Conference: Nonhuman Animals in the Age of Extinction and Mass Production

Plenary Speakers: , University of Sheffield and , University College Cork

• Deadline for Submission: 14 February 2024
• Date of conference: 17 May 2024
• Event Venue: UCD Humanities Institute; HI Seminar Room H.204
• Contact: [email protected]
• Principal organisers: Poulomi Choudhury and Deborah Schrijver

This one-day interdisciplinary conference will critically examine the paradoxical situation of nonhuman animal life in the age of mass extinction and mass production. This conference addresses one of the most urgent challenges facing humanity and other animals in the context of the climate crisis and the global capitalist system: the destruction of habitats and exploitation of animals that drives both extinction and consumption. We will explore how literature, film, visual art and other media perpetuate but also criticise and rethink the ethical, ecological and social implications of this scenario. At the core, this exploratory conference aims to foster a dialogue between (Critical) Animal Studies, Extinction Studies and Environmental Humanities, interdisciplinary fields that share ecological concerns but also have tensions.

Animal Studies, Extinction Studies and Environmental Humanities all have a strong focus on cultural critique, conservation and alternative ways of interspecies co-existence to build and protect ecosystem resilience to ensure human and animal survival. Yet, the main tension lies in ethical questions around the place of the animal in this, taking either an animal liberation or ecosystem protection approach (Ursula Heise, Dominic O'Key, Troy Vettese, John Miller). This conference hopes to scrutinise and transgress the borders of these already interdisciplinary areas of study to advance a critical awareness of the ethical, ecological, and social implications of our interactions with other animals in various contexts and domains.

We invite PhD scholars and ECRs from any discipline and field to engage with these questions. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Animals in art, literature, media and film
• Pandemic, contagion and animals
• Animal hybridity
• Moral philosophy and literature
• Ecohorror, ecogothic and related genres and modes
• Capitalism, colonialism, postcolonialism
• Meat, food production, land use, new food technologies such as in-vitro/ cultured meat, and mass extinction
• Anthropocene and anthropocentrism
• De-extinction, conservation, resurrection
• Crip theory and animals
• Economies of extinction
• Animals in spaces of captivity or heterotopic spaces (such as zoos, CAFOs,
• performances, and medical settings)
• Afrofuturity, afropessimism, animality, extinction
• War, work, and animal
• Proposals in the intersections forms of race, class, gender, sexuality
• Animal activism and advocacy in extinction studies

We also invite researchers who cannot attend the conference in person to participate by submitting a poster proposal. We are particularly interested in visually striking, dramatic, creative, and innovative posters that effectively communicate your research in an engaging and novel manner. If selected, we will ask you to provide a longer piece of text (of about 250-400 words) that describes your research in further detail. This, along with your bio, will be uploaded to the conference website and viewable through the QR code on your poster. They will be printed through conference funding and prominently displayed at the venue, allowing you to showcase your research to a diverse audience. We hope that this approach will facilitate collaboration and the exchange of ideas beyond geographical limitations.

For individual presentations and posters, please submit an abstract (no more than 350 words) and a bio (150 words). Also, indicate if your submission is for a poster or a panel. For pre-formed panels, please submit an abstract for the panel (no more than 500 words and a bio for each speaker. Please also include a main subject field plus secondary subject fields in the application.

The conference will be held in English on 17 May 2024. Attendance is free, but registration is mandatory on Eventbrite. Please email [email protected] by 14 February 2024. Please let us know if you have any audiovisual or technical requirements that you might need for your presentation. Accepted presenters will have a maximum of 15 minutes for individual presentations, and panels will consist of three presenters with 45 minutes allocated for the panel session, in addition to a 10-minute Q&A. Presenters will be notified of acceptance by 2 April 2024.

A vegan lunch and refreshments will be provided. While this event will primarily be in-person, we will facilitate hybrid attendance on Zoom and online registrations.

We are immensely grateful to the UCD College of Arts and Humanities for funding this conference. Also, thanks for the kind help and support from Pooja Sastry, HI Resident Scholar.

Host or Publisher UCD Environmental Humanities