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--></style><title>Symposium; Thinking with Animals: Fables of
Thought</title></head><body>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Dear Colleague,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>The School of English, University of New
South Wales, invites you to a day</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>symposium on the subject of animals in
philosophy, literature and film:</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center"><b>Thinking with Animals:
Fables of Thought</b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center">Keynote speakers: Prof.
Andrew Benjamin (UTS), Prof. Paul Patton (UNSW)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Throughout Western civilization, animals
have been denied those qualities</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>that traditionally designate human
sovereignty: reason, language, a soul,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>an ethical relation to death or to the
world. Especially since the 1970s,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>however, the hegemony of this view of
animals has been challenged. Scholars</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>in all fields are now paying close
attention to the ways in which thinking</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>about animals calls into question the
sovereignties of the human subject.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>As Emmanuel Levinas has written:
"Those animals that portray men [in fables]</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>give the fable its particular color
inasmuch as men are seen as these animals</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>and not only through these animals; the
animals stop and fill up thought.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>It is in this that all the power and
originality of allegory lies". With</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>papers in the disciplines of philosophy,
literature, film and cultural studies,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>this symposium seeks to interrogate our
relation to animals by first acknowledging</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>the great debt thought owes to
them.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center"><b>Date: Tues Nov. 29,
2005</b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center"><b><br></b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center"><b>Venue: Room 211 Morven
Brown Building, Gate 8, University of New South
Wales,</b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite
align="center"><b>Kensington.</b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center"><b><br></b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite align="center"><b>Cost: $20 (full); $10
(student)</b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>For further information visit
http://www.thinkingwithanimals.com</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>or contact</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Dr Chris Danta</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>c.danta@unsw.edu.au</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>02 93853248</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>RSVP desirable</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>--</blockquote>