. With the animal turn, analysis of medieval interactions between humans and animals has shifted from considering animals as mere symbols or resources—readings that have largely reinforced a perceived human-animal boundary in the Middle Ages—to consider a broad range of medieval beliefs, values, and practices that complicate, blur, and even dissolve this boundary. One recent and particularly fruitful line of scholarship has considered vulnerability as a shared condition with the power to transcend this boundary. The vulnerability and ambiguous status of animals, who normally lack political standing but who sometimes gain a provisional, if nebulous, personhood when under legal scrutiny, offer useful grounds for comparison with the condition of humans whose exclusion from the state and lack of protection under the law qualify them as what Giorgio Agamben would term “bare life,” such as outlaws, excommunicants, and exiles. Groups whose ethnicities, cultural practices, or beliefs led medieval Christians to define them as sub-human or non-human, such as Celts, pastoral nomads, and Jews, complicate comparisons with animals even as they invite them. However, while these lines of exploration remain productive, the question of how imprisonment defines, diminishes, or denies personhood for human and non-human animals alike remains largely unexplored within medieval studies, as does its potential for links with modern subjects. This panel invites submissions that consider imprisonment and ambiguous political/legal standing as conditions which can mutually inform and, in some cases, unite the human and non-human experience in the Middle Ages and beyond. Some examples include beings excluded from legal protection without loss of personhood, such outlaws, exiles, and excommunicants; prisoners and beings, human or non-human, awaiting trial; exclusionary enclosures and excluded sub-communities, such as ghettos, quarantined areas, and religiously or racially defined city quarters; immigrants and expatriates, especially those of crypto-religious persuasions; forms of animal enclosure, such as pens, zoos, and menageries; and beings who become vulnerable to human exploitation upon crossing human-defined borders, such as illegal immigrants, refugees, slaves, and imported/exported animals. To be considered for this session, submit a short abstract (no more than 300 words) and participant information form to Mead Bowen (
ebowen4@ur.rochester.edu
) and Marissa Crannell-Ash (
mcrannel@ur.rochester.edu
)
In the context of my ongoing research project, “Reading Zoos in the Age of the Anthropocene”, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), I am organizing a series of three workshops to explore the past, present, and future of the zoo as a space of the imagination which both mirrors and shapes the broader cultural understanding of the natural world and our relationship to it. Over the last two decades, in the context of growing public awareness of climate change and mass extinction, that relationship has been changing. During the same period, the zoo has become a focal point for a new wave of literary and cinematic representations which reflect the fears and uncertainties about the future, but also seek to imagine alternative, multispecies futures. These representations serve as a lens through which to explore how the relationship between humans and the natural world is changing in the age of the Anthropocene.
Each of the three workshops will focus on a different issue or theme relating to the past, present, and future of the zoo as a more-than-human space of the imagination. The three themes are: War/Memory (April 2019); Captivity/Escape (Nov. 2019); Extinction/Conservation (April 2020). The first of these three workshops took place in April, on the recurring motif of the zoo in wartime and its relation to the imaginary of surrounding environmental devastation. The second workshop, scheduled for 7–9 November, will focus on the theme of captivity and the real or imagined transgression of boundaries. A dominant theme in representations of the zoo has always been the cage separating the spectators from the animals. In his famous essay “Why Look at Animals?”, John Berger writes that “[a]ll sites of enforced marginalization—ghettos, shanty towns, prisons, madhouses, concentration camps—have something in common with zoos.” Zoos are not only sites of entertainment and spectacle but also sites of incarceration and control, which moreover are fundamentally bound up with other forms of oppression. In this workshop we focus on how authors, filmmakers, and visitors imagine the lived experience of animals in the zoo, and how it intersects with issues of race, colonial exploitation, the objectifying human gaze. Running parallel to the image of the cage since the nineteenth century is the popular anxiety about wild animals escaping from their enclosures. Such “zoo-break narratives”, however, frequently serve only to reinforce a nature / culture binary, by imagining the restoration of a natural order. Moreover, an implicit assumption underlying critiques of the zoo in the style of John Berger is that the animals in their cages are but pale imitations of their full-blooded cousins in the wild. In an age of pervasive habitat loss through urban development and