Critical Animal Studies: Sources, Methods, and Approaches

The workshop titled “Critical Animal Studies: Sources, Methods, and Approaches,” organized by Hayvanât, was held on March 27–28, 2026, at the santralistanbul campus of Istanbul Bilgi University.

The program began on Friday, March 27, with a roundtable discussion in the Energy Museum Control Room. In the panel titled “The Animal Turn,” four speakers responded to questions posed by Sibel Yardımcı (Mimar Sinan Fine

Arts University, MSGSÜ). The first question directly addressed the session’s title. Eylül Alnıaçık Özyer (Turkish-German University) defined the animal turn as “removing the human filter, giving voice to those who have a voice, acknowledging animal agency, and making space for them.” Mine Yıldırım (Kadir Has University) emphasized that it raises the question: “What does it mean to think and act together with beings—living and non-living—beyond or outside the human?” Özlem Güçlü (MSGSÜ) argued that this invites scholars to interrogate anthropocentric frameworks within their own fields, stimulating imagination and creativity. She further stressed that this is not a passing trend; rather, by exposing the violence and death embedded in human–animal domination, it renders the continued production of knowledge and art in the same way untenable. Ezgi Hamzaçebi (Özyeğin University) noted that the search for a non-anthropocentric literature has led writers toward new approaches, including narrating from animal perspectives and questioning the limits of representation. She added that this shift compels literary scholars to rethink storytelling and aesthetics. The discussion continued with Yardımcı’s questions on the ethical and political implications of the animal turn, as well as the imagination of a multi-species future.

The second day of the workshop commenced with the session titled “Natural History, Evolution, and Ethics: Scientific Foundations of Working with Animals.” The session was moderated by Aslıhan Niksarlı from Yeditepe University, who reminded participants that there are human communities that do not establish domination over animals in the conventional sense, suggesting that human–animal relations can be more egalitarian. Niksarlı also shared how realizing that a primate she once observed was, in fact, observing her in return led her to new questions. In his presentation on the “history of natural history,” Gönenç Göçmengil from Istanbul University summarized transformations in human perceptions of nature through examples from different centuries. Utku Perktaş from Hacettepe University highlighted the contributions of natural history to biological research while also drawing attention to the colonial and domination-based relationships embedded in natural history practices. Examining taxidermied bird specimens in natural history museums, Perktaş explained that he approaches these studies by integrating fieldwork, museum practices, and modeling. Yeliz Ergöl from Istanbul Technical University described how her fieldwork on bats in Anatolia aims to understand the broader direction of life on Earth. She also noted that contemporary genetic studies are reshaping the boundaries of the concept of species and emphasized that genetic diversity lies at the core of biodiversity.

The second session of the day, titled “Critical Animal Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences,” was moderated by Cihangir Gündoğdu from Istanbul Bilgi University. The first speaker, Deniz Dölek

Sever from Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University, began by emphasizing the distinction between historical studies about animals and “animal history,” which treats animals as historical actors. Sharing archival documents she discovered about the first traveling zoo established in the Ottoman Empire, Dölek Sever demonstrated how these sources can be interpreted through an animal history perspective. Abu B. Siddiq from Mardin Artuklu University began his presentation by showing animal-representing objects from settlements of early sedentary communities in Anatolia dating back 12,000 years. He argued that these communities did not exercise domination over animals in the way seen today, and suggested that anthropocentric culture spread globally with the domestication of animals and the emergence of large cities. Siddiq concluded by noting that this culture has now become unsustainable. Emre Koyuncu from Ankara University, in his presentation titled “Philosophy’s Animal Drafts,” stated that philosophical interest in animals has increased particularly since the 1970s. Drawing especially on Jacques Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I Am, he summarized how philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida opened up space for animal studies.

The third session, titled “Animal Representation: Aesthetic–Ethical–Political Questions and Needs,” was moderated by Özlem Güçlü (MSGSÜ). Özlem Gök from Erciyes University presented examples from her own artistic work informed by a “vegan art” perspective and criticized the almost pornographic representation of dead animal bodies in artworks. Dijan Özkurt from Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey University screened a clip from Mehmet Ali Boran’s film “The Anxious Quest of the Anatolian Leopard” and analyzed the director’s representational choices from the perspective of critical animal studies. Independent researcher Tuba Emiroğlu discussed how tracing the worlds created by goats during her doctoral research on political violence in Imbros (Gökçeada) provided her with new sources and modes of expression. İnci Bilgin Tekin from Istanbul Bilgi University offered examples from literature, including Sylvia Plath’s poem Ariel and a story by Edward Albee, alongside animal representations in myths she considers more “innocent” in terms of human–animal relations. The session continued with responses to Özlem Güçlü’s question about what art and literary criticism in Turkey might gain from a critical animal perspective.

The workshop concluded with a lively closing forum in which researchers, students, and attendees from various cities and institutions across Turkey gave informal five-minute talks. In addition to members of the Hayvanât team—Ekin Arpacı, Emelnur Ketencioğlu, and İbrahim Can Usta—volunteer students Sinem Tatlı and Yaren Günay, as well as staff from Istanbul Bilgi University, contributed to the organization of the workshop over the two days.