Schedule
DAY 1: THURSDAY, APRIL 26
​
​
Check-in for the conference will begin at 10:30 am. Panels and roundtables will be convened 11 am to 4:30 pm with a talking lunch 12:30-1:30 pm and breaks for coffee and food. There will be a plenary performance 5:00-6:30 pm followed by a catered reception. The reception will have vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. If you have any other dietary restrictions, you may indicate them on your registration form.
​
​
SESSION 1: 11 AM-12:20 PM
​
1A: Human and Animal Partnerships (Parkside Room)
Moderator: Sabrina Jaromin (German, Northwestern University, sabrinajaromin@yahoo.de)
“‘A mid-air love consummation. That is the splendid love-way’: Birds and Posthuman Intimacy in D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow,” Tali Banin (English, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, talibanin6@gmail.com)
“End Stories: Deaths Against Animal Studies,” Susan McHugh (English, University of New England, smchugh@une.edu)
“Relational Redemption and Theologies of Dog Training,” Katharine Mershon (Divinity, University of Chicago, kpflaum@uchicago.edu)
1B: Robot Humanities (Superior Room)
​
Moderator: Diana Kurkovsky West (Science in Human Culture Cluster, Northwestern University, diana.west@northwestern.edu)
“Art ‘Reveals Your Soul’: The Artistic Other in Speculative Worlds,” Tammy Durant (Literature and Language/Gender Studies, Metropolitan State University, Tammy.Durant@metrostate.edu)
“Lovely Machines: Robots at the End of the World,” Bill Hutchison (English, University of Chicago, hutch@uchicago.edu)
“Big Data, Automation, and Animal Wellbeing: Will Driverless Vehicles Break for Squirrels?,” Jo Ann Oravec (Information, Technology, and Supply Chain Management, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, oravecj@uww.edu)
​
​
OPTIONAL: TALKING LUNCH: 12:30-1:20 PM
“Why Teach Animal Studies?” (Parkside Room)
Moderator: Joela Jacobs (German, University of Arizona, joela.jacobs@email.arizona.edu)
​
​
​
SESSION 2: 1:30-2:50 PM
Insisting on Animal Difference (Parkside Room)
​
Moderator: Zach Hope (English, University of Chicago, zhope@uchicago.edu)
“Animal law, justice and ethics: the re-constitution of human-animal relations,” Nicole Anderson (Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies, University of Macquarie, nicole.anderson@mq.edu.au)
“At Its Limits: A Report from the Animal Revolution wherein resistance exceeds understanding,” Ron Broglio (English, Arizona State University, ronbroglio@gmail.com)
​
"Museum of Nonhumanity: On Making Animality History," Terike Haapoja (Independent Artist, mail@terikehaapoja.net)
​
​
​
SESSION 3: 3:15-4:35 PM
3A: Species/Biodiversity Loss (Superior Room)
Moderator: Amy Coombes (History, University of Chicago, acoombs@uchicago.edu)
“Fracking the Pastoral: Mathew Henderson’s The Lease,” Sarah Beth Dimick (English/Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University, sarah.dimick@northwestern.edu)
“Loss of potential chimney swift (Chaetura pelagica) nest and roost sites over ten years in a college town,” Alexis Smith (Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, athabascae@gmail.com)
“Choral, a work in progress,” localStyle: Marlena Novak (Film, Video, New Media & Animation, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, mnovak1@saic.edu) and Jay Alan Yim (Composition and Music Technology, Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University, jaymar@northwestern.edu)
​
3B: Alternative Apocalypse (Parkside Room)
​
Moderator: Mark Payne (Classics/Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, mpayne@uchicago.edu)
“Of Boars, Ostriches, and Horses: Nuclear Radioactivity and ‘More-Than’-Animals IN Fukushima,” Philipe Depairon (Art History, Université de Montréal, philippe.depairon@umontreal.ca)
“What is This ‘Post-’ in Post-Environmentalism?,” Sean Meighoo (Comparative Literature, Emory University, sean.meighoo@emory.edu)
“Dying Earths and the Time that Remains,” Timothy S. Murphy (English, Oklahoma State University, timothy.murphy@okstate.edu)
​
PLENARY PERFORMANCE: CLUB INTERNATIONAL, 5:00-6:20 PM
Adam Zaretsky (Marist College): “Don’t Feed the Animas: Finnegan’s Lustre in Gene Clusters-The reflective vocabulary of anatomy in All Organisms Living (AOL)”
​
Reception to follow directly.
SCHEDULE: DAY 2, FRIDAY, APRIL 27
​
Check-in for the conference will begin at 9:00 am. Panels and roundtables will be convened 9:30 am to 4:30 pm with breaks for coffee and food. There will be a plenary performance 5:00-6:30 pm followed by a catered reception. The reception will have vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. If you have any other dietary restrictions, we ask that you indicate them on your registration form.
