Hum.animal.blackness: a New Approach to Animal Studies

Keynote Address – "Hum.animal.blackness: a New Approach to Animal Studies" 

This talk presents Dr. Holland’s most recent work, which explores vulnerability, accident, and love, at the intersection of the Racial Contract, a particular pattern of localized and global cognitive dysfunctions, as defined by Charles Mills. By examining Heidegger’s notion that humans “die” while animals “perish,” she reads across a theoretical spectrum of works on the human/animal distinction. “The animal is a necessary reminder of the limits of the human; its historical and ontological contingency; of the precariousness of the human as a state of being, a condition of sovereignty, or an ideal of self-regulation.” –Elizabeth Grosz, Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics and Art. Dr. Holland’s research touches on the early incarnation of MOVE, organization internationally known through its activism in the 1970s and 80s, and in particular, their animal liberation stance, one that has gone largely unrecognized. Through her presentation, Dr. Holland asks questions about what activism means to the struggle for animal life and human dignity at large in the context of work in Animal Studies.