Animal Studies Research Network
at University College Dublin
ASRN at UCD is a network founded by Poulomi Choudhury and Deborah Schrijvers that aims to connect animal studies scholars and artists both within Ireland and beyond. The network organises in-person and virtual events to foster dialogue in this interdisciplinary field, especially with scholars from the environmental humanities and extinction studies.
Conference Call: Closed
The call for presentations and poster submissions has now closed.
The Animal Studies Research Network at University College Dublin is launching a virtual seminar series on various themes within animal studies. The seminar series will run for eight seminars throughout the whole academic year of 2024-2025. This seminar series is in collaboration with the UCD Environmental Humanities Research Theme. All seminars are held online from 3-4:30 PM IST.
The full seminar programme is below.
Seminar Programme
Seminar One
Thursday 10 October 2024, online discussion Animals in Palestine I with (Chair: Dr. Sharae Deckard):
- Prof. Irus Braverman, University at Buffalo (SUNY): “Settler Ecologies: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel”
- Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) at the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University: “Decolonization of People and Nature in Palestine and Globally”
Seminar Two
Wednesday 13 November 2024, online discussion Animals in Palestine II with (Chair: Dr. Sharae Deckard):
- Dr.des Saad Amira, Al-Quds Bard University: “Palestinian perspectives on the wild boar infestation in the West Bank: Towards a decolonial perspective”
- Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Central Saint Martins: “Frames of Reference”
Seminar Three
Wednesday 27 November 2024, online discussion Animals in Food Systems with (Chair: TBA):
- Dr. Richard Twine, Edge Hill University: “Crafting an Alternative Dublin Declaration”
- Julia Castellano, Universitat Pompeu Fabra: “Seeds of Change: Communication Tactics for Ethical Food Systems”
Seminar Four
Wednesday 18 December 2024, online discussion on Animals in Sci-Fi with (Chair: TBA):
- Dr. Liza B. Bauer, Justus Liebig University of Giessen: “Animals, Meat, Science- and Speculative Fiction”
- Dr. Iuliia Ibragimova, Dublin City University: “You Can Be More”: Interspecies Relations and a Challenge to Anthropocentrism in Farscape (1999-2003)
Seminar Five
Wednesday 15 January 2025, online discussion on Veganism, Gender and Class with (Chair: TBA):
- Dr. Thea Xenia Wiesli, University of Innsbruck in Austria: “Towards Sustainable Levels of Meat Consumption: Factors and Support Strategies Across Social Classes”
- Cameron Dunnett, Edge Hill University: “Men and Masculinities in the UK Vegan Activist Movement: A Site for Transformation?”
Seminar Six
Wednesday 5 February 2025, online discussion on Animals in War with (Chair: TBA):
- Dr. Catriona Paul, University of Limerick and Mary Immaculate College: “The Horse Ground: Equine-Human Relationships in Early Kentucky, 1760-1790”
- Dr. Łucja Lange, University of Lodz, Poland: “Military conflicts, disasters, extinction, and the question of nonhuman refugees”
Seminar Seven
Wednesday 5 March 2025, online discussion on Insects and Arachnids in Art with (Chair: TBA):
- Juliane Rohrwacher, Leipzig University: “Vibrations in a Lively Web: Experiencing Non-Human Modes of Perception in the Post-Anthropocentric Artscapes of Tomás Saraceno”
- Rubina, Delhi University: “Making Art with the Kins: Interspecies Collaborations with Bees”
Seminar Eight
Wednesday 9 April 2025, online discussion on Animals in Philosophy with (Chair: TBA):
- Stephen Noon, Durham University & Newcastle University: “A Night on the Sun”
- Natan Feltrin, University of North Texas: “Beyond Extinction: Toward Multispecies Justice in Conservation Ethics”
Principal Organisers
Poulomi Choudhury
Poulomi Choudhury is an Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholar and an HI Resident Scholar in UCD’s Environmental Humanities research strand. Her doctoral project explores the role of animal agriculture and meat in the current and ongoing climate crisis through an analysis of twenty-first-century literary works. Poulomi holds a BA in English Literature and was awarded the Government of Ireland Scholarship to complete her MPhil in Popular Literature from Trinity College Dublin. She holds another Masters in Cultural Studies. Her research interests include food studies, critical animal studies, vegan studies, gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, and critical race theory.
Deborah Schrijvers
Deborah Schrijvers is an Ad Astra PhD scholar at UCD, in the School of English, Drama and Film as part of the Environmental Humanities strand. She holds a Bachelor in Philosophy and Literary Studies, and a Research Master in Literary Studies. For her PhD project, she researches visual extinction narratives and temporalities with an emphasis on gender, race and decolonisation in contemporary and transnational film and art. She has recently been the recipient of an EARTH fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (April-June 2023) and is currently an affiliate researcher at Network for Environmental Humanities at Utrecht University (September 2023 – February 2024). Additionally, she is UCD Environmental Humanities’ Research Assistant and copy editor at the human-animal studies journal Humanimalia.
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