We would like to thank everyone who attended and/or presented at our conference on the 17th of June! We hope that you enjoyed the papers and discussions as much as we did.
If anyone would like to write up a short reaction or reflection on some of the conference papers and themes, do get in touch at our usual email address. We would be interested in posting some of your ideas and questions on our blog, as a kind of ‘these are the important issues we raised’ type of overview of the conference.
Please note that there have been some last-minute changes to the conference programme, as Thomas Harmsworth has withdrawn his paper. The new schedule is:
9.00 – Registration (Room 4.2)
9.20 – Welcome and Introduction (Room 4.2)
9.30 – 11.00 Session 1:
Panel 1: Photography, Corpses and Dolls: Non/Human Imprints (Room 4.1)
Chaired by Sophia Wilson (King’s College London)
Lauren Summersgill (Birkbeck College, University of London)
Sandra Mills (University of Hull)
Polly Dickson (University of Cambridge)
Panel 2: Forming Connections in a Non/Human Environment (Room 4.2)
Chaired by Briony Wickes (King’s College London)
Irina Chkhaidze (University College London)
Adrian Tait (independent scholar)
Jon Garrad (independent scholar)
Jennifer Adlem (Queen Mary, University of London)
11.00 – 11.30 – Tea/coffee break (Room 4.1)
11.30 – 12.30 Session 2:
Panel 3: Humans, Animals and Inter-species Connections (Room 4.1)
Withdrawn due to last-minute cancellation, the paper by Jennifer Adlem has been moved to panel 2.
Panel 4: The Scientific Body: Brains and Microbes (Room 4.2)
Chaired by Gabriella Infante (King’s College London)
Nancy Cooper (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Susan Gray (Royal Holloway, University of London)
12.30 – Lunch (Room 4.1)
13.30 – 15.00 Session 3:
Panel 5: Cyborgs, Machines, Mechanized Humans (Room 4.1)
Chaired by Gerard Briscoe (Queen Mary, University of London)
Mayu Iida (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Geert van Iersel (Fontys University of Applied Sciences)
Ágnes Kanizsai and Gergely Nagy (University of Szeged, Hungary)
Panel 6: Bodily Limits and Instability: Experiments, Catastrophes, Genocide (Room 4.2)
Chaired by Eleanor Massie (Queen Mary, University of London)
Maciej Czerniakowski (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)
Christopher Lloyd (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Stefano Bellin (University College London)
15.00 – 15.30 – Tea/coffee break (Room 4.1)
15.30 – 17.00 Session 4:
Panel 7: Threatening Bodies: Weapons, Factories and Technology (Room 4.1)
Chaired by Nicola Kirkby (King’s College London)
Joanna Robinson (King’s College London/Museum of London)
Fabienne Collignon (University of Sheffield)
Jonathon O’Donnell (SOAS, University of London)
Panel 8: Transformations in Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Anime (Room 4.2)
Chaired by Hetta Howes (Queen Mary, University of London)
Karen Graham (University of Aberdeen)
Anya Benson (University of York)
Erin Horáková (Glasgow University)
17.00 – Closing, all are welcome to join us for drinks!
Our conference programme has been finalized and it is now up on this page.
Registration for the conference is also open. Please register via our Eventbrite page:
http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/conference-being-nonhuman-bodily-borders-tickets-16033488596
Although the tickets are free, we would like all our speakers and other delegates to register in advance, so that we know how many people to expect (for catering, size of rooms, etc.).
We hope to see you all on the 17th of June!
This is just a gentle reminder that the deadline for submitting abstracts for our upcoming conference ‘Being Non/Human: Bodily Borders’ is Monday 2nd February 2015. Our conference focuses on the suspension between the non/human and the borderlands of non/humanity, examining how such borders are defined, transgressed or denied altogether. The conference will take place on Wednesday 17th June 2015 at Queen Mary, University of London. Please send abstracts (250 words) for twenty minute papers or panel proposals to: being.non.human AT gmail.com.
