Animals at Large: Critical Animal Studies perspectives on wild, feral, and free-living animals
This 3-day conference will be hybrid: it will take place at the Cinéma de Sève at Concordia University in Montreal and on zoom.
There will be 3 keynotes and more than 30 speakers.
Free registration: https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/social-justice-centre/2026/08/critical-animal-studies.html
Free vegan food will be served (please register early to help us plan the quantities).
Program:
August 5
2:30 - 3:45 p.m. - Welcome and Opening Keynote: Stephanie Rutherford (Trent University), “Canids and Canada: Wolves, Coyotes and Regimes of Violence and Belonging”
4:00 – 5:15 p.m. - Artist-Activist Plenary: Shannon Johnstone (Meredith College), “Photography, Animals, and Activism: Centering Animals Through an Ethics of Sight”; moderator Deborah Hardt (University of Wollongong in Dubai)
5:15 – 6:30 p.m. – Shannon Johnstone Photography Exhibit and Reception
August 6
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. – Wild Animal Attacks
Emelia Quinn (University of Ottawa), “When Animals Attack: The Comedy and Camp of Wild Animal Revenge”
Susmita Roy (University of Alberta) “Who Produces the ‘Tiger Widow’? Ecology, Patriarchy, and Systemic Marginalization”
Ian Hanesworth (University of Utah), “Wolf Mothers & Man Things: Agency, Emotionality, and Personhood in Ursula LeGuin’s ‘The Wife’s Story’”
10:30 – 10:45 a.m. – Break
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. – Feral Intimacies: Care and Control in Interspecies Relations
Misha Solomon (Concordia University), “Goon at Love Park”
Ishaan Selby (Concordia University), “‘Big, Furry, Asymmetrical Balls’: Wildness, Feral Sex, and Ownership in Marian Engel’s Bear”
Jesse Arsenault (Concordia University), “The Wildness of Interspecies Desire in South African Literature and Law”
12:15 – 1:15 p.m. – Lunch
1:15 – 3:15 p.m. – Wild Politics
Pablo Castello (University of Denver), “The Territorial Rights of Wild Animals: Justification”
Esther Palm (Université de Montréal), “Travail Animal et critique du sauvage en théorie politique”
Christiane Bailey (Concordia University), “Renouncing violence and doing politics with wild and liminal animals in Donaldson and Kymlicka’s Animals and the Right to Politics”
Agata Kowaleska (Jagiellonian University), “Feralizing: Reimagining Future Liberations in Europe”
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. – Break
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. – Vermin, Pests and Invasive Species
Emily Major, “The Boogeymen of Our Forests: Anti-Possum Rhetoric and the Construction of Fear in Dominant Conservation Messaging in New Zealand”
Zoei Sutton (Flinders University) & Kate Hall, “Feral Catastrophe: Analyzing the Narrative Construction of Australian Cats”
Lauren Corman (Brock University), “Criminal/Animal: Trump’s Criminalization of Immigrants and Vilification of Nonhuman Animals”
August 7
9:00 – 10:15 a.m. – Keynote: Catia Faria (Complutense University of Madrid), “Compassion by Design: Aligning AI with the Welfare of Wild Animals”
10:15 – 10:30 a.m. – Break
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Media Analyses
Mathieu Chaput (Université TÉLUQ) & Jacinthe Dupuis (Université de Montréal), “The Communicative Constitution of Liminal Animals in the ‘Deer Saga’”
Briana Magnuson (Western University) & Tony Weis (Western University), “HPAI in the Wild: A Critical Analysis of Media Coverage of the Panzootic Crisis”
Branislava Vičar (University of Maribor), “The Conservation Discourse of Native Animal Species as Nationalist Narrative: The Case of the Marble Trout”
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 p.m. – Wild Horses
Sabine Sassner (University of Texas at Dallas), “Movement vs. Behaviour: Visibility and Agency of Equines”
Lucy Horswill (Falmouth University), “From ‘Semi-Wild’ to Surplus: Language and Disposal at British Drift Sales”
Kelly Struthers Montford (Toronto Metropolitan University) & Chloë Taylor (University of Alberta), “Wild Mustang Prison Programs in the American Southwest”
2:30 – 2:45 p.m. – Break
2:45 – 4:15 p.m. – Intersection of Behavioural Ecology and Critical Animal Studies: The Ethical Costs and Benefits of Primate Research in Wild, Free-Ranging, and Rehabilitative Contexts
Facilitator: Mikaela Gerwing (Concordia University); Presenters: Nève Djevalikian-Couture, Italo Ferreira Perreira, Maya Moghrabi, Viviane Aurora Oliviera, & Brogan M. Stewart (all presenters from Concordia University)
4:15 – 4:30 p.m. – Break
4:30 – 6:00 p.m. – Sanctuary and Salvation
Sal Renshaw (Nipissing University) “Saving By Any Other Name: Sanctuaries, Arks, and the Governance of Animal Lives in the Anthropocene”
Stephanie Eccles (Toronto Metropolitan University), “Farmed Animals in Extreme Weather Events: Disaster Response Pathways and Foreclosures of Wildness”
Darren Chang (University of Sydney), “Contesting Wildness: The Farmed Animal Sanctuary as Liminal Contact Zone”
Free registration: https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/social-justice-centre/2026/08/critical-animal-studies.html
There will be 3 keynotes and more than 30 speakers.
