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Human-Animal Studies Newsletter
March 2019
Dear Colleague,

Welcome to the current issue of the Animals & Society Institute's Human-Animal Studies e- newsletter. I hope that this issue has information that is of use to you. Please let me know what you'd like to see! For future editions of this newsletter, please send submissions to [email protected] .
ASI News
We are currently reviewing the applications for the third annual ASI-UIUC Summer Institute , to be held this summer at the University of Illinois and will be notifying applicants in the next two weeks. Keep an eye out to hear more about who this year’s participants will be!
 
We are very pleased to announce that the current issue of Sloth , our online journal for undergraduate and early graduate students in Human-Animal Studies, is out! Sloth is an online bi-annual journal that publishes international, multi-disciplinary writing by undergraduate students and recent (within three years) graduates that deals with human/non-human animal relationships from the perspectives of the social sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences. Sloth showcases the important and innovative contributions of undergraduates, giving those who are interested in human/non-human animal relationships a way to contribute to and engage with the field, as well as an opportunity to build their skills, knowledge, and resumes in anticipation of their graduate school careers. This issue features the following articles:
 
        
Funding and Job Opportunities
A two-year position as an Institute for Human-Animal Connection (IHAC) Research Fellow is available to a recent graduate or anticipated 2019 graduate of a Master of Social Work (MSW) program. The overall goal of this position is to provide the Research Fellow with robust training in social science research with a focus on the Human-Animal-Environment Interaction field, in preparation for a career in research. The Institute for Human-Animal Connection is a specialized program within the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver which intentionally elevates the value of the living world and the interrelationship and health of people, other animals, and the environment. This is accomplished through social science-informed education, applied knowledge, research and advocacy, with an ethical regard for all species. Focusing on three core areas of Therapeutic Human-Animal Interventions, Animals in Communities and One Health, IHAC operationalizes its mission through innovation in education, research and advocacy. The IHAC Research Fellow will be an integral member of the IHAC research program at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work, supervised by the Institute’s Director of Research with direct reporting to the IHAC Research Associates. An emphasis will be placed on creating academic products including funding proposals, peer-reviewed journal articles, conference abstracts, and other publications to formally communicate research findings and build the Fellow’s professional portfolio. After two years, the IHAC Research Fellow will be prepared for doctoral programs and/or research within academic, non-profit, or for-profit environments. Find out more here.

NYU Animal Studies is thrilled to announce that we are now accepting submissions for a new award and workshop on ending factory farming . We invite graduate students and early career faculty (i.e., faculty within 5 years of graduation) in any field to submit new or recent (i.e., unpublished or published within one year of submission) work related to this topic. We will select up to three papers for a $1,000 award and funded travel to NYU for a workshop on ending factory farming. The NYU Animal Studies Workshop on Ending Factory Farming will be a one-day event in Spring 2020. Each selected author will present their work to an audience of NYU Animal Studies faculty, students, and community members. There will also be a keynote address and a dinner. This workshop will be an excellent opportunity for authors to discuss their research and meet other people working in this important and neglected space. We welcome papers in any field in the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences that can contribute to our understanding about ending factory farming. Please email [email protected] by September 1 with the subject heading “Award and Workshop Submission” and the following materials in PDF format: CV, short cover letter, and 8000 word paper draft.

Since 2007,  the National Sporting Library & Museum  has hosted a fellowship program to study history, art, literature, anthropology, and sport, with research projects ranging from the architecture of horse stables, history of horsemanship, equestrian fashion, and poetry, to falconry, veterinary science, environmental conservation and fly fishing. Past Fellowship recipients include post-graduate students, authors, curators, professors and scholars researching a variety of subjects related to field sports. The diversity of Fellows’ projects reflects the wide variety of material within the F. Ambrose Clark Rare Book Room and the  NSLM collections . Topics have included history, art, literature, anthropology, and sport, with research projects ranging from the architecture of horse stables, history of horsemanship, equestrian fashion, and poetry, to falconry, veterinary science, environmental conservation and fly fishing. University faculty, graduate students, museum professionals, librarians, independent researchers, writers, and interested others are encouraged to apply. Fellowships are awarded for two months or less. If applying from abroad, please consult applicable Visa guidelines before making your application. Maximum stipend award is $2,000 per month. Residence on campus is available for award recipients. Please justify all expenditures. Required documents include:
  • Completed application form
  • CV or Resume Research proposal of 1000 words or less
  • Budget (not to exceed $2,000 monthly) and choice of dates (January – December 2020)
  • Letter of recommendation from advisor or colleague, emailed separately
Applications Due by August 15, 2020 . Please submit application to  [email protected] .

