Animals Across
Discipline, Time & Space
McMaster University • Hamilton, Ontario
#AADTS20
The Event
Three Interactive Days • McMaster University
AADTS - POSTPONED
McMaster University has ended all classes and cancelled all non-essential gatherings. Therefore, AADTS will not take place 19-21 March 2020. We are doing our best to reorganize our events for a future date.
In the meantime, thank you for your interest in AADTS and all of your support.
Be safe and well.
Animals Across Discipline, Time and Space takes advantage of the inherently interdisciplinary nature of (re)thinking the forms and meanings of the relationships between human and non-human animals. This event brings together artists, performers, community members, activists, and scholars (and many of our participants fit into more than one of these categories) for an interactive gathering at McMaster University.
The relationships between human and non-human animals have always been at the heart of our existence. Notions of human superiority, reinforced in the age of enlightenment, have played a fundamental role in where we find ourselves in the 21st century: deep in the human-created catastrophe of the Anthropocene.
The event is associated with an exhibition “Animals Across Discipline, Time, and Space” at the McMaster Museum of Art hosting work by Kathryn Eddy, Erica Gajewski, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Derek Jenkins, and Colleen Plumb.
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Event Schedule
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Please note that, due to space limitations, our Thursday and Friday sessions are open to contributors only.
We welcome you to join us Thursday evening from 6:00 to 8:00p.m. for our artists talks, held at the McMaster Museum of Modern Art. This event is open to the public.
We also invite you to join us Saturday 21 March. These sessions are open to the public.
Thursday 19 March
Due to space restrictions, Thursday panels are open to contributors only.
9:00a.m. – Welcome and land acknowledgement
9:10 to 9:30a.m. – Coffee
9:30 to 11:00a.m.
(3 papers at 15-20 minutes per paper; 30 minutes discussion)
Session 1A – Working Animals
Chair: Jamie Sippert
Margherita Duesbury, “The Implication of Marijuana Legalization on the Lives of Working Canines”
Alaina Interisano, "'It’s a Privilege:’ The Critical Examination of University Students’ Perspectives of Animal Experimentation
in Science Education”
Brandon Keim and Elizabeth Tavella, “The Fluctuating Status of Fistulated Cows: Workers, Saviors, or Commodities?”
Session 1B – Quilting Interdisciplinary Pedagogies: Reflections on Teaching and Learning Human-Animal Studies in Higher Education – Roundtable
Chair: Carly Ciufo
Margo DeMello
Leesa Fawcett
Joshua Russell
Miranda Workman
11:00 to 11:15a.m. – Break
11:15a.m. to 12:45p.m.
(4 papers at 15-20 mins each and 30 min discussion)
Session 2A – Reconceptualizations
Chair: Cassia Jager
Benjamin Kapron, “‘[A] Vision and Vital Condition to Endure, to outwit evil and dominance, and to deny victimry’: Exploring
Animal Survivance”
T.N. Rowan, “Animals Studies, Darwin, and Species Skepticism”
Vasile Stanescu, “‘She’ or ‘They:’ Animals and the Trans and Non-binary Question”
2B – Animals in Literature and Thought
Chair: Mandy-Suzanne Wong
Heather Duncan, “Zones of Inclusion: The Pleasures and Perils of Sharing Contaminated Spaces in Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne
Taylor O’Connor, “The Logic of Vengeance – An Anti-Anthropocentric Reading of En Eaux Troubles by Jean-Francois Samlong”
Stefan Dolgert, “Ichneumenoid Athena: The Posthuman Origins of 'The West' and the Xenopolis to Come”
12:45 to 2:00p.m. – Lunch
2:00 to 3:30p.m.
(3 papers at 15-20 minutes per paper and 30 minutes discussion)
Session 3A – Reading the Visual Culture of Animals Across the Boundaries of Art and Science
Chair: Danielle Taschereau Mamers
Vanessa Bateman, “Taxidermy, as a fine art, subservient to science: Martha Maxwell’s Rocky Mountain Museum”
Matthew Brower, “Curating Contemporary Animal Art from a Visual Culture Perspective”
Session 3B – Different Non-Humans
Chair: Samantha Clarke
Brian McCormack, “Bodies, Care Work, and Interspecies Ethical Relations: Empathy, Dignity, and Relationality”
Andrew Smyth, “Talking Back to Militarization: The Recovery of Animal Identity in WE3”
Emily Wanderer, “Life Without Conditions: Model Organisms and New Human Biologies”
6:00 to 8:00p.m. – Artist Talks at the McMaster Museum of Modern Art
Chair: Tracy McDonald
Mary Anne Barkhouse, Kathryn Eddy, Erica Gajewski, Derek Jenkins, Colleen Plumb
Friday 20 March
Due to space restrictions, Thursday panels are open to contributors only.
9:00 to 9:30 – Coffee
9:30 to 11:00a.m.
