AASA 2025: Centring Animals Across The Disciplines
The University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia
5 – 7 November
Abstract submissions have been extended to 4 August 2025.
Please submit your abstract here or see below for more details. Submit here
The 2025 Australasian Animal Studies Association (AASA) Conference is held on the lands of Jagera, Giabal and Jarowair peoples. The Jagera people of the foothills and escarpment, Giabal of the Toowoomba area and the Jarowair of the northern areas towards and including the Bunya Mountains.
The 2025 AASA Conference, Centring Animals Across the Disciplines, asks us to pause, reorientate, and engage our imagination, intellect, and practice to place non-human animals at the centre.
What does the world look, feel, taste or sound like when we, as scholars, artists and activists, put animals at the centre of our engagement?
What critically informed insights emerge?
The Conference will offer a vibrant setting for conversations, projects, debates, and speculative futures, with the aim of identifying cross and trans-disciplinary synergies, and integrating First Nations knowledge in the interests of other species and the more than human world.
Call For Papers - Deadline For Abstracts 4 August 2025
We invite proposals that seek to centre animals from a range of disciplines and perspectives. Many First Nations perspectives respect non-humans as part of an interconnected multi-being world. Meanwhile, the ‘animal turn’ has seen many disciplines attend more closely to animals. What, for example, does it mean to put animals at the centre of law/lore and legal theory, social work, or creative arts practice? What questions and possibilities emerge from centring animals in our conversations on home/homelessness, climate change, health, gender, history, or war (as examples)? We encourage perspectives on animals, animal studies and the challenges of transcending anthropocentrism and disciplinarity. We also encourage proposals on the relations between Indigenous justice movements and multispecies justice movements.
AASA is committed to providing a safe and supportive experience for First Nations participants. We warmly welcome abstracts from Indigenous scholars, advocates and creative practitioners for papers, collective activities, panel discussions, creative works, and community presentations. Indigenous perspectives continue to evolve, as featured in AASA’s 2019 groundbreaking Decolonising Animals conference and we seek to continue these discussions at AASA 2025. The Indigenous Engagement Sub-Committee, which includes First Nations scholars in the Association, is working with Conference organisers to facilitate this.
We invite proposals of no more than 200 words for:
- academic papers, creative papers, or community/industry-informed papers
- discussion/yarning circles on a particular topic
- pre-formed discussion panels
- submission of artwork to the exhibition, film screenings, performances, readings, and other Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs)*
If you would like to propose an alternative session, please email the conference organising committee directly to discuss via info@animalstudies.org.au.
Abstracts close on 4 August 2025. Submit here
*Please note we have limited space and technical support to present artworks in the exhibition. Presenters will need to look after their own freight of any exhibition material to and from Toowoomba, QLD. Selected NTROs and other creative works will be chosen on their merit as well as on the practical logistics of presenting such work at the conference.
Conference registration and fees
Conference registration will open soon. Please check back here or folllow our social media for updates – bluesky, facebook, LinkedIn.
Registration fees:
*Early Bird – closes 1 September
Standard Registrations: Member Non-Member
Full, Conference Attendance $350 $430
Full, Optional Dinner $130 $130
Total with Dinner $480 $560
Concession, Conference Attendance $280 $345
Conc, Conference Attendance $80 $90
Total with Dinner $360 $435
Early Bird Registrations: Member Non-Member
Full, Conference Attendance $265 $345
Full, Optional Dinner $130 $130
Total with Dinner $395 $475
Concession, Conference Attendance $210 $250
Conc, Optional Dinner $80 $80
Total with Dinner $290 $330
One Day Only Registrations:
Standard
Full Member one day – $150
Full Non-Member one day- $175
Conc Member one day – $120
Conc Non- Member one day – $150
Early Bird
Full Member one day – $140
Full Non-Member one day- $165
Conc Member one day – $110
Conc Non – Member one day – $140
Location
The 2025 AASA Conference will occur in person at the University of Southern Queensland’s beautiful Toowoomba campus from.
Toowoomba is a regional city of 180,000 residents sitting atop the Great Dividing Range in Southern Queensland. It is a central hub housed between Western Queensland and the Eastern coastline and capital city of Brisbane. In November the weather in Toowoomba is typically a pleasant 15 – 27 degrees, without the high humidity experienced in Brisbane. Rain is possible.
Getting there
The university is approximately 15 minutes’ drive from the Toowoomba CBD on the southern side of the city. Bus and taxis are available.
Flights: Flights direct from Sydney to Toowoomba (only one flight in and out per day – although it looks like they are not flying Tuesday 4 November. There is a bus shuttle and taxi service to take passengers from the airport to the CBD.
There are also flights direct to Brisbane Domestic or International terminals each day. It is a 2 hour drive from Brisbane airport to Toowoomba CBD or UniSQ. There are bus shuttles that can be booked to take passengers from the airport to Toowoomba and car hire options from the airport.
Car: Toowoomba is a 2 hour drive west from Brisbane airport, a 2.5 hour drive north-west from the Gold Coast, and a 2.5 hour drive south-west from the Sunshine Coast.
Accomodation – conference discounts
Highlander Motor Inn https://www.highlandermotorinn.com.au/
4 Star accommodation – motel rooms and 1 – 3 bedroom apartments
15% discount per night when indicating you are attending the AASA Conference
Phone +61 7 4638 4955
managers@highlandermotorinn.com.au
226 James Street, Toowoomba (4 kms from the University, about 8 mins drive)
Burke and Wills Hotel www.burkeandwillshotel.com.au
4 Star hotel with restaurant and bar (located within the central business district)
10% discount per night – quote BURKE25 when booking to gain the discount – USE THIS LINK
+61 7 4632 2433
554 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba (5.5kms from the University, about 10 mins drive)
bw.reception@hgroup.com.au
Comfort Inn Glenfield https://www.comfortinnglenfield.com.au/
3 Star motel, situated close to supermarket and food takeaway outlets
Members Business Rate (which is typically 5% discount on standard rate per night) when indicating you are attending the AASA Conference
+61 7 4635 4466
876 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba (2.5 kms from the University, about 5 mins drive)
Submit your abstract here: Submit here