Same and/or Other? Animals in East Asian History
8 – 10 May 2025, Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies, University of Münster
From 8 – 10 May, the Chinese Animal Studies Network hosted its inaugural workshop under the title “Same and/or Other: Animals in East Asian History” in co-operation with the Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies at the University of Münster. Twenty-one participants from all over the world presented their research on animals in-person and a further four online presentations were given on 22 May. Not only does this show that CASN is a truly global network, with speakers joining us from the USA, Europe, China, and Japan, but also underlines that interest in East Asian animal histories is greater than ever.
The workshop was divided into eight panels, each dealing with different aspects of how animals were perceived as same and/or other in the context of East Asia. The programme is provided below and abstracts are available to read here.
After a brief welcome and introduction by CASN co-founders Renée Krusche and Anne Schmiedl, the workshop commenced with three panels on mythological animals, conceptual considerations, and animals as resources on the first day, followed by another four panels on living with animals, animals in times of crisis, animals in literature, and visual representations of animals on the second day.
Topics ranged from constellations and heroes to pestilence, animal advocacy, and veterinary medicine, demonstrating the diverse arenas of human-animal interactions. The online panel also displayed the same intriguing variety – discussing the demonic ‘other’ (or, perhaps, ‘same’) in religious art, the faithful canine mourner in political poetry, and overlapping human and tiger territory in oral histories.
On the final day of our workshop, Susan Whitfield examined the historical role of horses in Chinese society in her keynote speech “The Horse in China: Always the Other?” which was suitably hosted in the local zoological park! A guided tour of the Westphalian Horse Museum marked the end of the workshop.
The panel discussions, as well as the boat trip to the zoo(!), proved fruitful opportunities to engage in dialogue on all things animals. We would like to thank all participants for joining us and making this interdisciplinary workshop a successful platform for sharing research within the overarching theme of animals in East Asia.
