International Conference "Animal Life Histories"
Basel, Switzerland, 17-19 March 2022
This interdisciplinary conference will allow to discuss, across time boundaries, methodological and conceptual questions resulting from approaching the animal as an individual. What are the adequate methods and approaches to grasp animals as individuals and individual differences between animals? What role do anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism, or speciesism play? How does individuality develop in animals? At what point is individuality biologically important? How is animal individuality perceived or constructed through cultural history(s)? Finally, ethical questions arise concerning animal individuality and the human-animal relationship. Some of the topics that will be tackled are: the animal and its human being, socio-cultural differences in ancient human-animal relationships, animals in the classical world (historical and archaeological sources), ethics in human-animal relationships, the biology, cultural history, and fictionalization of animal individuality, and methods for accounting for individual differences in animal behaviour and methods for tracing life histories.
This conference is organised by the SNSF project HumAnimAl in cooperation with the Philosophy Department of the University of Basel. (https://ipna.duw.unibas.ch/de/forschung/archaeobiologie/archaeozoologie/projekte/humanimal/).
Organising committee:
Prof. Dr. Sabine Deschler-Erb
Dr. Idoia Grau
Monika Schernig
Prof. Dr. Markus Wild
