The SSEA is excited to announce a one-day mini-conference, to be held on August 5, 2026, immediately prior to the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress (RoME) at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The mini-conference is intended as a forum for rigorous philosophical work on animal ethics, broadly conceived. We invite proposals for individual talks and 3-5-person colloquia on any topic in animal ethics.
For individual talks, please send abstracts of 300-400 words (all included). Include your name and talk title in the body of your email, and attach an anonymized PDF abstract suitable for blind review. Speakers should prepare talks of 30 minutes.
For colloquium proposals, please send a PDF with a detailed description (400-500 words, all included) of the colloquium theme as well as the names of speakers. All speakers must have confirmed their participation by the time the proposal is submitted.
The deadline for abstracts is June 5, 2026. Decisions will be announced by June 19.
The mini-conference will be held in person at CU Boulder. We will, however, consider submissions for remote talks by those who cannot attend in person. If you would only be able to present online, please indicate this in the main text of your email.
All submissions should be sent to ethicsanimals@gmail.com. Please include the words “2026 conference submission” in the subject line. Please contact Avram Hiller at ahiller@pdx.edu if you have any questions.
Please share this with anyone who might be interested!
Papers from the 2025 conference will be published in a special issue of the open-access journal Essays in Philosophy.
2025 Mini-conference program:
August 6, 2025. CU-Boulder. Eaton Humanities 135. All times Mountain Daylight Time.
8:30-9:00: Welcome – coffee etc.
9:00-9:50: Frauke Albersmeier (Münster), "Sentience Denial – What It Is and Why It Matters". Comments by Anton Skretta (Rice). Chair: Mylan Engel (NIU).
10:00-10:50: Arshia Batra (University of Washington), "Becoming-inanimate, Becoming-human, Becoming-animal: The Objectification and (de)Familiarization of Captive Animals in Photography". Comments by Joel MacClellan (Loyola, New Orleans). Chair: Cheryl Abbate (UNLV).
11:00-11:50: Sabina Schrynemakers (Cornell), "The Misallocation Problem and Incommensurable Values". Comments by Ben Hole (College of Lake County). Chair: Dayton Martindale (CU-Boulder).
11:50-1:30: Lunch break
1:30-2:20: Panel: Animal Law. Stephen Hernick (Friends of Animals) and Steve Silverman (CU-Boulder). Chair: Ramona Ilea (Pacific).
2:30-3:20: Dayton Martindale (CU-Boulder), "A Social and Political Case for Veganism". Comments by Ramona Ilea (Pacific). Chair: Alexander Christian (Heinrich Heine).
3:20-3:50: Short coffee break
3:50-5:00: Panel: Animal Ethics: Recent Trends and Future Directions. Cheryl Abbate (UNLV), Yolandi Coetser (The North-West University), Bob Fischer (Texas State), Oscar Horta (Santiago de Compostela), Alastair Norcross (CU-Boulder). Moderator: Avram Hiller (Portland State).