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The First Meeting of The North American Association for Critical Animal Studies (NAACAS)

“The first meeting of NAACAS, which was to take place in May 2020 in Kelowna, B.C., was canceled due to Covid-19.

Two years later, and given the ongoing pandemic, we are organizing a small, hybrid workshop on the conference theme of mass extinction, to take place in Toronto, Ontario (Raccoon Capital of the World), August 11 – 12, 2022. We are limiting in-person participation in the workshop due to the pandemic but videos of presentations will be available on the NAACAS website after the event. In addition, proceedings from the workshop will be available open access in the first 2023 issue of Animal Studies Journal.

The topic of the first meeting of NAACAS will be Critical Animal Studies Perspectives on Extinction, and it will include a remotely-delivered keynote presentation by extinction studies scholar Ursula Heise.

Thanks to Kelly Struthers Montford for hosting and applying for funding for this event!”

(Taken from NAACAS website)

Join | EACAS.eu

EACAS Conference week is upon us

We are all looking forward to our 7th biennial conference taking place this Thursday and Friday. If you were not able to register, most of the sessions will be recorded and available in time. Over 280 people have registered making it the biggest ever EACAS conference!

Call for abstracts: 6th Conference of the European Association for Critical Animal Studies (Barcelona, Spain)

Rethinking revolution: Nonhuman animals, antispeciesism and power 6th Conference of the European Association for Critical Animal Studies (EACAS)

Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Campus Poblenou, 22-24 May 2019

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 December 2018

International conference at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, hosted by:

  • The European Association for Critical Animal Studies
  • The UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics
  • The CRITICC Research Group
  • The Department of Communication

Location:

Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Department of Communication – Poblenou Campus

Roc Boronat, 138 – Barcelona 08108 – Catalonia – Spain

Website: eventum.upf.edu/go/EACAS2019

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Conference theme

Although human exploitation of nonhuman animals is by no means a modern development, it has grown exponentially in the last century. It is under capitalism that human abuse of their power over nonhuman animals has reached a massive scale, with a corresponding massive worsening of its consequences. This includes the suffering of trillions of sentient beings exploited in miserable conditions and killed for trivial purposes in the majority of cases, but also the massive contribution to global warming of industries like agribusiness, as well as the negative impact these practices have on social justice, intra-human violence and human health. The animal liberation movement therefore not only calls for justice and compassion for nonhuman animals, but also confront the results of industrial capitalism and modernity with a radical consciousness-raising claim. This claim is radical because it provides the most accurate condemnation of privilege and the status quo by revealing how inequality does not exist only at the intra-species level, but also at the inter-species level, and that both levels are closely interlinked and thus ought to be addressed jointly.

In the spirit of the field of Critical Animal Studies, the aim of this conference is to encourage scholars, students and activists to rethink the revolution that animal liberation theory represents since its inception in the 1970s, a social movement bringing the fight against oppression to its logical conclusion.

The conference welcomes proposals from a variety of scholars and disciplines – including critical academics, independent researchers, students and activists – reflecting on the intersecting themes of the conference: power, total liberation and antispeciesism.

Other themes

The conference also welcomes papers focused on any topic critically addressing nonhuman animals’ exploitation from a social science or humanities perspective, including but not limited to the following themes:

  • Animal advocacy and activism
  • Animal ethics
  • Animal law
  • Animal liberation
  • Animal liberation as a social movement
  • Animal oppression and intersectionality
  • Animal rights
  • Animal sanctuaries studies
  • Critical animal and media studies
  • Culture-Nature dualism and its criticism
  • Ethology and social perceptions of animals
  • Interspecies justice
  • Multispecies politics
  • Nonhuman animals and ableism
  • Nonhuman animals and agency
  • Nonhuman animals and capitalism
  • Nonhuman animals and colonialism
  • Nonhuman animals and communication
  • Nonhuman animals and critical race studies
  • Nonhuman animals and critical theory
  • Nonhuman animals and feminisms
  • Nonhuman animals and queer studies
  • Nonhuman animals and oppression theories
  • Nonhuman animals and political theory
  • Nonhuman animals and social class
  • Nonhuman animals and social justice
  • Nonhuman animals and social theory
  • Nonhuman animals, language and representation
  • Normative aspects of animal liberation
  • Vegan studies

The conference encourages the approach of critical animal studies and non-speciesist perspectives on all sorts of discrimination, oppression and abuse towards farmed animals, animals in labs and animals in entertainment, among others, including animals living in the wild.