The  Special Collections Research Center  (SCRC) at the North Carolina State University Libraries is excited to offer the first annual Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowship. The fellowship has been established through the generosity of the  Culture & Animals Foundation  in memory of Tom Regan to promote scholarly research in animal rights. CAF continues to offer annual grants to scholars and artists working on these issues.
The fellowship will support the use of the SCRC’s  Animal Rights Archive —the largest scholarly archive of animal rights collections in the country. The SCRC builds collections of rare and unique materials to support the research and teaching needs of the university, emphasizing established and emerging areas at the university and corresponding to strengths within the Libraries’ overall collection. These rich collections serve as a foundation for generations of scholarship in animal protection, impacting and supporting scholars from across the nation. The fellowship provides a $4,000 stipend awarded to a qualified applicant for research completed in residence at the SCRC for a term of no less than four weeks to begin on or after July 1. Applicants must submit (electronic preferred) the researcher’s curriculum vitae, a cover page including name, address, phone, email, institutional affiliation, current position/title, a project outline and rationale for use of the collections, the names of three appropriate references, and a detailed budget. Eligible expenses include travel (air, train, or bus ticket charges; car rental; mileage using a personal vehicle; and parking fees.) Also included are lodging, meals, and reproduction expenses. Graduate students should also submit a letter of recommendation from a faculty advisor or theses director on the significance of the research topic and abilities of the candidate. Applications are due annually by April 30 . For more information and to submit applications, please contact Gwynn Thayer at [email protected]
HAS News
Beacon College, in Leesburg, Florida, has a new Anthrozoology Major and Minor ! The college’s new major explores the extraordinary relationships and interactions that people have with animals, combining scientific study and exploration with theoretical applications in the areas of animal welfare, animal behavior and conservation. Our unique approach includes classroom instruction and hands-on learning.  Find out more here!

Courses on Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law are a series of four specialised courses designed to provide participants with an in-depth appreciation of animal welfare science, ethics and law and are aimed at anyone with a professional or personal interest in animal welfare. With a legacy of over two decades, CAWSEL takes place from the 8 to the 20 September in Cambridge UK, in an informal, classroom-style environment where 15 world renowned animal welfare experts deliver the material through a range of presentations, videos and open discussions. Every year we welcome participants from all corners of the word and grants are available to fund attendance. Early Bird rates and funding applications close on April 30 .
 
CAWSEL is comprised of four individual courses:
·        Welfare Concepts and Assessment, and Zoo Animal Welfare , 8-10 September 2019
·        Law and Companion Animal, And Horse Welfare , 11-14 September 2019
·        Principles of Ethics in Relation to Animal Use , 16-18 September 2019
·        Farm Animal Welfare , 19-20 September 2019
New Books
Following are some of the books coming out this month that we are excited about!

Kwasny, M. (2019). Putting on the Dog: The Animal Origins of What We Wear . Trinity University Press.
Marceau, Justin. (2019). Beyond cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment. Cambridge.
Mattila, R. Ito, S. Fink, S. (2019). Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World . Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
 
To read about them, visit this link!
New Research
Journals
Politics and Animals  is pleased to announce that the 2019 issue is open for  submissions !
Politics and Animals  is a peer-reviewed, open access journal that explores the human-animal relationship from the vantage point of political science and political theory. It hosts international, multidisciplinary research and debate — conceptual and empirical — on the consequences and possibilities that human-animal relations have for politics and vice versa.
As part of our 2019 issue, we are also happy and excited to include the first instalment of a new section of the journal: The Politics and Animals Forum (“The P/A Forum”): The P/A Forum is a place for scholars, policy makers, and those involved in the community/ies (e.g., activists, organizers, etc) to initiate conversations, dialogues, and debates around policy and contemporary issues related to human-animal relations. A submission to The P/A Forum may incorporate text as well as multimedia and is divided into three formats: Response Articles, Moderated Discussions, and Interviews & Symposia. For more information on the P/A Forum, its three formats or to see what is already included as part of the 2019 issue, please visit us at  www.politicsandanimals.org . Politics and Animals  publishes articles on a rolling basis within the current issue. Articles accepted for publication are added continuously to the current issue until it closes, ensuring the fastest possible turnaround times for authors. 

