**Link to the recordings of talks coming soon**
EACAS Conference on Actioning Change Through Education: Transforming Human-Animal Relations in Times of Crisis, Berlin, Germany
📅 Date: May 2 – May 4, 2025
📍 Location: House of Democracy and Human Rights, Greifswalder Straße 4, 10405 Berlin
The 2025 EACAS Conference will explore meaningful improvements in human-animal relationships, emphasizing practical solutions over theoretical discourse.
Conference Schedule
Friday, May 2, 2025
12:45 PM – Registration
1:30 PM – Welcome by Kathrin Herrmann and Richard Twine
Session 1: Critical Thinking and Empathy (2:00 – 4:00 PM)
Moderator: Richard Twine
- Bruno Ćurko – Fostering Critical Thinking and Bioethical Sensibility Towards Animals in Children
- Benjamin Hunt – Performing Change: The Role of Creative Practices in Cultivating Interspecies Empathy and Action
- Dimitra Kountaki – Fostering Empathy Beyond Anthropocentrism: The Role of Education in Transforming Human-Animal Relations
- Carlo Salzani – Can a Book Make You Vegan?: The Literary Imagination and the Limits of Empathy
☕ Coffee Break
Session 2: Activism, Representation, Participation (4:30 – 6:30 PM)
Moderator: Kathrin Herrmann
- Anne van Veen – De-mooo-cracy: Transformative Learning for Interspecies Democracy
- Tim Reysoo – The Missing Piece: Building an Effective Political and Economic Strategy for the Animal Movement
- Marie Leth-Espensen – Forging Alliances While Crafting Alternative Food Futures: A Study of Activism and Civic Engagement Across the Animal, Environmental, and Rural Movements in Denmark
- Melvin Geib Caballero – Ways Towards Effective Animal Representation
🎉 6:30 – 9:30 PM | Social Gathering & Vegan Potluck (bring your favorite dish and drinks to share)
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Session 1: Media, Public Sphere, and the Arts (9:30 – 11:30 AM)
Moderator: Jonna Håkansson
- Laura Fernández Aguilera, Tuğçe Atacı – Towards Feminist Animal and Media Studies: A Digital Ethnographic Research of Female Hunters on Instagram
- Arshia Batra – Becoming-inanimate, Becoming-human, Becoming-animal: The Objectification and (de)Familiarization of Captive Animals in Photography
- Stefanie Aehnelt – Can Theatre Change the World? What Impact Can Theatre and Art Events Have on Social Change?
- Maria Martelli – The School of Earth and Water: A Multispecies Speculation About Education
☕ Coffee Break
Session 2: Teaching Tools and Education Methods (12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)
Moderator: Kathrin Herrmann
- Monique Janssens – Developing a Global Education Hub for Animal-Free Methods
- Claudia Alonso-Recarte – A Case Study on Animal Advocacy Documentary Films as Educational Tools
- Zipporah Weisberg – Exposing Students to Graphic Images of Violence against Animals: A Helpful or Harmful Pedagogical Strategy?
- Judith Benz-Schwarzburg – Animal Ethics in Picture Books
🍽️ Lunch Break
Session 3: Critical Animal Rights Education I (3:00 – 4:30 PM)
Moderator: Belinda Grimm
- Iana Fishova – Educating Beyond Speciesism: Thinking-Doing Creative-Relational Inquiry in Critical Animal Pedagogies and Vegan Education
- Josip Guć – Appreciating Non-Human Animals by Becoming a Child
- Carolin Eirich – Learning to Be Affected: Principles and Strategies of (In-)Visibility Regarding the Use of Pictures in (Critical) Education on Animal Factories in Germany
☕ Coffee Break
Session 4: Critical Animal Rights Education II (5:00 – 6:00 PM)
Moderator: Belinda Grimm
- Jonna Kallaste Håkansson – Addressing Animal Production in Schools Through the Perspective of Interspecies Sustainability and Justice
- Sarah Wilson – Promoting Non-Human Animal Advocacy in UK Universities in Times of Crisis: Perspectives on the Role of Law Schools in Creating Narratives of ‘Animal Justice’ as ‘Social Justice’
🍽️ 7:00 PM | Group Dinner
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Session 1: Contesting Education (10:00 – 11:30 AM)
Moderator: Liam Bryden
- Tereza Vandrovcová, Zdeněk Joukl – Unpacking Bias Against Meat Alternatives
- Richard Twine – A Child’s Right to Contest Meat Culture – Generational Universalism as a Multiple Injustice
- Kadri Aavik – Vegan Parents Contesting the Anthropocentric Education System: Experiences, Coping Strategies, and Visions of Change
☕ Coffee Break
Session 2: Intersections (12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)
Moderator: Carolin Eirich
- Cameron Dunnett – Vegan Ecomasculinities & Animal Advocacy: The Role of Education in Transforming (Hu)Man-Animal Relationships
- Özlem Güçlü – Feminist Pedagogy for a Non-Anthropocentric Course, Class, and Communitas
- Nóra Ugron, Maria Martelli – “A Communion of Worlds” – Vegan Anarchist Visions in Speculative Fiction & Queer Ecological Poetry from Romania
- Valerie Tollhopf – Fostering Trans and Animal Solidarity: Enhancing Trans* New Materialism via a Marxist Account of Animal Oppression
🍽️ Lunch Break
Session 3: Sanctuary (3:00 – 4:00 PM)
Moderator: Kathrin Herrmann
- Renata Mliczak – The Educational Role of Vegan Farmed Animal Sanctuaries in Nurturing Just Relationships Between Human and Non-Human Animals
- Simone Scampoli – Animal Sanctuaries: The Future We Imagine
Closing Remarks by Kathrin Herrmann (4:00 PM – 4:10 PM)
📩 Questions?
Contact us at kherrma1@jhu.edu