Submission guidelines

All abstracts must be written in English.

Abstracts should include:

  • Abstract Title of 30 words maximum
  • Abstract Text of 500 words maximum
  • A brief biography of the author (150 words maximum) including name, affiliation and contact details

The number of submitted abstracts per author is limited to two.

Abstracts must be submitted to: cae@upf.edu

We strongly encourage submissions by women and other socially underrepresented groups.

IMPORTANT DATES

  • Start of Abstract Submission: 17 September 2018
  • Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 December 2018
  • Decisions on abstracts will be notified by: 15 January 2019
  • Online registration opens (compulsory): 15 January 2019
  • Deadline for online registration: 15 April 2019
  • Conference opens: 22 May  2019
  • Conference closes: 24 May 2019

Registration fees:

  • Normal:    50€
  • Reduced: 25€ (for students, unemployed people or individuals with a low income).

Other information:

  • Attendance certificates will be handed out at the end of the conference.
  • All sessions will be held in English with the exception of one round table with Spanish and Catalan animal advocates.
  • All the food offered at the conference will be vegan (free lunch and coffee breaks)
  • Optional self-pay dinner: There will be a social event on Thursday night

For more information about the conference, or to submit an abstract, please email the organizing committee at: cae@upf.edu

Website: eventum.upf.edu/go/EACAS2019

Call for papers: 5th European Conference for Critical Animal Studies (Lund, Sweden)

NONHUMAN ANIMALS IN SOCIETY: EXPLORING NEW PATHWAYS FOR RESISTANCE, CHANGE AND ACCOMODATION, 5th European Conference for Critical Animal Studies

International conference at Lund University, the Pufendorf Institute

Hosted by the European Association for Critical Animal Studies

The 26th to 28th of October 2017

Keynote Speakers:

  • Zipporah Weisberg, independent scholar
  • Volker Sommer, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology.

Conference Website: https://animalsconferencelund.wordpress.com

CALL FOR PAPERS

Historically, nonhuman animals have been placed outside the realm of society and the social. Often relegated to being part of ‘nature,’ nonhuman animals are often represented as the passive and subordinate counterpart of ‘culture’. These social constructions and representation of other animals have contributed to the sustainment of human supremacy and dominance, which until this day permeate the conditions of nonhuman animals in society. Over the past decades, a growing body of literature, cultural texts and scholarly work has dealt critically with the devaluation and misrepresentation of other animals. Influenced by “the animal turn” in the humanities and social sciences, this scholarship has examined both the presence and absence, the visibility and invisibility of nonhuman animals in society. By means of highlighting the social nature of these representations, work has been done to render nonhuman animal resistance, and change more visible. Additionally, with recent developments within scientific disciplines such as ethology, a new focus of research, one that highlights the individuality and agency of nonhuman animals has emerged. This contributes to an altered view on nonhuman animals, whether they are living within or in the periphery of human societies.

The aim of this conference is to bring to focus how scholarly work can contribute to the disruption and replacement of violent and exploitative practices, while also providing a platform for exploring the variety of ways that more just inter-species relations might be established. Special attention will be given to how scholarships and transdisciplinary work can engage with these problems as they exist in media, politics, popular culture and other aspects of everyday life.

On October 26th to 28th 2017, the 5th European Conference for Critical Animal Studies will be hosted by the European Association for Critical Animal Studies (EACAS).

The conference invites scholars and activists from all disciplines dealing with the three broad and intersecting themes, society, media and culture, and how they are assessed in Critical Animal Studies.