(3 papers 25-20 mins each and 30 mins for discussion)
Session 4A – Teaching Compassionate Science with Captive Chimpanzees
Chair: Stefan Dolgert
Mary Lee Jensvold, “Training Interns”
Miguelly Bélanger, “Activity Budgets of Captive Chimpanzees to Assess Quality of Life”
Grace Coffman, “Decibel Level and Chimpanzee Behavior in a Sanctuary Setting”
Emily Collins, “Communicative Function of Chimpanzee Signs”
Session 4B – Cattle and Bison
Chair: Sanchia DeSouza
Andrew Kettler, “Tasting Cattle in New Ways: The Demoralization of Diets in the Second Slavery”
Charlton W. Yingling, “Cattle Agency Amid Colonialism and Capitalism”
Danielle Taschereau Mamers, “Documenting Multispecies Colonialities: Bison in the Settler Archive”
11:00 to 11:15a.m. – Break
11:15a.m. to 12:15p.m.
(2 papers at 15-20 mins each and 20 min discussion)
Session 5A – Bones and Flesh
Chair: Mack Penner
Katherine G. Bishop, “The adapting human-goat relationship: From the ancient Greek countryside to the modern Canadian cityscape”
Bonnie Glencross, “Dog Stable Isotope Values as Proxy Data in Studies of Ancient Human Diet” (paper co-authored with Tracy Prowse, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University; Taylor Smith, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University; Gary Warrick, Indigenous Studies and History, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford)
Session 5B – Exhibition
Chair: Andy Griggs
Defne Inceoglu, “Animal bodies in the climate crisis: a visitor study at the Royal Ontario Museum”
Judith Nicholson and Murtadha Faraj, “Animals in Human Zoos”
12:15 to 1:30p.m. – Lunch
1:30 to 3:00p.m.
(3 papers at 15-20 mins each and 30 min discussion)
Session 6A – Cities
Chair: Jamie Sippert
Kimberly Hart, “Managing Street Animals in Istanbul”
Nathan Olmstead, “No Time for Idle Dreaming: Smart Cities, Factory Farms, and the Politics of Corralling”
Tracy Timmins, “Interspecies Encounters and Practices of Care: A Case study of Human-Squirrel Interactions in Toronto”
Session 6B – Non-Human Animals Among the Lines
Chair: David Clark
Jeanne Dubino, “Travelling Menageries, Military Pageantry, and Imperial Designs: Emily Eden and Animals in India, 1838-1842”
Madeleine, Lavin, “Pests, Pestiness, and Pesticides”
Ziba Rashidian, “Beyond Precarity: Human-Animal Coexistence in Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices of Chernobyl”
Sebastian Williams, “Becoming the Modernist Parasite”
3:00 to 3:15p.m. – Break
3:15 to 4:45p.m.
7A – Perceiving Animals
Chair: Beth Aiken
Mary Lee Jensvold, “Signs of Aesthetics in Chimpanzee Drawings”
Kimber Sider, “Conversations Through Performance: An Interspecies Ethics of Engagement”
Donna Szoke, “Invisible Animals”
Sean Hawkins, “Apprehending Animals: Beholding Umwelt”
Session 7B - “Animal Sounds in Radical Art”
Chair: Joëlle Papillon
Kathryn Eddy, “The Urban Wild Coyote Project: an immersive sound. art installation exploring modern myths and ideological coverups”
Mandy-Suzanne Wong, “Artificial Wilderness: Empathy in Field Recording,”
Robbie Judkins
dave phillips
Saturday 21 March
Located in L.R. Wilson Concert Hall at McMaster University. Contributors do not need to register.
All events are free and open to the public.
9:15 to 9:30a.m. – Welcome: one person on stage to welcome attendees and do land acknowledgement.
9:30 to 11:00a.m.
Poetry and Fiction Readings — open to the public
John Hill: Poetry Performance
Madeleine Lavin: Book Louse: A Speculative Fabulation
Joanna Lilley: Hearing Voices: Poems of Extinction
Mandy-Suzanne Wong: Awabi
11:00 to 11:20a.m. – Break and set up
11:20a.m. to 12:40p.m.
Law’s Animal — open to the public
A panel consisting of Lesli Bisgould, Maneesha Deckha, Jessica Eisen, and Angela Fernandez.
Who is law’s animal? How does law view non-human life, and its place in human polities? This
panel will bring together scholars and litigators in the growing field of “animal law” to explore
these questions.
12:40 to 1:30p.m. – lunch break
1:30 to 2:10p.m.
Colleen Plumb and Mandy-Suzanne Wong — open to the public
Colleen Plumb, Thirty Times a Minute (video with sound)
Mandy-Suzanne Wong, "How Long is a Wish-Walk Minute?" (reading, 22 mins)
The wild shapeshifts into the metropolis. Home is dissonant, destabilizing. Everything is flowing, and we cannot grasp it, everything’s weird and all mixed up. What’s a nonhuman, a human, and a god at the same time? Easy: an elephant.
