News Bulletin - Australian Animal Studies Group

Coming
up
Coming
up
Deadline for abstracts: 15 January 2012
(Please note that the International Conference of Bioethics takes place in Rotterdam, the
Netherlands, in the last week of June 2012. There is also an Animal Law Conference at the
University of Zurich on 7-8 July 2012: Animal Law - Reflecting on European, American and Asian
Concepts)
For more information, including how to submit abstracts, see: http://www.mindinganimals.com
ISAZ 2012: The Arts and Sciences of Human-Animal Interaction
11-13 July 2012. Cambridge, UK
This conference is open to papers and posters from all disciplines relevant to the study of human–
animal interaction. The organisers also welcome the submission of short films and video-works on
the subject of human–animal interaction.
2012 marks the 25th anniversary of Anthrozoös: Journal of the International Society for
Anthrozoology, a special event in the journal‘s history.
Topics will include:
- Animals and human–animal interaction in film, television, literature, music and art
- Attitudes to animals and animal issues (contemporary and historical)
- The impact of human–animal interactions on the health and well-being of people and
animals
- Cultural studies of human–animal interaction
- Animal welfare and ethical issues
Speakers include: Jonathan Burt, Karen Rosa, Sam Gosling
Deadline for abstracts and short films: 1 February
Early bird bookings available now – book before March 2012 for a discounted price. Online
submissions also now open. For more information see: http://www.isaz2012.com/index.html
Cosmopolitan Animals
26-27 October 2012. Institute of English Studies, London
CALL FOR PAPERS
Recent scholarship on human-animal relationships has begun to explore our sharing, co-existing,
and ‗becoming with‘ animals. Such a scholarly focus brings into perspective new possibilities and
permutations of cosmopolitanism, calling for a fresh awareness that animals are fellow creatures,
that hosting and hospitality are not restricted to relationships between humans, and that
worldliness is far from being a human monopoly. In what ways can we conceptualise
cosmopolitanisms which are not solely ‗human‘, and where and how are such relationships made
possible?
This conference, under the theme of ‗Cosmopolitan Animals‘, seeks to interrogate and decentre
humanist metanarratives that have dominated our thinking and ways of living, while looking to the
many non-human others who populate the cosmos. Animal cosmopolitanism not only raises the
serious issues of our responsibility for, and responsiveness to, animal others (Derrida), or what
Isabelle Stengers calls ‗cosmopolitics‘, which according to Haraway, includes our ‗bearing the
mortal consequences‘ for the decisions we make over animal bodies and worlds. Our rapidly interlinking
world also urgently requires coordination between the local and the international in
addressing issues that concern humans and non-humans equally, including the detritus of empires
and their aftermaths, new intensities of exploitation and commodification, and new pressures of
18