ICAS Satellite Event at Minding Animals 2
This event is FREE and attendance at Minding Animals is not a pre-requisite. However please register for the event by sending an e-mail to mindinganimals@gmail.com because space is limited.
MAI would like to announce that the Institute for Critical Animal Studies will be holding a special Critical Animal Studies roundtable between 2:30pm and 5:30pm on 3 July in Utrecht before the Opening Reception to Minding Animals 2. A lunchtime roundtable will also follow during the main conference. Places are strictly limited to 100 people, so you MUST register your attendance – first come, first served. If you would like to register for this event, please send an email to mindinganimals@gmail.com Venue details and an agenda for this Special Event will be sent to all registrants before the Utrecht conference.
The founding of the Institute of Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) in 2001 helped to consolidate and give a name to diverse scholarly voices advocating a new ethical and social relationship between Homo sapiens and the other animal species. Grounded in normative opposition to human domination and oppression of other animals, the field of Critical Animal Studies (CAS) has developed into a multi- and cross-disciplinary field combining animal liberation activism and serious scholarship. In cooperation with Minding Animals, ICAS invites participation in its afternoon Satellite Symposium on July 3. The event will delineate possible future trajectories for CAS internationally.
As the early 21st century unfolds, thousands of other species are imperilled, while billions of individual animals suffer and die in countless animal industries dispersed throughout the globe. Given this urgent context, what is the best way for international scholars in Critical Animal Studies to work together to maximise our impact as engaged intellectuals, both within our respective disciplines and across disciplines? Conversely, what are some of the constraints acting against the growth of Critical Animal Studies? Interested parties are encouraged to submit abstracts for a short discussion paper (15 minute presentation) based on one of the following two broad themes:
1. Strategy and Collaboration. What areas of thematic convergence or shared emphasis might we identify, to ensure that the whole of our efforts is somehow more than the sum of our many parts? What specific interventions or campaigns might we as intellectuals commit ourselves to in the near term, in order to impact knowledge production at the national and international levels? How might we strengthen collaborative efforts across national borders? How might our encounters across disciplines (and national cultures) generate new collaborative projects, actions, concepts, strategies, and theories? How can they mobilise productive sites and forms of resistance and innovation against diverse manifestations of animal oppression?
2. The Future of CAS within the Disciplines. As we look toward the future of CAS from our own individual disciplinary locations, what opportunities and challenges do we see for expanding the influence of CAS within those disciplines? What should the relationship be between CAS and mainstream animal studies? What would a more effective CAS political science, CAS economics, CAS literature, CAS geography, CAS sociology, CAS education, and so on, look like? What priorities might we set for these CAS disciplinary ‘subfields’ do? What should be their specific powers and effects?
The session will be devoted to a discussion of the Symposium themes, with the aim of reaching consensus on new directions for Critical Animal Studies. Everyone is welcome to attend, but you will need to pre-register by emailing mindinganimals@gmail.com . Papers, however, will primarily be solicited by personal invitation of the organisers. However, interested scholars who have a strong wish to present should feel free to send a paper or paper abstract directly to the Symposium organiser, John Sanbonmatsu ( js@wpi.edu ), for consideration (no later than June 10).
Special note: the discussion will continue during a special lunchtime roundtable during the Minding Animals conference (date to be announced). Participants need not plan to attend the Minding Animals conference in order to participate in the ICAS Symposium; however, you will need to be a Minding Animals delegate to attend the lunchtime roundtable.
To be kept informed of developments regarding the 2012 conference, please email your details (name, affiliation and email address only) to the following email address: mindinganimals@gmail.com