British Animal Studies Network Conference: Animal Machines / Machine Animals

The next BASN conference on Animal Machines/Machine Animals is being organised by the ‘Life Geographies’ Group, University of Exeter, at the Phoenix Arts Venue, Exeter, 2-3 November 2018. Confirmed Plenary Speakers include: Amelia de Falco (University of Leeds), Clara Mancini (Open University), Ed Ramsden (Queen Mary, University of London).

As well as our invited speakers we are also issuing this call for papers. If you are interested in giving a paper addressing the topic from whatever disciplinary perspective please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words with a brief biography (also of no more than 200 words). Please send them to R.Gorman@exeter.ac.uk and G.f.Davies@exeter.ac.uk. The deadline for abstracts is Friday 29 June 2018. Presentations will be 20 minutes long, and we hope to include work by individuals at different career stages. Sadly we have no money to support travel, accommodation or attendance costs. Meeting fees will be £25 for unwaged and £50 for waged attendees.

As with all previous BASN meetings, this one takes as its focus a key issue in animal studies that it is hoped will be of interest to scholars from a range of disciplines and to those working outside of academia. Topics covered at this meeting might include (but are not limited to):

• The (re)shaping of human-animal relations through (ideas about) machines.
• Animal-machine interactions, hybridities, and co-constitutions.
• Ways of thinking across machines and animals in relation to ontology, epistemology, and ethics.
• Animal bodies, agencies, and autonomies within mechanised systems.
• The role of machines in facilitating and co-producing experiences and engagements with non-human animals.
• Augmented and machinic animals in art, literature, and film.
• The ontological and affective aspects of ‘robotic pets’ and other animal-machine hybrids.

We welcome papers that deal with the theme of ‘Machine Animals / Animal Machines’ in both contemporary and historical settings, and would especially like to see papers that address these issues from contexts outside the UK. Papers are welcomed from across animal studies, including disciplines such as (but not limited to) geography, anthropology, sociology, literary studies, art history, history, science and technology studies, ethology, psychology, behavioural sciences and ecology, bioscience/biomedical research.

For further details of the British Animal Studies Network go to http://www.britishanimalstudiesnetwork.org.uk