Animal Biographies International Conference Update
Conference joint organiser Mieke Roscher
Just back from the very interesting conference organised by Mieke Roscher and Andre Krebber at the University of Kassel in Germany. The animal content of the six panels included a focus on the lives of : bison, pigeons, elephants, horses, dogs, chimpanzees and rabbits. The discussion explored the challenges involved in writing biography and the extent to which the subjectivity of animals could be grasped.Although the discussion was around ideas of biography it was also actually about nonhuman animals as living beings – a by no means given at all Animal Studies conferences…
Aaron Skabelund prepares to discuss Hatchiko, the famous Japanese Akita dog
Through careful direction by the organisers debate moved forward and the final commentary by Gesine Kruger demonstrated, if nothing else, that discussion had taken place and ideas had started to develop over the three days of the conference.
I hope that the projected written collection does materialise since there was much material that would be of interest to a wider audience.
Thorsten Fogen and Kim Stallwood on individual animals
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