We look forward to reading your abstracts!
Some of our members might be interested in the following:
- Dr Nicola Bown (Birkbeck University of London)
- Dr Alaric Hall (University of Leeds)
- Justina Robson, science fiction and fantasy writer
- Peter Stevenson, fairy tale illustrator and storyteller
Topics might include, but are not limited to:
- Current theories in analyzing fairy tales, folk tales, and fantasy literature
- Complexities around representations and interpretations of the fantastic and the speculative both within and beyond historical contexts and period categorizations
- Problems in translating elements of the fantastic across cultures, disciplines, and geographic areas
- How the fantastic relates to constructions and representations of gender and ethnicity
- Perceptions of the fantastic within/across generational and inter-generational contexts (e.g. children’s literature, young adult fiction, etc.)
- Exploring genre classifications and boundaries within the fantastic and the speculative (touching on the gothic, the uncanny, mythologies, romances, the monstrous and science fiction to name a few examples)
- Recently discovered texts (visual, vocal, written, and others), reimagined, and/or adapted texts
- Connections across mediums that deal with the fantastic – art, literature, film, music, drama, graphics
- Using fairy tales, folk tales, and fantasy literature in classroom, community, and digital contexts
We welcome proposals from postgraduate students, established scholars, independent researchers, writers, and artists from any background. Papers can be on any subject or discipline in relation to fairy tales, folk tales, and fantasy literature but we encourage these topics to question or address ideas and crossings of boundaries between/within conceptions of the fantastic and the speculative. Proposal abstracts must be between 200-300 words; please send abstracts, along with a biography (100 words maximum) of the prospective speaker(s), to reading.the.fantastic@gmail.com (using the term ‘ TBB conference abstract’ in the subject heading).
‘Being Non/Human’ is organising a conference for 2015 on the topic of ‘bodily borders’ and we invite any postgraduate or early career researcher interested in this theme to submit an abstract or propose a panel. Being Non/Human is an interdisciplinary group that engages with research on interactions between the human and nonhuman, providing a forum for graduate students and early career researchers to present current research. We hope this conference will offer a similar opportunity.
Transforming human skin into fur or scale; combining living tissue with metal; breaking through membrane into disembodied existence. Factual and fictional narratives of bodily metamorphosis are common. But what does it mean to exist in the middle – in the moment between pre- and post-transformation? What does it entail when we speak of change, adaptation and mutation? We are looking for papers and panels which explore this suspension between the non/human and open it up to analyse the borderlands of non/humanity, examining how such borders are defined, transgressed or denied altogether.
This is an interdisciplinary conference and as such we welcome papers and panels from a range of backgrounds. We are looking for examinations of bodily borders within literature and popular culture, the limits of the human in medicine, the impact of technological developments on how we define the borders of the ‘human’, the place of the non/human in ethics, anthropological approaches to how the human body may have changed over time, the concept of liminal embodiment in theology, discussions of the boundary between human and animal, and so forth.
How human is the cyborg’s touch? What does it mean to cross species’ boundaries or create chimeras? What is the experience of shifting beyond an animal body into vegetal or ecological vibrancy – to become cold as ice, turn into stone, be reduced to ash or mud? Is the transformation between the non/human merely physical?
Possible focuses might include:
Please send abstracts (250 words) for twenty minute papers or panel proposals to: being.non.human AT gmail.com. The deadline for abstracts is Monday 2nd February 2015.
The conference will take place on Wednesday 17th June 2015 at Queen Mary, University of London. It is organised by Sophia Wilson (King’s College London) and Lydia Zeldenrust (Queen Mary, University of London).
Being Non/Human
http://www.beingnonhuman.wordpress.com
Many of you may have already heard about this, but from the 15th to 23rd November there will be the ‘Being Human’ festival of humanities across the UK and Northern Ireland: http://beinghumanfestival.org/
This festival is aimed at promoting the innovative research going on in the various humanities departments across UK universities. There are lots of public lectures, film screenings, exhibitions and performances.
