The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University invites publishers to submit works for consideration for the nineteenth annual book prize, which will be awarded to an interdisciplinary scholarly monograph in humanities studies published by a single author in 2017. The application deadline is June 15th, 2018. For more information, visit the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research here:

http://glasscock.tamu.edu/bookprize_call/

‘Advances in farm animals research on emotions: animal welfare science and technology challenging the role of farmed animals in current agricultural practices and policies’

Professor Mara Miele (Cardiff)

Wednesday 24th May, 3-5pm

‘Of Islands, Ecology, and Immunity: The Lost Maples of Big Bend’

Cary Wolfe, Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor, Department of English, Rice University

Cary Wolfe’s research interests span animal studies and posthumanism, systems theory and pragmatism, biopolitics and biophilosophy, and American literature and culture. His books and edited/co-edited collections include: Animal Rites: American Culture, The Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory (2003); Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal (2003); The Other Emerson (2010); What Is Posthumanism? (2010); Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (2012).

 Thursday 15^th June, 3-5pm

‘Animal Rights and Global Justice’

Alasdair Cochrane, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Sheffield Animal Studies Research Centre, University of Sheffield

Alasdair Cochrane’s main research interests are contemporary political theory, rights theory, human rights, environmental ethics, animal ethics and bioethics. He is the author of An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (2010) and Animal Rights without Liberation (2012). In 2014, he was an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker.

Wednesday 5th July, 3-5pm

‘Should we provide the bear necessities? Climate change, wild animals, and the ethics of supplementary feeding’ 

Clare Palmer, Professor of Philosophy, Texas A&M University

Clare Palmer works at the intersection of environmental ethics and animal ethics. Her books and edited/co-edited collections include: Animal Ethics in Context (2010); Killing Animals (2006); Animal Rights (2008); Veterinary Science: Humans, Animals and Health (2011); Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World (2014); Companion Animal Ethics (2015).

 All lectures take place in room 2.13, Geography Building (High School Yards, Drummond Street, Edinburgh). The lectures are free and open to all.

 Supported by the Institute of Geography and the Lived Environment, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh. Organized by Emily Brady and Krithika Srinivasan.

Hans Maes (Kent): Portraits of Philosophers and the Philosophy of Portraits
6th April 2017 – 4:00 pm, University of Edinburgh,
G.009, Richard Verney Health Centre
7 Bristo Square

Abstract
This paper presents a close analysis of Steve Pyke’s famous series of portraits of philosophers. By comparing his photographs to other well-known series of portraits and to other portraits of philosophers we will seek a better understanding of the distinctiveness and fittingness of Pyke’s project. With brief nods to Barthes, Baudrillard, Berger, Hegel, and Schopenhauer and an extensive critical investigation of Cynthia Freeland’s ideas on portraiture in general and her reading of Steve Pyke’s portraits in particular this paper will also aim to make a contribution to the philosophical debate on portraiture.

The Institute of Geography invites you to a talk ‘Animals as Labourers? Marx, Work and Nonhumans’ by Dr. Dinesh Wadiwel, University of Sydney

Date and time: Friday, 3rd February 2017; 1.00 pm – 2.30 pm

Venue: G10 Drummond Library, Institute of Geography, Drummond Street

Abstract: The recent ‘political turn’ in animal rights theory has also opened up possibilities for conceptualising animals as a social justice issue within the context of social and political institutions. This paper explores the potential of using theory from Karl Marx to think about animal labour under capitalism. In Capital Marx draws a fundamental distinction between constant capital and variable capital (comprising the so called “organic composition of capital”). In this account, it is the latter category of capital that is reflective of human labour, and only variable capital is capable of producing surplus. Against this view a range of scholars – such as Ted Benton, Jason Hribal, Kendra Coulter, Alasdair Cochrane, and Barbara Noske – have proposed animals as labouring subjects. In addition, a range of other recent scholars – such as Melinda Cooper and Jason Moore – have provided new grounds for rethinking Marxist thinking on labour, and moving this discussion beyond the human. This paper seeks to extend on this work. Drawing on Marx, I will argue in a technical sense that animals labour as variable capital to both produce surplus and simultaneously to reproduce themselves as constant capital to be exchanged at the next phase of a value chain. I will examine live animal transport as a way to demonstrate this dynamic. I will further argue that this perspective offers some novel ways to consider the exploitation of animals, and offers animal advocates some different ways to argue for change.

Dr. Dinesh Wadiwel is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. His research interests include violence, race, disability rights and critical animal studies. He is author of the monograph The War against Animals (Brill, 2015).

