CALL FOR PAPERS

Animal Histories: A Decade with Animals

Animal History Group International Conference

Online, Friday 11th December 2026

AHG26

The Animal History Group is an international network for postgraduates, academics, archive and museum professionals and anyone interested in animals in history. In 2026, the year of our tenth anniversary, we would like to issue a call for papers.

We welcome papers from across academic disciplines relating to animals in history. We set no limitations on species, period, or place. We welcome papers exploring any aspect of human-animal relationships in the past. We are interested in ordinary animals whose lives can be pieced together from incidental records just as much as the unusual animals whose names have been remembered through time. Papers could also be about invented animals, or animals from art, literature, music or popular culture. The animals might be beloved companions like dogs or parrots, hated pests like rats or cockroaches, working draft animals like horses or oxen, or ‘brave’ animal messenger pigeons; they might be hunted, fished or farmed animals; animals displayed in zoos, aquariums and museums; or wild animals that never interacted with humans at all. 

Submissions from graduate students are especially encouraged, and we welcome informal enquiries from anybody who has questions about the theme or the event more generally. 

Speakers will be convened into panels of related 15-20 minute papers by the conference organisers, with a shared session for questions at the end of each panel. The exact format and timings of the event are yet to be confirmed, but we welcome submissions from scholars in all parts of the world and will endeavour to put together a final programme which accommodates international time differences.

Submission Process

Proposals should include: a title, an abstract (max 250 words) and a speaker biography (max 100 words). There will be no registration fee for speakers or attendees at this conference.

Please submit your proposal via the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdS7owBspvqMbQGcQeArq20K5WWcc55YF3mI4wIwx-puq2EKw/viewform?

The deadline for submissions is Friday 16th October 2026.