The interdisciplinary journal  Animals  invites submissions to a special issue on the following topic: Animal Ethics: Questioning the Orthodoxy. Guest editors: Herwig Grimm and Susana Monsó (Messerli Research Institute Vienna). Deadline for submissions: September 30 .
It has become commonplace to refer to the success of animal ethics and the animal turn in philosophy. Since Singer and Regan published their ground-breaking works more than forty years ago, animal ethics has become an institutionalised field of research. This is mirrored in the appearance of entire journals, book series, text books, BA, MA and PhD programmes, conferences, research institutes, etc. devoted to it. To use a metaphor, animal ethics is no longer a toddler, but a teenager, full of energy, beginning to question its heritage and its future. This Special Issue aims to channel this rebellious spirit in order to help lay down the foundations for a prosperous adulthood. Therefore, we invite submissions that call into question the orthodoxy in animal ethics. With this Special Issue, we aim to deliver an overview of new solutions to canonical problems and new problems that were previously unseen. We expect to map out new directions in the field of animal ethics and contribute to clarifying the self-understanding of the discipline. Please kindly note that for submissions to this special issue there is a word limit of 8,000 words (references not included). Further information can be found in this  link . Informal inquiries can be sent to:  [email protected]

The editors are organizing a Special Issue on the psycho-social impact of human-animal interactions (HAIs) on health in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health . The venue is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. This Special Issue, guest edited by Aubrey Fine, is open to any subject area related to the psycho-social benefits of human-animal interactions. The listed keywords suggest just a few of the many possibilities. Manuscripts should be submitted online at  www.mdpi.com  by  registering  and  logging in to this website . Once you are registered,  click here to go to the submission form . Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. Please visit the  Instructions for Authors  page before submitting a manuscript. The  Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this  open access  journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service  prior to publication or during author revisions. Deadline for manuscript submissions:  September 30.
Upcoming Meetings
Are you going to a conference this year? If so, we would love your help with distributing ASI flyers to promote our human-animal studies programs! If you’d like to help, please email [email protected] . Thank you!

Understanding our companion animals . March 30, University of Winchester.

British Animal Studies Network Meeting: Emotion . April 26-27, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
 
Maritime Animals: Telling Stories of Animals at sea . April 26-27, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, UK.

ANIMAL REMAINS: Biennial Conference of The University of Sheffield Animal Studies Research Centre (ShARC). April 29-30th, Humanities Research Institute, The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Animals and the Home . May 1, Institute of Historical Research, London, UK.

6th Conference of the European Association for Critical Animal Studies (EACAS): “Rethinking revolution: Nonhuman animals, antispeciesism and power. May 22-24, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

Recasting Animals and Interspecies Relations: Contesting Anthropocentrism across Disciplines. May 15, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia.


Sex and Nature: 1800-2018. June 10-11, University of Exeter.

Decolonizing Animals: AASA 2019.  June 30 — July 3, Ōtautahi/Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand.


ASI-UIUC Summer Institute in Human Animal Studies. July 14-21, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
European Summer School “Interspecies Relationality ." July 28-August 4, University of Kassel.

Animal Rights and Animal Politics in Asia: International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS 11). July 16-19, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands.


APA Summit for Animals. August 8-11, Chicago.

Beastly Modernisms . September 12-13, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland.

Embodied Equines. Nov. 13-15, 2019, Cal Poly Pomona. Any questions may be directed to  [email protected] .

British Animal Studies Meeting: 'Movements.' November 22-23, University of Leeds November 22-23.
Calls for Papers: Conferences
Human–Animal Studies Summer School: Companion Animals in (Late) Modernity: The Shared Lives of Humans and Other Animals . June 3-7, ICS-ULisboa Lisbon, Portugal. Lecturers include Margo DeMello, Animals & Society Institute, USA; Verónica Policarpo, ICS-ULisboa, Portugal; Nora Schuurman, University of Turku, Finland; and David Redmalm, University of Uppsala, Sweden.

