You can already register for the conference https://forms.gle/5YKrAcbHHa1ccCMh9

Conference Location: House of Democracy and Human Rights – Greifswalder Straße 4, 10405 Berlin

For conference information please contact: kherrma1@jhu.edu

(Please use this address rather than the eacas email address)

Conference schedule:

Friday, May 2, 2025

1:30 PM – Welcome

Session 1: Critical Thinking and Empathy (2:00 – 4:00 PM)

• Bruno Ćurko – Fostering Critical Thinking and Bioethical Sensibility Towards Animals in Children
• Benjamin Hunt – Performing Change: The Role of Creative Practices in Cultivating Interspecies Empathy and Action
• Dimitra Kountaki – Fostering Empathy Beyond Anthropocentrism: The Role of Education in Transforming Human-Animal Relations
• Carlo Salzani – Can a Book Make You Vegan?: The Literary Imagination and the Limits of Empathy

☕ Coffee BreakSession

2: Activism, Representation, Participation (4:30 – 6:30 PM)

• Anne van Veen – De-mooo-cracy: Transformative Learning for Interspecies Democracy
• Tim Reysoo – The Missing Piece: Building an Effective Political and Economic Strategy for the Animal Movement
• Marie Leth-Espensen – Forging Alliances While Crafting Alternative Food Futures: A Study of Activism and Civic Engagement Across the Animal, Environmental, and Rural Movements in Denmark
• Melvin Geib Caballero – Ways Towards Effective Animal Representation

🎉 6:30 – 9:30 PM | Social Gathering

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Session 1: Media, Public Sphere, and the Arts (9:00 – 11:00 AM)

• Laura Fernández Aguilera, Tuğçe Atacı – Towards Feminist Animal and Media Studies: A Digital Ethnographic Research of Female Hunters on Instagram
• Arshia Batra – Becoming-inanimate, Becoming-human, Becoming-animal: The Objectification and (de)Familiarization of Captive Animals in Photography
• Stefanie Aehnelt – Can Theatre Change the World? What Impact Can Theatre and Art Events Have on Social Change?
• Maria Martelli – The School of Earth and Water: A Multispecies Speculation About Education

☕ Coffee BreakSession

2: Teaching Tools and Education Methods (11:30 AM – 1:30 PM)

• Monique Janssens – Developing a Global Education Hub for Animal-Free Methods
• Claudia Alonso-Recarte – A Case Study on Animal Advocacy Documentary Films as Educational Tools
• Zipporah Weisberg – Exposing Students to Graphic Images of Violence against Animals: A Helpful or Harmful Pedagogical Strategy?
• Judith Benz-Schwarzburg – Animal Ethics in Picture Books

🍽️ Lunch BreakSession

3: Critical Animal Rights Education I (2:30 – 4:30 PM)

• Iana Fishova – Educating Beyond Speciesism: Thinking-Doing Creative-Relational Inquiry in Critical Animal Pedagogies and Vegan Education
• Josip Guć – Appreciating Non-Human Animals by Becoming a Child
• Patricia Born – “He’s Coming to Say Hello to You!” – Does Teacher Discourse Impact Children’s Relationships with Animals?
• Carolin Eirich – Learning to Be Affected: Principles and Strategies of (In-)Visibility Regarding the Use of Pictures in (Critical) Education on Animal Factories in Germany

☕ Coffee BreakSession

4: Critical Animal Rights Education II (5:00 – 6:00 PM)

• Jonna Kallaste Håkansson – Addressing Animal Production in Schools Through the Perspective of Interspecies Sustainability and Justice
• Sarah Wilson – Promoting Non-Human Animal Advocacy in UK Universities in Times of Crisis: Perspectives on the Role of Law Schools in Creating Narratives of ‘Animal Justice’ as ‘Social Justice’

🍽️ 7:00 PM | Group Dinner

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Session 1: Contesting Education (10.00 – 11:30 AM)

• Tereza Vandrovcová, Zdeněk Joukl – Unpacking Bias Against Meat Alternatives
• Richard Twine – A Child’s Right to Contest Meat Culture – Generational Universalism as a Multiple Injustice
• Kadri Aavik – Vegan Parents Contesting the Anthropocentric Education System: Experiences, Coping Strategies, and Visions of Change

☕ Coffee BreakSession

2: Intersections (12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)

• Cameron Dunnett – Vegan Ecomasculinities & Animal Advocacy: The Role of Education in Transforming (Hu)Man-Animal Relationships
• Özlem Güçlü – Feminist Pedagogy for a Non-Anthropocentric Course, Class, and Communitas
• Nóra Ugron, Maria Martelli – “A Communion of Worlds” – Vegan Anarchist Visions in Speculative Fiction & Queer Ecological Poetry from Romania
• Valerie Tollhopf – Fostering Trans and Animal Solidarity: Enhancing Trans* New Materialism via a Marxist Account of Animal Oppression

🍽️ Lunch BreakSession

3: Sanctuary (3:00 – 4:00 PM)

• Renata Mliczak – The Educational Role of Vegan Farmed Animal Sanctuaries in Nurturing Just Relationships Between Human and Non-Human Animals
• Simone Scampoli – Animal Sanctuaries: The Future We Imagine

📩 Questions?

