Laboratory for Animal Studies,
affiliated to the Faculty of Letters of the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland,
and the Department of History of Russian Literature,
part of the Institute of East Slavic Philology at the University of Silesia

wish to extend an invitation to

a third interdisciplinary international conference
in the “Human and His / Her Others” series
entitled
ZOOTHANATOS

to be held on 25-26 September, 2017,
at the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland

***
The conference will be devoted to the presentation of past and contemporary zoothanatologies, or the theme of animal death in all its forms and manifestations. Its major focus will be a scholarly investigation of the death and dying of animals in diverse circumstances (such as warfare, corrida, slaughterhouse, hunting, poaching, fishing, medical experimentation, or animal fighting) and in natural conditions. These issues will best be examined as multi-faceted problems, in a variety of philosophical, ethical, ecological, literary, cultural, medical, veterinary, social, psychological, ethnographic and religious contexts.

The scholarly considerations in the field of animal studies often engage the idea of whether a human being has the right to kill animals, whether they themselves are conscious of their own dying, whether and in what way an individual animal experiences / conceives the death of his or her fellow beings (other animals or guardians), whether and how people approach the question of the death of their own and someone else’s animals, how they treat the death of farm or wild animals, and so on. Animal death is also more and more frequent as a motif of artistic and literary works.
The thematic scope of the conference will include the following issues:
various dimensions of animal death
animal death conceived as simply ceasing to live or “passing away” (various forms of addressing animal death)
the community of human and animal experience in the face of death
the notion and need of sensitizing people to the death of non-human beings
the question of animals dying out or being driven to extinction
the idea of “eternal living”
all other research proposals concerning the question of human and non-human death
The list of problems and issues that can be tackled is long; the above-mentioned questions are just examples. We invite scholars from a variety of fields – literary studies, linguistics, history, philosophy, cultural studies and anthropology, ethology, psychology, veterinary science and biology – to address the broad spectrum of problems pertaining to the topic of the conference. We hope their research will cast new light on the understanding of animal death in its psychological, cultural and linguistic aspects.
The presentations are supposed to last 20 minutes (in the plenary sessions) or 15 minutes (in the panel sessions). The languages of the conference are English, Polish and Russian.
The conference venue is the Scientific Information Centre and Academic Library (Centrum Informacji Naukowej i Biblioteka Akademicka, CINiBA), 11 A Bankowa Street, Katowice, Poland.
The proceedings of the conference are planned to be published. The organizing committee reserves the right to select the texts to be included in the book. All articles will be peer-reviewed before publication.
Please send your paper proposal by filling in the included registration form and attaching an abstract of up to 1500 characters to zootanatos@interia.pl by 14 May 2017. The notification of the acceptance or rejection of the proposals will be sent by 31 May 2017.
The conference fee is 100 euro (or 400 Polish zlotys) to be paid by money transfer upon the notification of the acceptance of a proposal. The account number for the participants from abroad is: PL 74 1050 1214 1000 0007 0000 7909; SWIFT: INGBPLPW (the recipient: Uniwersytet Śląski; the recipient’s address: ul. Bankowa 12, 40-007 Katowice; reference for the payment: Zoothanatos + name and surname of the participant in the conference). The invoice will automatically be issued, containing the data of the person or institution making a payment.
The conference fee covers conference materials, costs of the publication of the proceedings, a banquet and coffee breaks.
The participants need to cover the other expenses (transport, accommodation and board) on their own. All delegates will need to arrange their own accommodation since this will not be provided as part of the conference package.
If you have any queries, please send your message to zootanatos@interia.pl.


Scientific committee:

Professor Justyna Tymieniecka-Suchanek (Institute of East Slavic Philology, University of Silesia)
Professor Marzena Kubisz (Institute of English Cultures and Literatures, University of Silesia)
Dr. Alina Mitek-Dziemba (Institute of Comparative Literature, University of Silesia)