2:20 to 3:00p.m.
Robbie Judkins — open to the public
Robbie Judkins, Game, 2020 (30 mins)
Game is a new performance that repurposes sonic devices and methods used by hunters to allure, trap or confuse
non-human animals. A selection of hunting whistles, horns, high frequency sine waves, ultrasound and rudimentary tools
will be used and manipulated during this performance. Game is part of an ongoing project researching the sonic methods
used to control, hurt or confuse non-human animals.
3:00 to 3:20p.m. – Break
3:20 to 3:50 PM
dave phillips — open to the public
dave phillips, video action 2020 (25 minutes)
video action is an actionistic and physical performance accompanied by visuals, loops and samples of voice and objects are played live over prepared sonic structures and follow a narrative. the video talks of existential, philosophical and sentient matters, on personal, social and global levels. this set is an evocation of 'humanimal', a sonic ritual, an audio-visual catharsis, a trigger of discourse, offering food for thought.
3:50 to 4:00p.m. - Break
4:00 to 5:30p.m.
Reverse Panel - Challenging Human/Non-Human Boundaries — open to the public
Sponsored by the Socrates Project with Carol Adams, Ron Broglio, David Clark, and Tracy McDonald
Ron Broglio proposed the idea of a reverse panel where scholars ask the audience to engage with them directly on the themes of the conference. Carol Adams, Ron Broglio, David Clark, and Tracy McDonald will gather questions and themes that arise over the three-days of the AADTS events and engage the audience in a discussion of these key ideas. In this way, the conference will invite the public to weigh in on the issues that have been raised and contribute to a broad discussion of matters of vital importance involving human and non-human animals in the age of the Anthropocene.
Contributors
Mary Anne Barkhouse
Vanessa Bateman
Miguelly Bélanger
Katherine Bishop
Matthew Brower
Grace Coffman
Emily Collins
Maneesha Deckha
Margo DeMello
Stefan Dolgert
Jeanne Dubino
Margherita Duesbury
Jessica Eisen
Kathryn Eddy
Murtadha Faraj
Leesa K. Fawcett
Angela Fernandez
Erica Gajewski
Bonnie Glencross
Kimberly Hart
John Hill
Defne Inceoglu
Alaina Interisano
Derek Jenkins
Mary Lee Jensvold
Benjamin J. Kapron
Andrew Kettler
Madeleine Lavin
Joanna Lilley
Danielle Taschereau Mamers
Brian McCormack
Tracy McDonald
Judith Nicholson
Taylor O’Connor
Nathan Olmstead
Colleen Plumb
Ziba Rashidian
T.N. Rowan
Joshua Russell
Kimber Sider
Andrew Smyth
Vasile Stanescu
Tracy Timmins
Emily Wanderer
Sebastian Williams
Miranda Workman
Charlton Yingling
See full list of participants bios and abstracts.
The McMaster Museum of Art is hosting an exhibit on Animals Across Discipline, Time, and Space from January to March 2020.
The exhibit features the work of:
Organizer
Tracy McDonald is an historian of Russian and Soviet History at McMaster University. Her areas of interest include social and cultural history, micro-history, film, agrarian studies, violence, and critical animal studies. McDonald co-edited (with Lynne Viola, Sergei Zhuravlev and Andrei Mel’nik) a volume of documents on collectivization entitled Riazanskaia derevnia v 1929-1930 gg.: khronika golovokruzheniia (The Riazan Countryside, 1929-1930: A Chronicle of Spinning Heads), Moscow, Rosspen, 1998. She is the author of Face to the Village: The Riazan Countryside under Soviet Rule, 1921-1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). In November 2012, this book received the ASEEES Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History for outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eastern Europe or Eurasia in the field of history in 2011. McDonald was one of the three founding members of the independent documentary-film company Chemodan Films. Between 2004 and 2009 she participated in the making of four films including Province of Lost Film, Uprising, and Photographer. She co-editor of the collection, Zoo Studies: A New Humanities (McGill-Queens University Press, 2019) and is a founding collective member of the North American Association of Critical Animal Studies (NAACAS). She is the guest curator of the exhibition Animals Across Discipline, Time & Space at the McMaster Museum of Art which runs from 4 January to 21 March 2020.
Communications Coordinator
Tanya Rohrmoser is a freelance writer and Marketing & Communications professional, living in Burlington, Ontario. She has worked in communications and project management roles for House & Home Media, TIFF, University of Toronto Press, and Ridley College, providing writing, editing, marketing, and web support. She received her M.A. in English Literature from Brock University and is a graduate of the Professional Writing & Communications program at Humber College.
Follow her @TanyaRohrmoser on Twitter or reach out on LinkedIn.
Sponsors