Contact us at kherrma1@jhu.edu

Call for Session Proposals and Abstracts: EACAS Conference 2025 in Berlin, Germany

Deadline: January 31, 2025

The European Association for Critical Animal Studies (EACAS) invites session proposals and abstracts for the upcoming conference, “Actioning Change Through Education: Transforming Human-Animal Relations in Times of Crisis”, to be held in Berlin, Germany from May 2–4, 2025.

The conference will explore meaningful improvements to human-animal relationships with a focus on practical solutions.

Key questions include: 

– What role can education play in fostering just relationships between humans and other animals? 

– What societal shifts are required for an ethical and sustainable coexistence with nonhuman animals? 

– How do we connect different struggles for social justice by addressing how deeply intertwined the well-being of humans, nonhumans and our shared planet is?

– What kind of policy changes and practices are best suited to increase public awareness of the interdependence of human, animal and planetary health?

This conference emphasizes actionable approaches over theoretical discussions. Proposals offering hands-on insights, concrete strategies, and real-world examples are especially encouraged. Bridging academia and practice is essential to driving lasting change.

Possible Topics Include: 

– Public education on animal justice and environmental sustainability 

– Policy and legal frameworks to protect animals and ecosystems 

– The role of media and culture in shaping perceptions of nonhuman animals 

– Strategies for promoting plant-based diets and addressing animal exploitation 

– Cultivating empathy and raising awareness of interconnectedness with nature

We invite scholars, activists, educators, policymakers, practitioners, and artists to submit proposals focusing on actionable ideas and tangible outcomes.

Submission Guidelines

Session Proposals:

Submit a session proposal (maximum 500 words) along with a brief biography of each session chair to Dr. Kathrin Herrmann, Email: kherrma1@jhu.edu. Sessions are 120 minutes, with formats such as four 20-minute presentations followed by a 10-minute discussion or a panel format.

Abstracts: 

Submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) for a 20-minute paper to kherrma1@jhu.edu. Include a separate document with your name, email, institution, and short biography.

Deadline: January 31, 2025.

Decisions will be communicated in mid-February 2025.

Further details on registration will follow.

For more information, please contact: kherrma1@jhu.edu

Thanks to everyone who presented or attended the joint EACAS/Animal Futures conference. Many thanks also to our Estonian hosts. As soon as the talks are available online we well let you know here. Now start thinking about Berlin in 2025!

We would love it if delegates to the joint EACAS/Animal Futures Conference this week could make a donation to any of these good causes:

• Estonian Vegan Society: https://vegan.ee/tegutse/toeta/
• Loomus: https://loomus.ee/toeta/
• The latest Vegan Land Movement Campaign: https://globalvegancrowdfunder.org/vegan-land-movement-animal-agriculture-land-buyout-2/
• Freshfields Animal Rescue: https://www.nowdonate.com/checkout/x6me81w4x35b9h4v8d5d
• Institute for Animal Happiness microsanctuary: http://www.instituteforanimalhappiness.com/donate-1
• Hugletts Wood Farm Animal Sanctuary: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/huglettswood?fbclid=IwAR2S58El5tHo4_gPZIbBX01mkHImhxiAwLMQYSqzODvV1dbeUjAYtsBK-jw

Thank you and enjoy the conference!

Title: Vegan Intersectionality

Call for Paper Deadline: June 1, 2023

Date: October 7 & 8 2023

Location: Online

Schedule: TBD

Mainstream theories of social inequality frequently compartmentalize experiences, but inequality rarely works that way in real life. Instead, individuals are comprised of many different identities at once, and these identities will interact with one another in unique ways. Furthermore, multiple systems and institutions are simultaneously at work in a given society. This schema is known as intersectionality, and it is a concept that emerges out of Black feminist thought.

In animal studies, vegan scholars employ this framework to argue that one’s life chances will be shaped, not just by one’s race, class, or gender, but also by their species. Vegan scholars also recognize the influence of an additional system….human supremacy. Historical constructions of race, class, gender, and other identities shape how animals are thought about and how they are treated. Sociologists interested in human justice, meanwhile, would benefit from recognizing how human oppression is always shaped by processes of species inequality.

Given that species, class, race, gender, and other identity categories are all historically constructed using similar mechanisms (such as animalization, objectification, sexualization, depersonalization, denaming, and so on), it is important to apply an intersectional perspective to achieve a more accurate understanding of oppression for nonhuman animals and humans alike. In the fourth annual meeting of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists, we take on this important task, one that is fundamental to vegan sociological theory.

Submission Guidelines

The 2023 IAVS annual meeting will showcase research related to veganism, animal rights, and theories of intersectionality. We welcome submissions for individual presentations (15 minutes and an additional 5 for questions) or panels (45 minutes with 15 for questions) to be delivered in an online format.

Please note that all submissions should fall within the guidelines of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. We are only accepting sociological submissions; submissions that lack a clear sociological focus will not be included. To that end, all submissions must include a one or two sentence rationale clarifying how the submission aligns with sociological theory or practice.

This online conference, organised by the International Association of Vegan Sociologists will be held online and will accommodate North American, European, and Australian time zones. Proposals and queries should be sent to info@vegansociology.com by 1st June. It is expected that all potential presenters have familiarised themselves with the principles of IAVS and plan their presentations with these in mind.

Proposal Checklist:

• Name
• Affiliation (if any)
• Preferred email
• Title of talk
• Abstract (50-300 words)
• Sociological relevance (1-2 sentences)

More info: https://www.vegansociology.com/conference/