Envisioning Multispecies Futures: a Report from the EACAS Conference 2025

This year, the European Society for Critical Animal Studies met at Berlin under the headline "Actioning Change Through Education: Transforming Human-Animal Relations in Times of Crisis" (2-4 May 2025). Presentations addressed, for example, the role of empathy (with VAS member Carlo Salzani, scrutinizing the limits of empathy in literary imagination), or on activism, representation and participation (with Melvin Geib Caballero arguing for a Ministry of Animal Welfare). Additional panels included reflections on teaching tools and methods (with VAS member Zipporah Weisberg cautioning in a very personal and inspiring talk to critically review our use of traumatizing pictures in the classroom). Topics like intersection and animal sanctuaries were also part of the program. 

Illustration by Lena Winkel

There were many personal highlights for me. One of them was Anne van Veen's talk about "De-mooo-cracy: Transformative Learning for Interspecies Democracy" which gave insights into an awesome project with lay people who engaged with cows and their situation in intensive farming (through expert presentations, farm visits, writing fictional biographies, imagining the ways in which cows might want to live in the future etc.). Anne started her presentation by telling the conference participants to close their eyes - and by inviting a cow to enter the room (who, I am sure, chose to stay a while, laying between the speakers and a giant plant, ruminating on the apples she stole from the all vegan, mostly rescued food  buffet).

Illustration by Lena Winkel

But also Stefanie Aehnelt ("Can Theatre Change the World? What Impact Can Theatre and Art Events Have on Social Change?") reported on inspiring ways of bringing people closer to animals, as did Maria Martelli ("The School of Earth and Water: A Multispecies Speculation About Education") who talked about the works of her small autonomous collective, Justwondering, that creates critical and speculative animated essays.

The talks and conversations will clearly resonate with me and the other speakers for a while, not just because they shed light on the many injustices animals continue to face and on the necessity of critical thinking. But also because of the impression that the community is moving forward, step by step, both in humble and furious ways, but always towards a more caring world.

For my part, I gave a presentation about animal ethics in picture books. I discussed how picture books are key primers for inducing and challenging anthropocentric worldviews. This has been a passion project of mine for some time.

Illustration by Lena Winkel

 And thank you to Lena Winkel, an illustrator from Hamburg who also happens to be a Human-Animal Studies scholar. Lena provided the conference with beautiful graphic recordings and I hope you like this way of capturing the essence of scientific events as much as I do.

Illustration by Lena Winkel

Illustration by Lena Winkel

And finally, thank you to EACAS and to Kathrin Herrmann (the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing) for organizing such a high-quality scientific event which truly managed to cover interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives. I'm already looking forward to the next EACAS!