poaching, however, it is increasingly the case that there simply is no “natural” habitat to which these animals might return. How does this circumstance affect the way zoos are represented, and how they represent themselves? The workshop will feature keynote presentations by Lori Gruen and Romuald Karmakar. I invite scholars, including advanced PhD students and early-career academics, as well as artists, writers, and zoo professionals, to participate. You do not need to have attended the first workshop to participate in the second (or the third). The workshop will not take the form of panels and presentations, but rather of brief position papers by select participants followed by plenary discussion. A workshop reader will be distributed to all participants in advance. There are three ways you can take part: 1) you can present your own ongoing work on zoos and captivity, in which case you should provide a short essay or draft (no more than 15-20 double spaced pages) to be included in the reader; 2) you can offer to lead a discussion on a particular text, image, video, piece of music, archival document, material object, etc., of which you are not the author but which you consider to be important and relevant to the topic, and which can likewise be circulated in advance; or 3) you can simply attend the workshop and participate in the discussion without presenting. (When putting together the programme, I aim to have a good balance between Option 1 and Option 2, with a slight preference for Option 2.) Please note that while coffee, lunch, and dinner will be provided, my budget cannot extend to covering travel and accommodation. Several hotels in the centre of Utrecht do offer special rates for university events, however. If you would like to take part please send a short bio and description of your current or recent research and/or practice relating to the figure of the zoo to Kári Driscoll (
k.driscoll@uu.nl
) by
September 1.
The Medieval Romance Society is hosting three sessions on romance and the animal turn at the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies 2020, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. All papers must be presented in English; however, we welcome submissions on romances from any region in the Middle Ages. We invite papers that respond to ecofeminist and queer ecological literary criticism; papers that respond to posthumanist and related philosophical theories; and papers which do not take a theoretical approach. Please send abstracts of up to 300 words to Tim Wingard (
tw659@york.ac.uk
) by
September 1
.
nature (
Against Nature
, Lorraine Daston, 2019;
The Moral Authority of Nature
, eds. Loraine Daston & Fernando Vidal, 2003), while feminist and queer studies have explored the relationship between sex(uality) and nature (
The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America
, Greta LaFleur, 2018
; Anthropocene Feminism
, ed. Richard Grusin, 2017;
Queer Ecology
, eds. Catriona Sandilands & Bruce Erickson, 2010;
Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science
, Londa Schiebinger, 2003). In this seminar, we aim to bring together these separate
discussions to investigate the ways in which literature explores concepts of sexual morality with reference to the natural and (non)human world. Is nature the model for perfect morality? Is it an abject and taboo force that needs to be tamed by human intervention? Or can we ‘queer’ thinking about moral natures by finding different ways for sexual morality to relate to nature and the non-human world? We are particularly interested in exploring how different
parts of nature – non-humans animals, plants, minerals, elements like water – are mobilized to inform concepts of sexual morality. This seminar also inquires how reference to morality and nature highlights the intersections of sex, gender and sexuality with race, whiteness, and indigeneity. In order to answer these questions and prompts, this seminar aims to bring together papers focusing on different literary traditions across historical periods. I
nterested participants are welcome to email the seminar co-organizers Joela Jacobs (
joelajacobs@email.arizona.edu
), Ina Linge (
K.Linge@exeter.ac.uk
), and Katharine Mershon (
mershok@whitman.edu
) with questions. All participants will need to submit their
abstracts to the
ACLA website
between August 31 and
September 23
.
CALL FOR PAPERS: RETHINKING CANID-HUMAN RELATIONS. BROCK UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER 21-22.
Our relations with canids are particularly intense: we welcome some into our homes as family members but others are regarded as demonic creatures to be exterminated. What do these relations tell us about ourselves and our societies? What do our relations with canids mean for our relations with other animals? What efforts are being made to protect canids from exploitation? This conference focuses on wild and domesticated canids and their relationships and interactions with humans but we encourage contributions that consider implications for human relations with other animals generally. We encourage papers that take a critical perspective and consider trans-species social justice. Registration is free, the conference is open to all. Please submit a 250 word abstract to
animalconference@brocku.ca
by
September 30.
