Animal Death. June 13, 2012, University of Sydney Camperdown Campus. This symposium brings together cross-disciplinary voices on the topic of Animal Death. It seeks papers that explore how animal and human death are conceptualized, diverge, differ and also connect in profound ways. Papers could explore issues of sacrifice, “necessary” expendability, utility, species extinction, human survival, climate change and conservation. They are particularly interested in human and animal relationships around the nature of death. These include (but not limited to) issues of grief (for the dead companion animal), euthanasia, rituals of slaughter, vivisection, cultures of denial, the issue of who is and isn’t attributed a soul, and post-death belief systems. Please send 200 word abstracts to Dr Jay Johnston by January 16, 2012. Panels of up to three speakers are welcome.

This symposium is a pre-conference event of the Minding Animals Conference. Minding Animals provides an avenue for the transdisciplinary field of Animal Studies to be more responsive to the protection of animals. The symposium is being organized and hosted at the University of Sydney by the Human Animal Research Network (HARN), an interdisciplinary and cross-faculty research group that aims to promote cross-disciplinary dialogue within the emerging discipline of Animal Studies.