This course examines the ambiguous status of companion animals in modern society, and works as an introduction to theoretical and methodological issues central to the field of human-animal studies. The course also intends to be a laboratory of experimentation of new ideas for young scholars as well as guiding participants in their ongoing projects on human–animal relationships. The course focuses on the following questions:
  • How do companion animals and humans engage in practices inside and outside home and the co-building of hybrid communities? To what extent are these practices human-centred?
  • How are dichotomies such as nature/culture and animal/human played out in human-animal relationships? How do human–animal relationships produce animality?
  • How can animal agency be theoretically conceptualized? How are power relations enacted and negotiated between humans and companion animals?
  • What kind of methods can be used to study human–animal relationships?
  • How do humans grieve the death of companion animals?
 
The course spans over one week – five full days of lectures, discussions and a field trip. The participants will prepare by reading a collection of mandatory and optional texts. Each participant will also present a planned or ongoing human–animal studies thesis project, followed by a discussion with lecturers and course participants. The applicant must hold a Master’s degree, and be preferentially accepted to a PhD programme, in any field of social sciences and humanities (sociology, geography, history, anthropology, ethnology, literature, psychology, philosophy, law, etc.). Degrees in other disciplines with a link to the study of human–animal relations will also be considered (biology, veterinary science etc.). In all cases, the applicant should have basic knowledge of the theories and methods within social sciences or humanities. The applicant should be planning or working on a thesis project connected to human–animal studies. Course fee: 250 euros to be paid by all participants.
 
The new deadline for applications is April 30 . Send your application via email with a doc, docx or pdf file to [email protected] . The file should include your name, contact details, level of education, the name of the university where you are currently affiliated, and a description of 500 words of a planned or ongoing thesis project. After acceptance, participants will be asked to submit an additional 1500 words about their project.  

Call for Papers: “Animals in Literature and Film” (Permanent Panel) Midwest Modern Languages Association November 13–17, 2019 in Chicago, IL. 
This year's "Animals in Literature and Film" panel at the Midwest Modern Languages Association's annual meeting (November 13–17, 2019 in Chicago, IL) invites papers engaging the conference’s theme of “Doubles, Duality, and Doppelgangers,” specifically how works of literature or film reflect or confound perceived differences between human and non-human animals. Discussing his cat, Jacques Derrida asks in “The animal that therefore I am,” “How can an animal look you in the face?” He goes on to consider the philosophical and moral issues in the word “animal,” as a word imposed on others by human beings. In response, Donna Haraway criticizes Derrida for not “seriously consider[ing] an alternative form of engagement ... one that risked knowing something more about cats and how to look back, perhaps even scientifically, biologically, and therefore also philosophically and intimately.” Haraway’s comment points to the continued privileging of the human over the animal, even in philosophical discourse that positions humans alongside animals. Art often explores this privileging at the same time it questions or exploits it. The narrator of Daphne du Maurier’s “Blue Lenses” wakes up after surgery only to see that everyone—every human—has suddenly turned into an animal. When she reluctantly looks at herself in the mirror, she realizes that she too was an animal all along. What happens when we look in the mirror and see an animal staring back at us? This panel will examine the parallels and similarities between humans and animals in literature and film. We invite submissions from all fields that engage in this topic from a literary, cinematic, or art historical angle both in our own cultural moment and beyond it. While we welcome submissions that engage in all languages and literatures, please plan to deliver your paper in English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding bibliography) should be sent to Margaret Day ( [email protected] ) by April 5 . Please include your name, institutional affiliation, the title of your paper, and any special audio-visual needs in the body of your email.

Call for Papers: AAA Annual Meeting November 20-24, 2019 Vancouver: Indigenous Multispecies Relationality: Trans-species Kin and Care of the Relational Self.  
We are currently seeking presenters to participate in our AAA panel. This panel explores Indigenous more-than-human relationality through concepts of kinship, care, and self, with a particular focus on how these play out across species lines. While this discussion will certainly address what constitutes a self and nonhuman selves and/or personhood, the focus will be on relational concepts and practicesof negotiating boundaries of species, making kin, and caring across species lines. What are appropriate intersubjective relations with nonhumans, and what ethical implications emerge when considering kin and care in multispecies communities with unequal access to power and resources? For those interested in this panel, please email a 250-word abstract and a title to the organizers by  March 31 :
 
