Friday 17th- Saturday 18th March 2017
University of York, UK
Keynote speakers include: Professor Diana Donald and Professor Timothy Morton
This two-day interdisciplinary conference is designed to bring together those in the humanities whose work explores humanimal relations
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In particular, it seeks
to investigate the various, and often ambiguous, ways in which animals
were consumed by humans symbolically and materially. Through various
methods of consumption, typically characterised by exploitation and
violence, human society and accepted definitions of what it means to be
human, have nevertheless been fundamentally shaped by animals. Whether
on the end of a gourmand’s fork or a whaler’s harpoon, on the lap of an
aristocrat or by the side of a beggar, conjured as majestic and wild by
the artist’s brush or as haggard and caged by the eyes of the menagerie
visitor, in private homes and city streets, in the artistic or literary
imagination, the bodies of animals (alive or dead) were ubiquitous
during this period. Indeed, they provided both the fashionable feather
and the faithful companion; they were, simultaneously, consumed, feared,
defended, caged and loved. The minds of Georgians and Victorians were
filled with treacherous tigers and devoted dogs with whom they forged
complex relationships and encounters – and to whom they were much more
than mere material bodies.
Conference themes include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
Violence and Killing
Food
Sentience
Commodification
Science, Evolution and Vivisection
Hunting
Imperialism and Exploration
Confinement and Exhibition
Art, Film, Literature and Music
Animal welfare and animal rights
Gender, Race, Sexuality, Religion, and Class
Proposals are invited for short papers (20 minutes)
Abstracts of up to 250 words, along with a short 50 word bio should be sent to: consuminganimals2017@gmail.com
Deadline for abstracts: December 14th 2016
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