Here are just a few of the events taking place…
‘Memory Banquet: Food and Acts of Remembering’ (London, 15th November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/memory-banq-uet/
‘The Genius of Language’ (Canterbury, 16th November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/genius-language/
‘Finding Commonality: Hamlet in World Cinema’ (Belfast, 17th November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/finding-commonality-hamlet-world-cinema/
‘Terror, Gods and Magic in the North’ (Aberdeen, 18th November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/human-aberdeen-3/
‘Animal, Mechanical and Me’ (Edinburgh, 19th November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/animal-mechanical/
‘From Humanism to the Human: A Medieval and Renaissance Journey’ (Norwich, 20th November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/humanism-human-medieval-renaissance-journey/
‘Feeling Funny, Being Human’ (London, 21st November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/feeling-funny/
‘Genre and Gender, Couples and Culture’ (London, 22nd November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/genre-and-gender/
‘We Are Many’ (Nottingham, 23rd November) – http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/many/
There are plenty other events going on, so have a look at their website.
We really enjoyed running Being Non/Human as a monthly discussion group this past year – a big thank you to all our presenters and all of you who attended!
Instead of continuing Being Non/Human as a discussion group, next year we will be holding a Being Non/Human conference.
We are currently planning the conference: we will be emailing those of you on our mailing list once we have designed the call for papers. We will also post the call for papers here as soon as it’s ready. Until then, have a lovely summer, and watch this space!
I came across this CFP and thought some of our group members might be interested in this conference:
Call for papers:
University College London (UCL)
Joint Faculty Institute of Graduate Studies
HUMANITY AND ANIMALITY IN 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY CULTURE: NARRATIVES, THEORIES, HISTORIES. AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE
15 September, 2014
This interdisciplinary conference takes up an important debate in a field of growing importance in the humanities, where animal studies, post-humanism, and eco-criticism have surged in recent years. The definition of mankind seems necessarily to pass through an understanding of what constitutes the animal. Philosophically, what distinguishes, or indeed brings together humanity and animality has been the subject of debate from Aristotle’s understanding of man as ‘zôon logon echon’ and from Kant’s view of man’s treatment of animals as an insight into the true nature of humankind, Derrida’s seminars on ‘the beast and the sovereign’, up to Agamben’s recent theory of ‘bare life’ as the breakdown of the barrier between man and animal. Artists, authors and filmmakers, such as Kafka, Dalí, Borges, Coetzee, Primo Levi, Margaret Atwood, Karl Appel, Paula Rego, Werner Herzog (‘Grizzly Man’), and Benh Zeitlin (‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’) to name but a few, have also grappled with the significance of the divide or symbiosis of humanity and animality. Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti and Andrew Benjamin are also redefining ways in which humanity and animality can be thought together, or apart. The violent upheavals of the 20th century, with its global wars, unprecedented genocides and totalitarian experiments led to a re-evaluation of notions such as humanism and humanity, which has made way for new hopes and anxieties relating to the subhuman and the post-human. By hosting a varied programme of papers and debates chaired by high-profile contributors to this emerging field of inquiry, this conference aims to establish a forum for researchers throughout the UK to discuss this important theoretical issue.
Topics of discussion may include but are not limited to the following questions/topics:
Is it possible, or even desirable to distinguish between animality and humanity?
In which ways does the dialectic of ‘human’ and ‘animal’ shape our identities, culture and morality?
Why is the comparison with animal world so important for our culture?
Shame, pride, sorrow, fear, anxiety, fascination, awe: how do emotions acknowledge the relation between humanity and animality?
How do literature, art, evolutionary theory, philosophy and other disciplines negotiate the changes undergone by the concept of the ‘human’ in the last century?
How have our perceptions of ‘humanity’ and ‘animality’ changed in relation to violent and extreme events such as genocide, widespread atrocity, world war etc.?
Are we really a Darwinian species, or do technology, morality and creativity separate us
from the rest of the natural evolution?
