Virtual Seminar Series on Animals and Philosophy: Stephen Noon and Natan Feltrin

Virtual seminar with Stephen Noon and Natan Feltrin on Animals in Philosophy

This free virtual seminar will take place on Wednesday 9 April 2025, from 3–4:30 PM Irish Standard Time. This seminar is part of a series that runs in the academic year 2024-2025, organised by the Animal Studies Research Network UCD, as part of its Environmental Humanities strand. 

Stephen Noon will join us to question whether the elemental, described as a “metaphysical descriptor” (Denise Ferreira da Silva), has the potential to be politically, ethically and environmentally orienting by first being disorienting, being the site where it is possible to lose touch with the world, to learn how to un-think it. Noon argues this is the case and will outline how walking with the stray dogs of Istanbul has afforded a way for him to interrogate this belief; outlining how the elemental forces of light, water, wind, heat, soil, scent and sound were all brought into a marbled, möbius-like, spiralled, looped and involuted relief through these walks. Describing this, Noon hopes to show how the elements are disorienting in the way they are shared – ways which immerse, sustain, nourish and destroy the life of a human body as much as that of a dog.

Natan Feltrin will speak about how due to the Sixth Mass Extinction, humanity must urgently rethink its conservation strategies, leading to the exploration of alternative approaches such as rewilding and de-extinction. At the heart of this transformation lies the necessity for a nuanced and context-sensitive ethical framework, as proposed by Clare Palmer (2010). Palmer's work advocates for an ethical perspective that recognizes the complex interactions between humans and other-than-human animals across diverse environmental settings. By challenging the traditional binary between wild and domesticated spaces, her viewpoint highlights the intrinsic value and agency of all life forms. Emma Marris’s perspective, aligned in part with the principles of compassionate conservation, underscores the necessity of considering the interests of individual animals within conservation practices. Feltrin critiques the binary distinction between wild and domesticated spaces by drawing on Australian philosopher Thom van Dooren’s (2014) insights. Van Dooren’s notion of species as intergenerational achievements within the Cenozoic community offers a critical lens for examining Marris’s conclusions. His framework informs a reimagining of rewilding as an ethical commitment to freeing other-than-human animals from human dominance and control, thereby fostering a coexistence grounded in mutual respect and recognition of the inherent worth of all beings. Additionally, Feltrin aims to foster transformative conservation practices that challenge human supremacy and advocate for multispecies justice. It underscores the importance of embracing a more inclusive and compassionate conservation approach, which involves critiquing the aggressive holism often found in traditional conservation ethics.

About the speakers:

Stephen Noon is a PhD student (funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium) – working between the Geography Department at Durham University and the Philosophy Department at Newcastle University, working on the ethical implications of the elemental.

Natan Feltrin is a PhD candidate in Environmental Ethics at the University of North Texas. His dissertation, Rewilding the Human Condition, examines rewilding as a cultural and ethical response to the Anthropocene, advocating for multispecies justice and more equitable human-other-than-human relationships. Natan holds an MSc in Environmental Management from the University of Stirling and an MPhil in Philosophical Sciences from the University of Milan. He has conducted independent research on human-other-than-human coexistence in Trentino, Slovenia, and Finland. His work bridges philosophical inquiry and practical engagement, focusing on carnivore conservation, human-wildlife coexistence, and rewilding projects that promote multispecies autonomy.

The Animal Studies Research Network at UCD is organised by Deborah Schrijvers and Poulomi Choudhury.

Thanks to @Marco Bianchetti via Unsplash