A cross-disciplinary symposium and art exhibit will explore animal studies Thursday and Friday from the perspective of art, literature, history, philosophy and science.
Finding Animals: Toward a Comparative History & Theory of Animals will consist of a series of lectures delivered by professors from national and international universities, including Penn State. Topics of interest range from "Scientific Models in Comparative Perspective" to "Redrawing Borders: New Models of Animal Consciousness and Behavior."
Joan Landes, group director of Visualizing Animals -- a group of Penn State faculty that organized the symposium -- said the event will include visual artists, poets, filmmakers, literary and film critics, historians and political theorists. She said the conference is focused on a global perspective of animal studies.
"We're trying to get people in arts thinking about the ethical and political," Landes said, "about the way we think about animals, the way animals and humans coexist in societies, different cultures. We are not interested in just a Western or Euro-centric emphasis."
Micaela Amato, professor of visual arts and women's studies, co-curated the conference's corresponding art exhibit. She said the exhibit derives from the conference, which in turn was created from a three-year seminar that university faculty across departments participated in.
"The symposium starts with scientific models, discussions of animals and anatomy in scientific revolution -- 18th century encyclopedic definitions of animals," she said, "and moves into more contemporary issues -- notions of the animal in relation to post-imperialism, the domestic and the wild."
The free conference will begin at 9 a.m. today in Foster auditorium, with a talk at 5:30 p.m. by visiting artist Mark Dion. An opening reception for the conference's corresponding art exhibit, Finding the Animal in Paradox and Parable, will take place at 7 p.m in the Zoller Gallery.
The lectures will resume at 9 a.m. Friday morning and extend into the early evening. A complete schedule of lecture times can be found on the Finding Animals: Toward a Comparative History & Theory of Animals Web site.
Charles Garoian, director of the School of Visual Arts, said the symposium was organized by faculty and driven by their research.
"It is based on the kind of research that they do," he said. "It's kind of the best way to bring their research to the university and to the public."
Amato said most of the artists represented in Finding the Animal in Paradox and Parable are well-known both nationally and internationally. She said the exhibit --composed entirely of work by professional artists -- features pieces by Mark Dion, Kiki Smith, Penn State professors in the School of Visual Arts, Robert Yarber and Liz Quackenbush, and former Penn State student Cara Judea Alhadeff, among others.
She said the Zoller exhibit, on display through Friday, is a composite of ideas about "how this spectacle of animals has entered our imaginations."
The exhibition will include video and sound pieces as well as paintings, sculptures and ceramics, she added.
"Some of it has to do with issues of animal rights," she said. "Some of it has to do with consciousness and behavior, issues of sustainability, and issues of mythology of the animal throughout various cultures."