Aaron Meskin (Leeds)

“Aesthetic Testimony: An Experimental Investigation”

4:00 pm, Tuesday 31st January 2017

Room G04, 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Abstract

Ordinary testimony transmits knowledge. But aestheticians have been sceptical of whether aethetic testimony  transmits aesthetic knowledge. Although the debate in the philosophical  literature focuses largely on normative and conceptual questions,  empirical claims about folk resistance to aesthetic testimony play a significant role in that debate. Our studies explore folk attitudes towards aesthetic testimony. We argue that experimental results do not support pessimism about the epistemic value of aesthetic testimony.

For further information click here.

The *Scottish Aesthetics Forum *is delighted to announce its next lecture:
*Professor A.W. Eaton (University of Illinois, Chicago)*

*“Propaganda, Pornography, Pictures, and Persuasion”*

*Monday, 5 December, 2016, 4:15 – 6:00pm*

*Room 1.20, Dugald Stewart Building, *

*University of Edinburgh*
*The lecture is free and open to all!*
*Abstract:* It is a curious fact about the philosophical literatures on
both propaganda and pornography that they tend to talk about these
phenomena as if they were primarily linguistic. Yet by far most pornography
today is pictorial and most propaganda has a significant pictorial
component. This paper aims to shift the focus in the conversations to
pictures and begins to think through some of the implications of this
shift. In particular, I’ll be developing a peculiarly pictorial model of
persuasion that better suits the work that pornography and propaganda can
do. Along the way, I’ll use some examples of highly persuasive pictures
from the Italian Renaissance.
*About the speaker:* A.W. Eaton is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Illinois, at Chicago, where she is also affiliated with the
Gender and Women’s studies and the Department of Art History. A.W. Eaton
received her Ph.D. from The University of Chicago in both philosophy and
art history in 2003. She works on topics in feminism, aesthetics and
the philosophy of art, value theory, and Italian Renaissance painting.
Her special interests include the epistemological and ontological status
of aesthetic value, the relationship between ethical and artistic
value, feminist critiques of pornography, representations of rape in the
European artistic tradition, and artifact teleology. A.W. Eaton was a
Laurence Rockefeller Fellow at Princeton’s Center for Human Values in
2005-6. She is the editor of the Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art section of
Philosophy Compass. For more details and for a list of publications, see
her website at https://sites.google.com/site/eatonaw/home.
*Additional information: *The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our
speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the
organisers by Thursday, 5 December.

*** *There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students,
offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ****
– To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

– For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk

– Or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum
SAF* is generously supported by the *British Society of Aesthetics*.*

The School of Divinity and the Cultural and Historical Geography
Research Group invite you to a talk “The Question of the Animal and
Religion” by Dr. Aaron Gross, Associate Professor, University of San
Diego.

Aaron S. Gross is a historian of religions at the University of San
Diego who specializes in Jewish traditions and has a sub-specialty in
South Asian traditions.

Date and time: 3rd November 2016; 16.00 – 17.30
Venue: New College, Mound Place , Edinburgh EH1 2LX
Further details and registration available at: http://bit.ly/AGross

All welcome.

David Coady (University of Tasmania)
‘Personal Responsibility and Climate Change’

Wednesday, 9th November, 4-6pm, room 2.05, Geography Building, University of Edinburgh

All welcome.

WREFORD WATSON LECTURE 2016

Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News*

*WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS: HOW WARFARE AND WHATSAPP ARE CHANGING REPORTING*

DATE: Thursday 12 May 2016

TIME: 16:30

PLACE: George Square Lecture Theatre, George Square, EH8 9LH

Tickets can be reserved on Eventbrite (by 28 April 2016).

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wreford-watson-public-lecture-2016-tickets-22741611773

Lindsey is a renowned TV journalist and writer. Recently she reported the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe and Lebanon and the Paris terror attacks, as well as conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Mali. She covered the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the genocide in Rwanda, as well as witnessing the Arab Spring uprisings in Libya and Egypt. From 2006-8 she was based in China. She is the author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution, which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and is currently writing a biography of Marie Colvin, the war correspondent who was killed in Syria in 2012.

She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex in 2004, and has won several awards including the Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year, James Cameron Award, One World Broadcasting Trust Award, Voice of the Viewer and Listener, and the Charles Wheeler Award. In 2015, Lindsey Hilsum was awarded the Mungo Park Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society by HRH Princess Anne, the Princess Royal and Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.

The lecture will be a first-hand account of war reporting. Lindsey will discuss the new ways refugees and reporters try to overcome restrictions on movement and information. Governments and rebel groups use increasingly brutal methods to stop journalists from seeing what’s really going on while, under the pressure of mass migration, Europe has re-imposed borders that had melted away. In reponse, new virtual geographies are being created as citizen journalists send videos by Youtube and refugees resort to smugglers and move cash through cyberspace.

The Wreford Watson Lecture series commemorates the life and work of James Wreford Watson (1915-1990), the distinguished geographer and poet, who held a chair at the University of Edinburgh (from 1953 to 1983) and who served as Chief Geographer to the Canadian Government.