HAS@ICS-ULisboa 2019 – Children-Animals Relationships
6 June 2019 – 10h00 – ICS-ULisboa,
Room: Polivalente
Invited Keynote: Margo de Mello
Title: Rabbits and Children: A Complicated History
This talk will look at the history of rabbits and children—a relationship that we take for granted today, but that is much more complicated than it appears.
The talk will cover the origins of the rabbit/child connection in the myths and symbols of cultures around the world, many of which play on the rabbits’ biological propensity for reproduction.
Those myths evolved into, for example, the centrality of the rabbit in children’s Easter celebrations, the dominance of rabbits as the subject of children’s stories and toys, the boom in rabbit breeding during the Victorian era, and ultimately, the concept of the rabbit as a children’s or “starter” pet for families around the world.
Margo DeMello // Animals & Society Institute, USA
Received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Davis in 1995. She is an Adjunct Professor at Canisius College in the Anthrozoology Masters Program, and the Program Director for Human-Animal Studies at the Animals and Society Institute. Her books include Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community (2000), Stories Rabbits Tell: A Natural and Cultural History of a Misunderstood Creature (2003), Low-Carb Vegetarian (2004), Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection (2007), The Encyclopedia of Body Adornment (2007), Feet and Footwear (2009), Teaching the Animal: Human Animal Studies Across the Disciplines (2010), Faces Around the World (2012), Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies (2012), Speaking for Animals: Animal Autobiographical Writing (2012), Inked: Tattoos and Body Art around the World (2014), Body Studies: An Introduction (2014), and Mourning Animals: Rituals and Practices Surrounding Animal Death (2016).
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