The conference welcomes proposals from a variety of scholars and disciplines, including radical academics, independent researchers, students and community activists. Papers may focus on any aspect of the three stands, including but not limited to the following themes:

  • Nonhuman animals and media
  • Nonhuman animals and culture
  • Culture – nature-dualism and its criticism
  • Nonhuman animals and social theory
  • Nonhuman animals and critical theory
  • Social Justice and nonhuman animals
  • Ethology and societal perception of animals
  • Normative aspects of animals in media and culture
  • The political principles of animal liberation
  • The construction of just interspecies institutions.
  • The politics and political theory of interspecies co-existence at farm sanctuaries
  • Histories and genealogies of multispecies politics and communities
  • Nonhuman animals and agency
  • Nonhuman animals and social classes
  • Nonhuman animals and colonialism
  • Animal liberation and anarchism
  • Animal liberation as a social movement
  • Nonhuman animals and feminism
  • Nonhuman animals and ableism
  • Nonhuman animals and critical race studies

The conference encourages the emancipatory approach of scholar activists in the field of critical animal studies.

Please note that there will be a 40€ registration fee for the conference. Registration for students, unemployed people or individuals with a low income will be 20€.

Prospective speakers are invited to submit abstracts of 500 words, and a brief biography including name, affiliation and contact details.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 28th April 2017

Decisions on abstracts: 22nd May 2017

For more information about the conference, or to submit an abstract, please email the organising committee: animalsconferencelund@gmail.com

https://animalsconferencelund.wordpress.com

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CfHAS conference Cfp: Animals and Social Change | 29 – 30th June 2017 | Liverpool, UK.

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CfHAS conference Cfp: Animals and Social Change | 29 – 30th June 2017 | Liverpool, UK.

CfHAS will host a conference on the theme of animals and social change in June 2017. We invite submissions that address these questions:

  • What constitutes effective social change for other animals?
  • How do particular framings of animal ethics and veganism shape strategies for intervention and change?
  • How do the worlds of animal advocacy and academic research on human-animal relations speak to each other? Could more come from those interactions?
  • What role do visual media, the online vegan community and documentary film-making play in effecting social change?
  • How do different communities imagine progressive social change for animals taking place?

We are interested in receiving submissions of academic papers (20 minutes), short films (any genre) and poster presentations. This conference will include paper and poster presentations, film screenings and a workshop session focused on strategies for social change involving dialogue between academics, activists and advocates. The conference is designed to facilitate time and space for discussion.

This conference will be of interest to those working in critical animal studies, advocacy, grassroots activism, animal media and the vegan business community.

Please submit abstracts to: cfhas@edgehill.ac.uk

Closing date for abstracts: 1st March 2017

The Centre for Human-Animal Studies (CfHAS) was formed in October 2014 during its inaugural conference held in Liverpool and the Edge Hill campus. CfHAS is an interdisciplinary forum for research and activities that engage with the complex material, ethical and symbolic relationships between humans and other animals.  The Centre acts as a hub for research. It has established links and collaborations with colleagues in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and with the broader academic and advocacy community in the UK.

Major North American CAS Conference – June 2016

Alberta

Conference plenary panels will include: Decolonizing Critical Animal Studies, moderated by Billy-Ray Belcourt (University of Alberta) and featuring

• Kim TallBear (Associate Professor of Native Studies, University of Alberta),

• Maneesha Decka (Associate Professor of Law, University of Victoria), and

• Dinesh Wadiwel (Lecturer in Human Rights and Socio-legal Studies, University of Sydney).

Cripping Critical Animal Studies, moderated by Vittoria Lion (University of Toronto) and featuring

• Sunaura Taylor (artist and author),

• Stephanie Jenkins (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Oregon State University), and

• A. Marie Houser (independent writer, editor, and activist).

Taxonomies of Power, Plenary by Claire Jean Kim (UC Irvine)

