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Call for Papers
Multi-species Asia: Toward Animal Perspectives
International Conference
National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan), October 1-3, 2026
How might animal studies genuinely take animal perspectives into account? This question animates this international conference. While disciplinary approaches may vary widely, we hold that scholarship on animal lives carries an underlying responsibility: a compassionate orientation toward the beings it examines. This commitment is grounded in the recognition of the profound suffering that animal lives endure under contemporary conditions. To explore this subject-matter we invite contributions from across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences that grapple with the methodological, epistemological, and ethical challenges of accessing the experience, interests, and viewpoints of non-human animals—not merely as species or categories, but as singular beings with individual lives. We hope that we can make a contribution not only to the field of animal studies broadly defined, but to re-considering, re-evaluating and re-imagining ways in which animals are active participants in creating worldviews.
To address the central question of this conference, we propose three interconnected axes:
- Geographical Focus: Asia (with non-exclusive emphasis on East Asia)
We welcome papers that examine animal lives, relations, and representations within Asian contexts. The specific socio-cultural and ecological conditions of this region—its histories, indigenous knowledge systems, and rapid transformations—offer fertile ground for rethinking multi-species relations.
- Epistemological Shift: Toward the Animal's Perspective
Moving beyond the traditional human-to-animal gaze, we seek papers that attempt to articulate the interests, experiences, and agency of non-human animals. How can scholarship bridge the gap between human observation and animal subjectivity? We welcome approaches that challenge anthropocentric unidirectionality and explore methods for "listening" to the animal perspectives.
- Relationality: Multi-species Coexistence
Beyond the dyad of human-animal interaction, we invite analyses of multi-species relations that situate humans as one animal species among many. How do diverse species—humans included—navigate, coexist, and form networks within shared environments, whether wild or urban? We are interested in perspectives on the complex web of interactions where human presence is a factor, but not the defining axis, allowing us to see the connections established between animals themselves alongside those involving humans.
A selection of papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a special issue of an international peer-reviewed journal or an edited volume (in English). Priority will be given to contributions that directly engage with the conference's central theme: the adoption of animal perspectives within Asian contexts. Papers that align with the three thematic axes outlined above will be particularly favored during the selection process.
Contributions may address, among others:
- Wildlife research and conservation in Taiwan and East Asia
- Living conditions of domesticated animals in urban and rural contexts
- Ecological challenges and climate change from a multi-species standpoint
- Historical and contemporary categories of animality in Asiatic, Sinophone, Indigenous, and transcultural frameworks
- Text-animals: multi-species in literary studies
- Biographies of individual animal lives
- Animal aesthetics: representation, art, and media
- Animal ethics: theoretical and applied perspectives
- Sociology and anthropology of animal activism, education, and policy
- Religion, spirituality, and non-human animals
- Vegetarianism and veganism as cultural and ethical practices
- Cross-species methodologies: biosemiotics, etho-ethnology, etc.
- Intersectional approaches: gender, identity, nationalism, and animal studies
We welcome submissions of unpublished research findings from researchers at all career stages, including master's and doctoral students, as well as early-career scholars. Full conference papers should be submitted before the conference.
This conference aims to foster a rigorous yet collegial atmosphere where scholarly exchange is complemented by direct engagement with animal life around the NSYSU campus. We plan to organize activities that bring participants into contact with local multi-species communities. Roundtables will also be held to invite activists and non-academic stakeholders to consider the opportunities and challenges of forming alliances between academic research and civil society sectors striving to improve the situation of both domestic and wild non-human animals.
We will cover transportation within Taiwan, accommodation, and lunch.
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Please send your proposals and inquiries in English or Mandarin to the organizers Héctor G. Castaño 高長空 (hector@mail.nsysu.edu.tw) and Severina Angelova Balabanova 謝薇娜 (balabanova@mail.nsysu.edu.tw), before June 15, 2026.
Your proposals should include:
- A title
- An abstract (approximately 300 words or 450 Chinese characters)
- A short bio (under 200 words)
- Language of presentation (English or Mandarin)
All proposals will undergo a review process.
Notification of acceptance: June 30, 2026.
Full paper date: September 1st, 2026
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Organizers:
Global Co-becoming and International Sinology Research Center, National Sun Yat-sen University & The Multispecies Justice Research Cluster at the International Center for Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.
Research assistant:
Yang Zhao-lin 楊櫂璘 (ericwas000@gmail.com)
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