Panel: Representing Animals: Nonhuman ‘Others’ in Human Publics.

20-24 November 2013.Chicago, IL

From Save the Whales campaigns of the 1960s to the recent rise of the progressive Dutch political party PvdD (Party for the Animals), people have searched for ways to incorporate nonhuman animals into the human social order. These efforts expose, but are also limited by, the anthropocentric and humanist assumptions built into legal and political frameworks. As Cary Wolfe (2009) suggests in his work on posthumanism, the social sciences must move beyond merely ‘de-centering’ the human to truly incorporate the animal within these investigations. This Panel analyzes innovative attempts (recent and historical) to represent animals in human social, legal, and political arenas. For more information about the conference see http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/