The first thread of conversation that we hope to develop is that of decolonizing Critical Animal Studies. While some theorists have turned to non-Western and indigenous cultures for examples of less or nonspeciesist worldviews, the relationship between anti-colonial politics and animal activism has been fraught. Single-issue animal activist campaigns have often functioned to justify racism, xenophobia and exclusion, with, to adapt Gayatri Spivak’s phrase, white humans saving animals from brown humans. The eating of shark fins and dog meat has been marked as cruel and backward, for instance, in contrast with dominant constructions of Western diets as sophisticated and humane. Indigenous rights activists and animal activists have clashed over the issue of hunting charismatic animals, such as whales and seals, often eclipsing attention to far more widespread forms of animal, colonial, and racial oppression in Western, settler societies. Ecofeminist approaches to animal ethics have been riven over the issue of indigenous hunting; some ecofeminists, such as Marti Kheel, have expressed dismissive views of the spiritual significance of subsistence hunting for indigenous people, while others, such as Val Plumwood, Deanne Curtin, and Karen Warren, have argued for contextual rather than universalizing forms of ethical vegetarianism. More recently, decolonial scholars have shown the interconnections between animal oppression, imperialism, and settler colonialism, and the need to center race in Critical Animal Studies. Maneesha Decka, for instance, has highlighted the ways that imperialism is justified through animalizations of racial others and condemnations of the ways colonized others treat animals, even while imperial identities are constituted through the consumption of animal bodies. Billy-Ray Belcourt has argued that speciesism and animal oppression are made possible in settler colonial contexts through the prior and ongoing dispossession and erasure of indigenous people from the lands on which animals are now domesticated and exploited. Belcourt critiques the ways that Critical Animal Studies assumes and operates within the ‘givenness’ of a settler colonial state, and suggests that Critical Animal Studies should center an analysis of indigeneity and call for the repatriation of indigenous lands. Possible presentation topics for the Decolonizing Critical Animal Studies thread include:

• The intersections of decolonial and Critical Animal Studies

• The uses of nonhuman animals in projects of land settlement

• Cultural food colonialism or decolonial food studies

• Reservization, food and fat studies

• Animal ethics and decolonization

• Animals, ontology, and settler colonialism

The second thread of conversation that we wish to pursue at this meeting is the cripping of Critical Animal Studies. Scholars working at the intersections of Critical Animal Studies and Critical Disability Studies have argued that the oppression of nonhuman animals and disabled humans are interconnected. Humans who defend animals and refrain from eating them have often found themselves labeled as cognitively disabled, mentally ill, ‘stupid’ or ‘crazy,’ and psychiatrists have proposed diagnoses for animal activists and vegans such as ‘anti-vivisection syndrome’ and ‘orthorexia nervosa.’ Disabled humans, like people of colour, have been put on display along with nonhuman animals in the history of ‘freak’ shows, and disabled humans and nonhuman animals continue to have their bodies objectified and their interests sacrificed for the purposes of medical training and scientific knowledge. Disabled humans are continually compared to nonhuman animals, not only in insults but also in medical terminology, with effects that are oppressive because of the pre-existing denigration of nonhuman animals. The same claims about what makes human life ontologically distinct and morally valuable—that humans have reason, that humans have language, that humans are autonomous—justify the exclusion of both nonhuman animals and cognitively disabled humans from moral consideration, as well as the oppression of physically disabled humans who are considered ‘dependent.’ Despite these interconnecting oppressions, speciesism has characterized Critical Disability Studies as much as ableism has characterized animal rights discourse (Peter Singer, Jeff McMahan). In recent years and more productively, however, Critical Animal Studies scholars such as Sue Donaldson, Will Kymlicka, Stephanie Jenkins and Sunaura Taylor have borrowed from Critical Disability Studies scholarship to argue that the dependency and vulnerability of domesticated animals should not be a reason to devalue their lives; far from removing a human or another animal from the realm of moral concern, (inter)dependency and vulnerability are the animal (and thus human) condition. Two types of animals come immediately to mind at the intersections of Critical Disability Studies and Critical Animal Studies: the service animal and the disabled animal, and scholars such as Kelly Oliver and A. Marie Houser have provided ethical analyses of these animals drawing on both animal and disability ethics. In particular, while disability scholars have critiqued the ways we view disabled humans as pitiful, tragic, exotic, or inspirational, Houser observes that heartwarming images of disabled pigs and dogs in mobility devices function to reassure viewers that we live in a society that is extraordinarily compassionate to animals, even while actual animals have by and large disappeared from view, sequestered in institutions of exploitation, containment and death. Possible presentation topics in the Cripping Critical Animal Studies thread include:

• Intersections of Critical Disability and Critical Animal Studies

• Critiques of the work of Temple Grandin

• The ethics of using service animals

• Representations of disabled animals

• The cultural associations between mental illness and love for animals (e.g. ‘crazy cat ladies’)