The  Equine History Collective (EHC) invites submissions for individual presentations for its second annual conference, to take place Nov. 13-15, 2019 at Cal Poly Pomona, in partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library. Submissions may investigate any equine in the past, including donkeys, mules, zebras and onagers. The theme of the conference is  “Embodied Equines,”  inviting papers that explore both how people have understood, shaped, sustained, and used equine bodies, and tried to capture and understand equine experiences. For instance: How do perceptions of an equine’s body influence its value, and the work to which it is put? What is the relationship between an equine’s body and its broader environment? How have people interpreted the relationship between equine behavior, emotion, and thought? Topics might include training, feeding, veterinary care, production, disposal, or behavior. The EHC’s purpose is to foster equine history research and its dissemination, and promote collaboration between equine historians in all disciplines. As such, we encourage submissions from anyone who researches equine history. This includes, but is not limited to, scholars in other disciplines other than history, like agriculture, archaeology, art history, and literature, and researchers in non-academic settings, such as public historians and independent scholars. Submissions from scholars at any career stage are welcome. The deadline for submission is April 19.  For individual submissions, please send abstracts (250 words or less) and a one-page CV to  [email protected] . For panel submissions, please send a single proposal which includes: panelists names and C.V.s, chair name, panel abstract (150 words or less), and individual abstracts (200 words or less each). The Program Committee will notify all those who submitted proposals of its decision by the end of May. 
Any questions may be directed to  [email protected] .

The British Animal Studies Network's upcoming meeting, 'Movements,' will be held at the University of Leeds on November 22-23, under the direction of Lourdes Orozco, Jonathan Saha and Tom Tyler. If you are interested in giving a paper addressing the topic ‘Movements’ from whatever disciplinary perspective please submit your title, with an abstract of no more than 200 words and a brief biography (also of no more than 200 words). These should be included within your email – i.e. not as attachments. Please send them to [email protected] . The deadline for abstracts is July 19 . Presentations will be 20 minutes long and we hope to include work by individuals at different career stages. We would welcome papers that deal with such issues in contemporary and historical settings, and would especially like to see papers that address these issues from contexts outside the UK, including the Global South. Papers are welcomed from across animal studies, including disciplines such as (but not limited to) geography, anthropology, sociology, literary studies, art history, classical studies, history, science and technology studies, ethology, philosophy, psychology, behavioural sciences and ecology.
Calls for Papers: Books
Animals and Race -- Edited collection, by Jonathan W. Thurston
When Iago informs Brabantio that “a black ram is tupping your white ewe” (I.i.87-88) in Shakespeare’s Othello, he is doing more than identifying the two protagonists’ races. He is referring to the early modern agricultural fact that black wool was undesirable, as per Leonard Mascall, and that black rams would threaten the livelihood of shepherds by decreasing the profitability of a flock of sheep. In this way, the black ram becomes a metaphor not just for interracial taboo but for generational corruption and loss of social capital due to racist structures of power. The study of nonhuman animals and the study of human race are often quite distinct for scholars across disciplines. However, perhaps there is more overlap than one would think. In what ways has race formation been tied to animals? Why do animals often become implicated in racial slurs? What does it mean for there to be a black panther representing a black political group or even standing in as the token black superhero? What does it mean to have a mostly black cast of voice actors in the original The Lion King, except its star role? This collection will look closely at the ways that critical animal studies and critical race studies intersect, tracking the blurring of concepts like race and breed. It will ask how race has always been tied into questions of the animal–human divide. How has knowledge of animals informed our knowledge of race, and vice versa? How have codes of animal behavior affected our racial discourse and our race thinking? And how have these two seemingly disparate approaches danced with each other in academia? These are only a few of the questions this book will attempt to tackle. I invite chapters that approach animals and race from a wide array of cultures, periods, and disciplines. Topics that are not anglocentric and are before the twentieth century are welcome. Send abstracts of around 250 words and a brief academic biography to Jonathan W. Thurston ( [email protected] ) by July 1. The chapters themselves (5,000-8,000 words) will be due in January 2020. Book proposal will be sent first to Routledge’s Human-Animal series.
As you can see, there is a tremendous amount of activity and progress going on today in the field of human-animal studies, and we always invite your input and participation. Your donation to the Animals & Society Institute will enable us to continue to expand the field in many more ways and work in conjunction with others around the world who share these goals.

Thank you for supporting our Human-Animal Studies efforts!







Margo DeMello
Human-Animal Studies Director
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