​
SESSION 4: 9:30-10:50/11:05 AM--See Individual Panels for End Times
4A: Capitalist Objects (9:30-10:50 am, Parkside Room)
Moderator: Anna Kornbluh (English, University of Illinois at Chicago, kornbluh@uic.edu)
“Ontological Remix: Options for Output,” Kira deCoudres (Independent Artist, kiradecoudres@gmail.com)
“Experiments in Mutual Aid: Staging Continuous Economies of Cooperation,” Garrett Leroy Johnson (Media Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University, gljohns6@asu.edu)
“Towards a Sociological Noumenon, or an Object-Friendly Sociology,” Ryan Alan Sporer (Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago, rspore2@uic.edu)
​
4B: The Political (Construction of the) Animal (9:30-11:05 am, Superior Room)
Moderator: Sam Lasman (Comparative Literature, University of Chicago, slasman@uchicago.edu)
“Hunting in the Borderlands: The Politics of Human Capture in the Contemporary Visual Field,” Risa Puleo (Art History, Northwestern University/Guest Curator, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, risapuleo2022@u.northwestern.edu)
“A Tragedy of Kinds: King Lear (with Sheep),” Laurie Shannon (English, Northwestern University, shannon4444@gmail.com)
Title “Inventing Animals: The Cultural-Political Negotiation over Animality in Modern China,” Guangshuo Yang (History, Northwestern University, gy@u.northwestern.edu)
​
“Defining Anthropocentrism,” Sam Schulte (Committee for the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, University of Chicago, samlschulte@gmail.com)
​
​
​
PLENARY ROUNDTABLE: PARKSIDE ROOM, 11:15 AM-12:35 PM
“Why Do Animal Studies?”
Featuring
​
Giovanni Aloi (Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago)
Ron Broglio (English, Arizona State University)
Susan McHugh (English, University of New England) &
Timothy Murphy (English, Oklahoma State University)
​
Moderated by Mark Payne (Classics/Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, mpayne@uchicago.edu)
​
​
​
SESSION 5: 1:30-2:50 PM
5A: (Not) Eating Animals (Superior Room)
Moderator: McKenzie Stupica (Art History, Northwestern University, mckenziestupica2023@u.northwestern.edu)
“The Capitalist Zoo,” Stephen Eisenman (Art History, Northwestern University, s-eisenman@northwestern.edu)
“Fellow, Matter, Meat: Technology, Ideology, and the Contradictory Construction of Animals in the 21st Century,” Alba Tomasula y Garcia (English, University of California, Berkeley, albat@berkeley.edu)
“Looking Back and Forward: The National Vegetarian Museum,” Kay Stepkin (Founder, National Vegetarian Museum, info@vegmuse.org) and Connie Johnston (Geography, DePaul University, CJOHN238@depaul.edu)
5B: Postcolonial/Postsocialist (Not Only) "Animal" Studies (Parkside Room)
​
Moderator: Evan Mwangi (English, Northwestern University, evan-mwangi@northwestern.edu)
“Return to the Sources: Non-reduction, from Beekeepers to Camel Herders,” James Hevia and Larissa Jasarevic (History and Global Studies, University of Chicago, jhevia@uchicago.edu, jasarevic@uchicago.edu)
“Waking Up the British Public with a Roar: Lions, Tigers, and the 1857 Indian Rebellion,” Aisha Motlani (Art History, Northwestern University, aishamotlani2012@u.northwestern.edu)
“Strangeness and Animal Value in Peter Matthiessen’s Far Tortuga and Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker,” Arnab Chakraborty (English, University of Kansas, arnabchakraborty1990@ku.edu)
​
​
​
SESSION 6: 3:15-4:35 PM
​
6A: Critical Plant Studies (Parkside Room)
Moderator: Jean-Thomas Tremblay (English, University of Chicago, tremblay@uchicago.edu)
“Lucian Freud: A Kinship in Bareness,” Giovanni Aloi (Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, antennaeproject@googlemail.com)
“Phytopoetic Disruptions,” Joela Jacobs (German, University of Arizona, joelajacobs@email.arizona.edu)
"Nature in African American Life," Jamaica Kincaid (English, Harvard University, jkincaid@fas.harvard.edu)
​
6B: Speculative Fictions (Superior Room)
Moderator: Cody Jones (Divinity and Comparative Literature, University of Chicago, codyjones@uchicago.edu)
“Poring through Worlds within Worlds: Margaret Cavendish’s Theory of Cosmic Pluralism,” Ryan Campagna (English, University of Chicago, rcampagna@uchicago.edu)
"Inventing Animals by Reinventing Forms of Intuition," Reza Negarestani (Independent Scholar)
"Our Nietzsche: The Philosophical Foundations of Nick Land's Techno-Capitalist Inhumanism," Daniel Sacilotto (Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles, supercalme@hotmail.com)
​
​
​
PLENARY READING: CLUB INTERNATIONAL, 5:00-6:20 PM
Jamaica Kincaid (Harvard University): Selections from My Garden (Book), Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya
​
Reception to follow directly.
​