On April 4th and 5th, 2019, Leiden University Centre for Arts in Society (LUCAS) will be hosting a conference called, Animals: Theory, Practice, and Representation. This graduate conference is an international and interdisciplinary platform where PhD and master students can present, exchange, and discuss research results and innovative theoretical insights with participants from diverse backgrounds.

This conference aims to rethink the relationships between humans and animals, in order to examine the ways in which these relationships are defined.

The field of human-animal studies has become a lively domain where diverse disciplines examine the divergences and convergences between humans and animals, their evolutions, demarcations, and entanglements. Not only do we conceptualize, historicize, and embody animals in our lives, but also produce, preserve, and consume them, pushing some to the verge of extinction and creating others through genetic modification. The fact that animals play a significant part in most aspects of our lives, thus invites us to reflect on our relationships with them.

By drawing attention to such concerns, we would like to invite participants from a wide spectrum of disciplines to contribute to this intriguing field of inquiry.

Registrations opened until April, 1st 2019. The entrance fee (€38.50) includes a 2-day access to the conference with lunches, tea, coffee, drinks on Friday evening and a short group excursion on Thursday or Friday.

For more information check our Facebook and Twitter.

Day 1 April 4, 2019
Location: Rijksmusem Boerhaave

8.45-9.30 Registration/Coffee

9.30-10:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks
LUCAS, Boerhaave Museum and LUCAS graduate conference committee

10.00-11.00 Keynote Lecture
Tobias Linné (Lund University)

11.00 – 12.00 Panel 1: Living with Animals

‘Conserving Cows’: Reimagining Cattle from Actual Animals to Mythical Beings in South Asia - Varsha Patel

Here doggy! It’s prayer time - Efi Mosseri

12.00-13.30 Lunch Break

13.30-15.00 Panel 2: Collecting

Between ‘naturalia’ and ‘artificialia’: the transformative nature of decorative Nautilus shells and early modern collecting - Melinda Susanto

Catching squirrels - Maria Aresin

From birds to pictures: How to transfer knowledge in a 16th-century natural history treatise - Christine Kleiter

15.00-15.30 Coffee Break

15.30-17.00 Panel 3: Environment

A tale of humans, insects and the world we share - Agnès Villette

The roots of environmentalism: Economics and ecological considerations in Dutch debates concerning overfishing during the 19th century - Robbert J. Striekwold

The fate of the Nazi cows: Post-Rewilding under ueo-liberal capitalism
- Tess Josien Post

19.00 Dinner at the Pannenkoekenhuys

Day 2 April 5, 2019
Location: Room 1.01, P.J. Veth building, Leiden University

9.30-10.00 Welcoming coffee

10.00 – 11.00 Keynote Lecture
Robert Felfe (Mainz University)

11.00 – 12.00 Panel 4: Captivity & Domestication

Stories of a trans-species ecology: Narrated farm animals as key concerns and challenges in the 21st century - Liza Bauer

The design of the encounter - Giovanni Bellotti

12.00-13.30 Lunch Break

13.30-15.00 Panel 5: Medical Sciences

“Bodies of knowledge”: Representing humans and animals in laboratory literature - Shannon Lambert

Zoonosis as metaphor - Daisy Lafarge

Negotiating human-animal boundaries: A perspective on the German-language field of Animal Psychology, 1870-1930 - Maike Riedinger

15.00-15.30 Coffee break

15.30-17.00 Panel 6: Symbolic & Representation

Exotic and wondrous animals at the imperial court of Qing China (1700–1800) - Arina Mikhalevskaya

The humanity of hawks: Human-avian relations and the representation of birds of prey in medieval Scandinavia - Kathryn A. Haley-Halinski

Acquaintances with ‘the animal’: Cute, loveable, edible - Mare Groen

17.00-18.30 Discussion

18.30 Drinks at the Faculty Club

For more information check our website (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2019/04/lucas-2019-graduate-conference-animals-theory-practice-representation), Facebook and Twitter.