The “I Am NOT an Animal!” Symposium

By Michael Mountain, October 17, 2016

“I Am Not an Animal!” The signature cry of our species February 24 – 25, 2017 A symposium at the Emory Conference Center, Atlanta Register now Overview The big questions we face in the coming years, and how to relate to them. Session Topics Presentations, Q&A, and discussion. Speaker Bios Experts in the fields of psychology, ecology, philosophy, humanities, law and advocacy. Background Why are we humans unable to come to grips with what we’re doing and change our behavior? How this symposium came to be. Registration Join us for this first-of-a-kind gathering. Accommodation Substantial discount available at the Emory Conference Center Hotel. Video Backgrounders 1. How we tell ourselves we’re not really animals. 2. Why we insist we’re not really animals. 3. What Cave Paintings Tell Us 4. King Oedipus and the End of the World Video Interviews: What Zoos Tell Us About Ourselves – with Randy Malamud, author of Reading Zoos. Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight about Animals – with Hal Herzog, author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat. How Thinking about Death Makes Us More Supportive of Killing Other Animals – with Uri Lifshin of Univ. or Arizona.

A ground-breaking two-day symposium to explore the idea that at the core of our increasingly destructive relationship with our fellow animals is the deeply-rooted psychological need to tell ourselves that “I am NOT an animal!”

It’s the big question – perhaps the only question that truly matters right now:

Why is it that, despite the continuing work of animal protection, conservation and ecological groups, the situation for most of our fellow animals continues to go from bad to worse?

How have we come to the point where we have entered a Sixth Mass Extinction of species that could ultimately include our own?

And why are we humans unable to come to grips with what’s happening and change our behavior?

At this ground-breaking two-day symposium, we explore the idea that at the core of our fraught relationship with our fellow animals is the deeply-rooted psychological need to tell ourselves that “I am not an animal!”

We talk with leaders in the fields of psychology, ecology, philosophy, humanities, law and advocacy. And we discuss how we can apply their insights to environmental and animal protection efforts.

February 24 – 25, 2017
At the Emory Conference Center, Atlanta.

Register Now.

Session Topics Include

• Overview: The basic challenges facing our fellow animals and the natural world.

• History: The stories we’ve told ourselves over thousands of years about who we are and who they are. And how those stories have changed.

• Viewing Animals: The psychology of why we keep them in zoos.

• Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why it’s so hard to think straight about other animals.

• The Worm at the Core: How the fear of death guides human behavior, and why we need to tell ourselves that “I am not an animal!”

• Human Exceptionalism: Why animal protection and environmental efforts continue to fail.

• The Law: Why the legal system still views nonhuman animals as “property” with no inherent rights.

• Someone, Not Something: A new relationship based on reconciliation and restitution.

• Looking Ahead: Where we go from here.

Next: Session Topics