How can we rethink the binary opposition between humanity and inhumanity?
Have we entered into a post-human era?
Evolutionary theory and the human condition, Human-Animal studies
Humanity and Animality in Art, Literature, Science, Philosophy, Cinema, Religion, etc. What does the persistence of the fascination with animals suggest about specific cultural and historical moments?
Deadline for Abstracts:
Please send an abstract (300 words maximum) and a short biography (50 words maximum) to s.bellin.12 AT ucl.ac.uk by August 1st, 2014.
A summary of our final meeting for the academic year!
Mariel Jana Supka discussed the concept of non-native animals, moving on to consider how such animals have been used in notable examples of performance art and outlining her use of non-native animals in her own performances. Given the previous meeting in which John Lock considered the alignment between the human understanding / treatment of deer in Richmond park and that of human societal minorities, it was interesting to hear Supka’s explanation of ‘invasion biology’ (a term coined by Charles Elton in 1958). The perspective offered by ‘invasion biology’ is that non-native animals are indeed ‘invaders’ – threats to the ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ ecosystem of a region. Such a perspective often acquires a nationalistic or xenophobic attitude, and it is striking how the treatment and description of certain non-native animals is similar to that of humans who are perceived as ‘others’. Responses to invasion biology tend to be that we should remove these foreign invading non-native animals and so maintain the status quo or original state of a region’s ecosystem. Such a response implies an essential divide between human and nature by promoting the idea that nature can remain relatively unaffected by human society, ignoring the fact that historically humans have frequently introduced different species or subspecies to environments (intentionally or otherwise). Arguing that non-native species force us to confront the illusion of the human / nature divide (i.e., force us to recognise that nature is and always has been affected by human society), Supka then considered how the use of animals – especially non-native animals – in performance art can highlight the mutual interactions between human and animal, nature and culture. For instance, Supka discussed the Chinese Mitten crab and the idea of constructing barrels on which performances could take place and within which the crabs could form their own dwelling – sites which are therefore determined by both the human and animal participants. For more info on Supka’s work, see her website: http://www.marieljanasupka.org/#!enter-en/ce18
Susan Richardson performed several of her poems which concern human-animal interactions and metamorphoses, interspersing her performances with explanations as to how she researched and constructed these poems. By performing first one of her earliest poems on metamorphosis and concluding with one of her latest, the chronological structure of Richardson’s presentation highlighted how her use of language changed over time as she gradually altered her perception of physical transformation and attempted to become closer to the nonhuman through language. For example, whilst the earlier poem typically used regular sentence structure, this had broken down by the time Richardson wrote one of her more recent poems in which not only is the distinction between noun and verb sometimes unsettled but the voice of the subject becomes uncertain, shifting from ‘I’ to ‘us’. Richardson drew particularly on various myths and legends, from Welsh stories derived from the Mabinogion to Inuit myths and Norse legends. Richardson’s most recent collection of poetry, Skindancing, is due to be published in March 2015. You can read more about her work here: www.susanrichardsonwriter.co.uk
In pairing these presenters together, it was interesting to see two different approaches to the concept of becoming or interacting with the animal (through language in poetry or through the body in performance art) and see how both presentations related to time: Richardson frequently draws on ancient myths and in some poems incorporates these past tales into the present day, whilst Supka defines her performance art primarily in contrast to the relatively recent concept of ‘invasion biology’. Both presentations are concerned with bridging or outright querying the existence of a gap between animal nature and human culture. One question that both presentations raised is when this supposed gap was imagined or introduced – is this supposed gap a recent phenomenon or has humanity always struggled between interacting with / transforming into the animal and dissociating themselves from the nonhuman?
In describing the process of physical metamorphosis and this recent approach to performance art, these presentations suggest the moment of suspension between maintaining the binaries ‘human’ and ‘nonhuman’ and foregoing these categories altogether. They suggest the connection between the human and nonhuman – the non/human state.
Being Non/Human 