FORMAT: Presentations should be 20 minutes in length, leaving 10 minutes for discussion. We are receptive to different and innovative formats including but not limited to panels, performances, workshops, and public debates. You may propose individual or group presentations, but please specify the structure of your proposal. Please be sure to include your name(s), title(s), organizational affiliation(s), field of study or activism, and A/V needs in your submission.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: January 10, 2016

TO SUBMIT: email an abstract of no more than 500 words and a bio of no more than 150 words to the conference organizers: Chloë Taylor (chloe3[at]ualberta[dot]ca) and Kelly Struthers Montford (kelly.sm[at]ualberta[dot]ca)

Call for Book Chapter Contributions

The Ethics of Animal experimentation: Working towards a paradigm change

Editors: Kathrin Herrmann and Kimberley Jayne

Even though nonhuman animals are used for a variety of different purposes, their use in research particularly has remained an ethical challenge. It is evident that nonhuman animals in laboratories are exposed to a great deal of physical and psychological suffering, and that the use of animals in research is growing internationally.

Arguably, legal reforms around the world have insufficiently improved the protection of nonhuman animals. However, Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes in the European Union is radical compared to other legislation.  The Directive promotes a change of paradigm in nonhuman animal experimentation in establishing a goal of the full replacement of the use of live animals in research and education as soon as it is scientifically feasible (Recital 10).

Building on the radical vision of Directive 2010/63/EU, this book aims to illustrate the current situation for nonhuman animals used in science and aims to give a future outlook to the end of their use in research. Besides exploring the current ethical challenges and scientific controversies related to animal experimentation, this Volume aims to discuss ways to work towards a fundamental change of paradigm. We invite contributions from interdisciplinary scholars who share a vision for how this abolition of animal research can be achieved. The goal is to find solutions for this urging problem that are led by a culture of compassion for all animals.

List of recommended topics (but not limited to):

  • The legal framework: history, present and future prospects for an end of nonhuman animal use in science
  • The culture of language around the use of animals in research
  • The efficacy of the ‘Culture of Care’ incl. Refinement
  • Methods for assessing the quality of animal research (e.g. ARRIVE guidelines)
  • The politics of nonhuman animal experimentation
  • Transparency that benefits animals versus transparency that appeases the public and inhibits potential scrutiny and outrage (e.g. UK Concordat)
  • The capabilities and boundaries of public engagement
  • The psychological and social implications for animal research staff
  • The consequences of education and training using animals
  • The 3Rs – what is in it for the nonhuman animals
  • The connection/intersection between testing on humans and nonhuman animals
  • The challenges for the change of paradigm

Please submit your abstract (max. 500 words) and short bio (max. 150 words) to

Kathrin Herrmann (kathrinherrmann@gmail.com) or Kimberley Jayne (kimberley.jayne@outlook.com) by January 31 st 2016. Acceptance of submitted papers will be based upon relevance, quality and originality. By March 15 th 2016, we will inform you if your abstract was successful.

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Proposals open for next CAS European conference

After the success of the previous three European Conferences (Liverpool, Prague and Karlsruhe) and many of the same people meeting again at Minding Animals 2 (which took place in Utrecht, July 2012) as well as the postgrdaute conference in Exeter, UK (March 2012) we are now welcoming ideas and proposals for the next European Conference. We are looking for a new hosting country (this presently rules out the UK, the Czech Republic and the Germany). We anticipate a conference happening in late 2014 and we are also interested in receiving appropriate themes for the meeting.

The organisers of the previous conferences look forward to passing on their experience and expertise in order to help the new team.

Please send your ideas to icas.europe@gmail.com by March 31st 2014.

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Proposals open for next CAS European conference

After the success of the European Conference in Prague in October 2011, and many of the same people meeting again at Minding Animals 2 (which took place in Utrecht, July 2012) as well as the postgrdaute conference in Exeter, UK (March 2012) we are now welcoming ideas and proposals for the next European Conference. We are looking for a new hosting country (this presently rules out the UK and the Czech Republic). We anticipate a conference happening in late 2013 and we are also interested in receiving appropriate themes for the meeting.

The organisers of the Prague conference look forward to passing on their experience and expertise in order to help the new team.

Please send your ideas to casconference@gmail.com by February 1st 2013.