Institut für Christliche Philosophie: Thinking Species, Austro-Canadian Animal and Media Ethics Workshop, Innsbruck, December 6.
Once a year scholars and academics from Canada and Europe meet in Innsbruck to discuss topics of Applied Ethics. This year’s subject will be the question of how the representation of non-human animals impacts the way we think of them and, consequently, treat them. Contributions should focus on the possibilities of representing the various species in the media, on the consequences of these representations with regard to different concepts of the human-animal-relationship or on what these observations have to do with ethics. The conference language is English. To leave time for discussion, the papers presented should not exceed 20 minutes. Participation is free. Travel costs cannot be covered. Submission of abstracts (300 words, until
August 31
):
claudia.paganini@uibk.ac.at
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CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS for the volume
Denialism in Environmental and Animal Abuse: Averting Our Gaze
,
in the Lexington Books series: Environment and Society (series ed. Douglas Vakoch). Editors: Dr. Tomaž Grušovnik (Faculty of Education, University of Primorska, Slovenia); Dr. Karen Lykke Syse (Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway); Dr. Reingard Spannring (Institute for Educational Studies, University of Innsbruck, Austria). Despite readily available facts and figures regarding human-caused natural degradation and often overwhelming scientific consensus on issues related to environmental pollution, we are still faced with the disbelief about the existence and extent of anthropogenic impact on the environment. The failure of the so-called Information Deficit Model, according to which public inaction and apathy are generally attributable to lack of relevant information, prompted natural and socials sciences as well as humanities to look for alternative accounts of passivity and inertia in the field of environmental education and awareness-raising. Thus, in the last two decades researchers increasingly focused on the concept of “denialism” as the more suitable explanation of the lack of significant environmental change. Several fields contributed to our understanding of the phenomenon, including anthropology, social psychology, philosophy, sociology, linguistics, ecocriticism, natural science and science communication. The proposed edited volume thus seeks to provide a clear and comprehensive contribution to our understanding of the “environmental denial” with chapters from researchers in natural and social sciences as well as humanities, disclosing the multifaceted appearance of the concept by approaching it from different perspectives. In somewhat similar fashion to environmental disciplines, animal ethics, critical animal studies, and related fields also stumbled on an analogous phenomenon when trying to account for our increasing meat consumption and lack of empathy for the animals slaughtered in the industries despite the efforts of educators, activists, and academia to raise the awareness of the harsh realities of “Animal-Industrial Complex.” The edited volume also aims to present the reader with recent insights into the denial of animal sentience, subjectivity, and agency in range of contexts, providing opportunity of both denialism debates – environmental as well as animal – to mutually shed light onto each other. Chapter proposal submissions are invited from researchers and academics on or before
September 30
. Proposals should not exceed 1000 words, presenting main arguments of the chapter and explaining how they fit into the general theme of the volume. Proposals in Word or PDF formats (Times New Roman, 12, 1.5 spacing) should be sent to
tomaz.grusovnik@pef.upr.si
and
reingard.spannring@uibk.ac.at
on or before the specified date together with author’s CVs. Full chapters should be around 6000 words in length, following Lexington “
Production Guidelines."
All chapters will be subject to peer-reviews. Once the chapters have been reviewed, final chapters will have to be submitted within 2 months from the date they are returned to authors. The volume is planned to be published in late 2020 or early 2021. For more information about the project please write to Tomaž Grušovnik and Reingard Spannring.
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As you can see, there is a tremendous amount of activity and progress going on today in the field of human-animal studies, and we always invite your input and participation. Your
donation
to the Animals & Society Institute will enable us to continue to expand the field in many more ways and work in conjunction with others around the world who share these goals.
Thank you for supporting our Human-Animal Studies efforts!
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Margo DeMello
Human-Animal Studies Director
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