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Animals Across

Discipline, Time & Space

 McMaster University    •    Hamilton, Ontario
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#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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About

Event Schedule

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.

Register to reserve your spot for the day

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

Register here.

 

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.

Register here.

 

 

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.

Register here.

 

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.

Register here.

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.

Register here.

 

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.

Register here.

 

Event Schedule
Thursday 19 March
Friday 20 March
Contributors

Contributors

Carol J. Adams

Mary Anne Barkhouse

Vanessa Bateman

Miguelly Bélanger

Lesli Bisgould

Katherine Bishop

Ron Broglio

David L. Clark

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

Robbie Judkins

Benjamin J. Kapron

Andrew Kettler

Madeleine Lavin

Joanna Lilley

Danielle Taschereau Mamers

Brian McCormack

Tracy McDonald

Judith Nicholson

Taylor O’Connor

Nathan Olmstead

dave phillips

Colleen Plumb

Ziba Rashidian

T.N. Rowan

Joshua Russell

Kimber Sider

Andrew Smyth 

Vasile Stanescu

Donna Szoke

Tracy Timmins

Emily Wanderer

Sebastian Williams

Mandy-Suzanne Wong

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:

Mary Anne Barkhouse

Kathryn Eddy

Erica Gajewski

Derek Jenkins

Colleen Plumb

Organizer

TMD BioPic.jpg

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

TCR BioHSH.jpg

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.

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