Free registration: https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/social-justice-centre/2026/08/critical-animal-studies.html
Free vegan food will be served (please register early to help us plan the quantities).
Program:
August 5
2:30 - 3:45 p.m. - Welcome and Opening Keynote: Stephanie Rutherford (Trent University), “Canids and Canada: Wolves, Coyotes and Regimes of Violence and Belonging”
4:00 – 5:15 p.m. - Artist-Activist Plenary: Shannon Johnstone (Meredith College), “Photography, Animals, and Activism: Centering Animals Through an Ethics of Sight”; moderator Deborah Hardt (University of Wollongong in Dubai)
5:15 – 6:30 p.m. – Shannon Johnstone Photography Exhibit and Reception
August 6
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. – Wild Animal Attacks
Emelia Quinn (University of Ottawa), “When Animals Attack: The Comedy and Camp of Wild Animal Revenge”
Susmita Roy (University of Alberta) “Who Produces the ‘Tiger Widow’? Ecology, Patriarchy, and Systemic Marginalization”
Ian Hanesworth (University of Utah), “Wolf Mothers & Man Things: Agency, Emotionality, and Personhood in Ursula LeGuin’s ‘The Wife’s Story’”
10:30 – 10:45 a.m. – Break
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. – Feral Intimacies: Care and Control in Interspecies Relations
Misha Solomon (Concordia University), “Goon at Love Park”
Ishaan Selby (Concordia University), “‘Big, Furry, Asymmetrical Balls’: Wildness, Feral Sex, and Ownership in Marian Engel’s Bear”
Jesse Arsenault (Concordia University), “The Wildness of Interspecies Desire in South African Literature and Law”
12:15 – 1:15 p.m. – Lunch
1:15 – 3:15 p.m. – Wild Politics
Pablo Castello (University of Denver), “The Territorial Rights of Wild Animals: Justification”
Esther Palm (Université de Montréal), “Travail Animal et critique du sauvage en théorie politique”
Christiane Bailey (Concordia University), “Renouncing violence and doing politics with wild and liminal animals in Donaldson and Kymlicka’s Animals and the Right to Politics”
Agata Kowaleska (Jagiellonian University), “Feralizing: Reimagining Future Liberations in Europe”
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. – Break
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. – Vermin, Pests and Invasive Species
Emily Major, “The Boogeymen of Our Forests: Anti-Possum Rhetoric and the Construction of Fear in Dominant Conservation Messaging in New Zealand”
Zoei Sutton (Flinders University) & Kate Hall, “Feral Catastrophe: Analyzing the Narrative Construction of Australian Cats”
Lauren Corman (Brock University), “Criminal/Animal: Trump’s Criminalization of Immigrants and Vilification of Nonhuman Animals”
August 7
9:00 – 10:15 a.m. – Keynote: Catia Faria (Complutense University of Madrid), “Compassion by Design: Aligning AI with the Welfare of Wild Animals”
10:15 – 10:30 a.m. – Break
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Media Analyses
Mathieu Chaput (Université TÉLUQ) & Jacinthe Dupuis (Université de Montréal), “The Communicative Constitution of Liminal Animals in the ‘Deer Saga’”
Briana Magnuson (Western University) & Tony Weis (Western University), “HPAI in the Wild: A Critical Analysis of Media Coverage of the Panzootic Crisis”
Branislava Vičar (University of Maribor), “The Conservation Discourse of Native Animal Species as Nationalist Narrative: The Case of the Marble Trout”
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 p.m. – Wild Horses
Sabine Sassner (University of Texas at Dallas), “Movement vs. Behaviour: Visibility and Agency of Equines”
Lucy Horswill (Falmouth University), “From ‘Semi-Wild’ to Surplus: Language and Disposal at British Drift Sales”
Kelly Struthers Montford (Toronto Metropolitan University) & Chloë Taylor (University of Alberta), “Wild Mustang Prison Programs in the American Southwest”
2:30 – 2:45 p.m. – Break
2:45 – 4:15 p.m. – Intersection of Behavioural Ecology and Critical Animal Studies: The Ethical Costs and Benefits of Primate Research in Wild, Free-Ranging, and Rehabilitative Contexts
Facilitator: Mikaela Gerwing (Concordia University); Presenters: Nève Djevalikian-Couture, Italo Ferreira Perreira, Maya Moghrabi, Viviane Aurora Oliviera, & Brogan M. Stewart (all presenters from Concordia University)
4:15 – 4:30 p.m. – Break
4:30 – 6:00 p.m. – Sanctuary and Salvation
Sal Renshaw (Nipissing University) “Saving By Any Other Name: Sanctuaries, Arks, and the Governance of Animal Lives in the Anthropocene”
Stephanie Eccles (Toronto Metropolitan University), “Farmed Animals in Extreme Weather Events: Disaster Response Pathways and Foreclosures of Wildness”
Darren Chang (University of Sydney), “Contesting Wildness: The Farmed Animal Sanctuary as Liminal Contact Zone”
Free registration: https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/social-justice-centre/2026/08/critical-animal-studies.html
Where is it happening?
Cinéma De Sève - 1400 De Maisonneuve Ouest H-558, Montreal, QC, Canada, Quebec H3G 1M8
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherSocial Justice Centre / Centre de justice sociale
