Join us on Friday 19 June for an afternoon of online animal history! We’ll have two panels of diverse papers on the theme of borders and boundaries in animal history, followed by a keynote lecture from Professor Abigail Woods. The event will conclude with a forum – a chance to meet each other, find out what we’re all working on and have an informal discussion about the field.

Previous Animal History Group conferences have been wonderfully international events, and we hope that Animal History Online will continue that trend. Whilst an online event collapses the barrier of physical distance, however, it also unfortunately expounds the barrier of time zones! The programme is given in UK timings, but we hope that, wherever you’re based, there will be parts you’ll be able to join us for, if not all.

Delegate packs and meeting links will be sent directly to all registered attendees a few days before the event.

Provisional programme

13.30 – 15.00: Panel One: Pre-modern histories

Camel-centric relationships between nomadic and sedentary peoples in Roman Syria and Arabia

Josef Bloomfield, Prospective DPhil student, Oxford, Autumn 2020

Beehives on the Border of Humanity: The Monks of Skellig Michael

Corey Wrenn, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Kent

Royal Animals

Ellinor Gray, Curatorial Intern (Decorative Arts), Royal Collection Trust

Animal domestication and the human-animal difference in Buffon’s Natural History

Dario Galvao, PhD student in Philosophy, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and University of Sao Paulo

15.00 – 15.30: Break

15.30 – 17.00: Panel Two: Modern histories

What Can Merino Sheep Tell About the Ottoman Empire? Breed, Infrastructure, and Local Markets in the Balkans and Western Anatolia, 1800-1850

Anil Askin (Anıl Aşkın), PhD Student, Department of History, Brown University

‘the creatures He made’: Animal Welfare in Salvation Army Literature, c. 1890–1930

Flore Janssen, Salvation Army International Heritage Centre

‘Desperate Diseases Require Desperate Remedies’: intercommunity cooperation and the interwar investigation of inherited deafness in Bull Terriers

Alison Skipper, PhD student, Kings’ College London

Animal Histories in the Dead of Night

Andy Flack, Lecturer in Modern and Environmental History, University of Bristol

17.00 – 17.15: Break

17.15 – 18.00: Keynote

Edward Jenner’s zoological perspective: A new history of vaccination

Abigail Woods, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Arts, University of Lincoln

18.00 – 19.00: Animal History Forum