Image: Hartmut Kiewert, by way of the Critical Animals Conference
Darling chickens, there is a Call for Papers that you’ll want to pay attention to — especially if you have been itching to get over to Germany. This could provide the perfect excuse.
The 3rd Annual European Conference for Critical Animal Studies is coming up on November 28-30, and they are currently seeking proposals (of no more than 500 words) for presentations (15-20 minutes), panels, roundtables, and workshops. The theme of this year’s conference is Technoscientific Developments and Critical Animal Studies. (So coincidental, since I was just ruminating on technoscientific developments this morning, over my soy latte …)
So far, some of the highlights of this groundbreaking conference include Dr. Anat Pick, who will be one of their keynotes (don’t miss Anat’s interview on our podcast, nor her recent moving OHH feature entitled “Convenient Untruths“), and a screening of Maximum Tolerated Dose (we interviewed filmmaker Karol Orzechowski on our podcast, on the same episode where we reviewed the film — glowingly). There’s tons more being planned too, including an art exhibit, and a roundtable on the end of animal experimentation. Want in?
The European Conference for Critical Animal Studies will take place this year in Karlsruhe, Germany (but will be in English). Their website has a whole lot more information about their calls for papers, but check out some of their areas of inquiry:
- Nonhuman animals and new technologies (such as biotechnology and neurosciences)
- Intersection in exploitation of nonhuman animals and the environment (such as climate change, “vertical farming”)
- Critical perspectives on domestication and breeding
- Critique of animal experiments
- Alternative technologies and alternative sciences
- Interventions in and redefinitions of nature
- Critical perspectives on ethology and the discourse on cognitive-abilities of nonhuman animals
- Posthumanism and critical animal studies
- “Bioart” and artistic use of technoscience to reflect on animal rights
- Future of critical animal studies
- Feminism (e.g. biotechnology and sexual violation)
- Cultural and literary representations of nonhuman animals from a CAS perspective
- Critical Animal Studies vs Human-Animal Studies and the problem of translation
- other areas relevant to Critical Animal Studies
The deadline for submissions is June 15.
By the way, in case you’re curious, according to Google Maps, Karlsruhe is only 6 hours from what I hear is the vegan mecca, Berlin. Perhaps you heard our recent podcast interview with Silja Kallsen-MacKenzie of the Albert Schweitzer Foundation? Silja, who is based in Berlin, could not stop singing the city’s praises, making this tofu-muncher hungry for more.
Regardless of whether your trip will result in a visit to the all-vegan grocery store chain Veganz — and even if you don’t bring me back a vegan wienerschnitzel — I’m just so thrilled that critical animal studies is such a quickly emerging field, and that it is gaining international recognition by some of the best voices in academia and animal rights. If you are lucky enough to attend this conference, make sure you tell me how it was.