Animal Conference

So I went to the breakout session on "Animals" on Friday at 3pm. There were three people talking about different aspects on animals. Marilyn Cooper spoke on her "Talking with Animals," Donovan Schaefer with "Compulsory Affectivity: Affect, Animality, and the Non-human Turn," and lastly, James K. Stanescu with "Animals, Assemblage, and Abstraction: Towards a Dark Ethics."

When listening to Marilyn speak, she discussed how animals are seen as being able to communicate with one another.  The fact that many of us (humans) are fascinated with the ideas and thoughts of different species being able to communicate. She points out that they main way animals are able to communicate are through actions and not necessarily through sounds.  She also pointed out that most, human and nonhuman, communicate through our actions. She gave the example of people who didn't speak the same language, how they are able most of the time able to communicate through motions.

Don Schaefer discussed about Affects and how animals are able to help humans show affects. He discussed how animals affect are able to change the way we see and feel about things. He talked about mainly the Affect, but also mentioned about space, and how we react to the environments we are placed in.

James Stanescu discussed about how "ethics can never be delivered from the outsider." He also said that "humanity is an abstraction, the animal abstracts itself." He talked about how we refuse to accept truths, one being that we love to anthropomorphize  everything. Even when the object is not an animal.

Overall, the conference session that I attended very much connected to the course. The dissertation about how animals communicate, relates back to how humans love to believe in the natural. That there could be a communication system between different species as well as between humans and animals, This draws back to the Timothy Treadwell and how he wanted to believe that he could communicate with the grizzly bears.  Don's dissertation relates to Jakob von Uexkull's book because of his discussion on the animals' space and affect, that perception from the animals' point of view.  Marilyn also briefly within her dissertation, talked about how animals create their own territories, something found in Uexkull's book.  Lastly, James, when being asked a question on Autism, referred back to Temple Grandin, who was briefly mentioned in class as well. He briefly discussed about how she was able to use her autism as a way of communicating with animals.