Animal Studies Summer Institute
The Center for Advanced Study sponsors an annual international interdisciplinary Summer Institute in Human-Animal Studies for advanced graduate students and early career scholars pursuing research in Human-Animal Studies. From 2017-2022 the week-long program was held in collaboration with the non-profit Animals and Society Institute. In 2023 CAS assumed sole directorship of ASSI with significant funding from the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law & Policy. This program is focused on graduate students and those in the first few years post-Ph.D. or other terminal degrees and enables 20-30 participants to work on their dissertations or publications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for one intensive week.
The Institute is designed to support participants’ individual research in human-animal studies as well as to promote interdisciplinary exchange. The program will offer a shared space of critical inquiry that brings the participants’ work-in-progress to the attention of a network of influential HAS scholars and provides the participants with the guidance and feedback to develop their work. At the heart of the program are morning seminars devoted to discussion of participants’ work, followed by afternoon plenary lectures by distinguished speakers. These will be complemented by special workshops and field trips to on- and off-campus locations which highlight different aspects of the human-animal relationship. Participants should expect a stimulating intellectual environment reflecting a diversity of approaches, projects, disciplinary backgrounds, and ethical positions on animal issues. All fellows must be in continuous residence for the duration of the program, which takes place in mid-summer.
The Brooks Institute will extend its generous funding for ASSI 2024 and we gratefully acknowledge additional support from Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Department of Theatre, and Illinois Program in Law & Philosophy (IPLP).
Resident Director Jane Desmond (Anthropology, University of Illinois) and Co-Director Kim Marra (Theatre Arts and American Studies, University of Iowa) lead this weeklong intensive institute which runs June 23-29, 2024.
APPLICATION FOR ASSI 2024 HERE
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM HERE
Video from the inaugural institute