Consuming Animals

This two-day interdisciplinary conference is designed to bring together those in the humanities whose work explores humanimal relations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In particular, it seeks to investigate the various, and often ambiguous, ways in which animals were consumed by humans symbolically and materially. Through various methods of consumption, typically characterised by exploitation and violence, human society and accepted definitions of what it means to be human, have nevertheless been fundamentally shaped by animals. Whether on the end of a gourmand’s fork or a whaler’s harpoon, on the lap of an aristocrat or by the side of a beggar, conjured as majestic and wild by the artist’s brush or as haggard and caged by the eyes of the menagerie visitor, in private homes and city streets, in the artistic or literary imagination, the bodies of animals (alive or dead) were ubiquitous during this period. Indeed, they provided both the fashionable feather and the faithful companion; they were, simultaneously, consumed, feared, defended, caged and loved. The minds of Georgians and Victorians were filled with treacherous tigers and devoted dogs with whom they forged complex relationships and encounters – and to whom they were much more than mere material bodies.

SCHEDULE:

Day One – Friday 17th March 2017

12:20 – 12:40 – Registration

12:40 – 13:00 – Introduction

13:00 – 14:30 – Panel: Animal Testing

14:30 – 16:00 – Panel: Eating Animals

16:00 – 16:30 – Coffee Break

16:30 – 17:30 – Panel: Commodification

17:30 – 18:30 – Keynote: Timothy Morton

18:30 – Conference Dinner (Optional)

Day Two – Saturday 18th March 2017

8:45 – 9:00 – Introduction

9:00 – 10.30 – Panel: Animals at Sea

10:30 – 11:00 – Coffee Break

11:00 – 12:30 – Panel: Imperialism and postcolonialism

12:30- 13:30 – Lunch (Optional)

13:30 – 15:00 – Panel: Visualising animals

15:00 – 16:30 – Panel: Literature

16:30 – 17:00 – Coffee Break

17:00 – 18:00 – Keynote: Diana Donald

18:00 – Wine Reception

Website: https://consuminganimalsconference2017.wordpress.com/