Program
pdf: Zoomathia-Program (Athens 2026)
Friday, 23 October
- 09:30 – 09:45: Participant registration and check-in
- 09:45 – 10:00: Welcome and introductory remarks by S. Lazaris, S. Xenophontos, and A. Zucker
- 10:00 – 10:50: Keynote Lecture by J. TRINQUIER – « Être né sous le soleil des Tropiques: le rôle des éléments et des facteurs environnementaux dans la formation des faunes tropicales »
Session I: Sensory Ecologies, Perception, and Umwelt
- 10:50 – 11:20: Andreas MICHALOPOULOS – The acoustic Umwelt of the hive: sensory ethology in Vergil’s Georgics 4
- 11:20 – 11:40: Coffee break
- 11:40 – 12:10: Joëlle SOLER – Le langage de la sensation animale dans les Métamorphoses d’Apulée
- 12:10 – 12:40: Georgia TSOUNI – Oikeiosis and Animal Interaction with the Environment in Hierocles’ Ethike Stoicheiosis
- 12:40 – 13:10: Cristiana FRANCO – Cognitioni hominum obscurior. How other animals experience the world
- 13:10 – 14:30: Lunch break
Session II: Eco-Pathology, Husbandry, and Habitat Vulnerability
- 14:30 – 15:00: Emmanuel BEAUJARD – Animals and health ecology in Antiquity: a survey of scientific and technical sources
- 15:00 – 15:30: Jordan DELILA – Animal Disease in Roman Agricultural Writing
- 15:30 – 15:40: Coffee break
- 15:40 – 16:10: Duyen Phuong NGUYEN – Refuge or Trap? The Ecological Ambivalence of Animal Shelters in Antiquity
- 16:10 – 16:40: Pietro Li CAUSI – Dolphins, Humans, and the Lagoon. Interspecies Environmental Interactions in Plin. NH 9.29–32
Saturday, 24 October
- 10:00 – 10:50: Keynote Lecture by S. ARAPOSTATHIS – Bodies, Breeds and Infrastructures: A Multispecies Sustainability History of Livestock Production in Greece 1950-2020
Session III: Avian Ecologies, Trophic Niches, and Representations
- 10:50 – 11:20: Marie CHAIDRON – Oiseaux et « équilibre naturel » : Penser les relations inter-espèces dans la Belgique du XIXe siècle
- 11:20 – 11:40: Coffee break
- 11:40 – 12:10: Marie-Anne DRAGON – The Image as a Laboratory of the Living: Trophic Niches and Visual Ecology in the Work of Frans Post (1612–1680)
- 12:10 – 12:40: Marta LIETTI – The Birds over the Theatre of Dionysus: Towards a More-than-Human Dramaturgy in Attic Drama
- 12:40 – 13:10: Charilaos MICHALOPOULOS – The Mimic from India: Avian Voice, Interspecies Communication, and Biodiversity in Ovid’s Amores 2.6
- 13:10 – 14:30: Lunch break
Session IV: Human-Animal Interactions, Wildlife, and Landscape Dynamics
- 14:30 – 15:00: Katharina EPSTEIN – Predator and Prey, Ancient and Modern: Aristotelian Zoology and the Ecological Concept of Rewilding
- 15:00 – 15:30: Kaouthar Lamouchi CHEBBI – Connaissances arabes médiévales sur la migration des animaux
- 15:30 – 15:50: Coffee break
- 15:50 – 16:20: Maria LEONTSINI – In Forests and Fields: Depictions of Human–Wildlife Interactions in Rural Landscapes
- 16:20 – 16:50: Anastasija ROPA – Attitudes to Wild Horses in the Middle Ages and Today: Pests, Valuable Property or Land Managers?
- 16:50: Concluding remarks and official close of the conference
Call for Papers. Interdisciplinary Conference in Animal Studies
This conference aims, through a resolutely interdisciplinary approach, to explore the relations between animals and their environments. Bringing together scholars in ancient and medieval philology, the history of zoological knowledge, and contemporary ecological sciences, the event seeks to examine how living beings interact with their surroundings—and how these interactions have been conceptualised, described, and modelled from Antiquity to the present.
Two main thematic axes will structure the discussion:
- Animals and Environments: Ancient and Modern Ecologies
This axis invites contributions on how animals are embedded within complex systems of relations—habitats, ecological niches, environment-dependent behaviours, cooperation, climatic constraints, migration, and adaptation—whether in ancient and medieval texts or in modern ecological theory. Ancient zoological traditions (Aristotle, Aelian, Pliny, the Physiologus, medieval encyclopaedias and bestiaries) offer a rich repository of observations, explanatory models, and conceptual frameworks that allow us to question both continuities and ruptures between pre-modern forms of knowledge and contemporary ecological thought.
- Animal Ecological Awareness: Perception, Umwelt, and Narrative Models
The second axis focuses on how animals perceive their environment, and how these perceptual worlds are represented in ancient and medieval sources: smell, vision, hearing, spatial orientation, and ecological cognition. Literary, philosophical, and natural-historical descriptions will be examined in dialogue with current research in ethology, behavioural sciences, and animal cognition. Particular attention will be paid to how ancient societies conceptualised or imagined animals’ ecological sensitivity, and to how these representations may inform present-day debates on animal consciousness, environmental vulnerability, and biodiversity.
Scientific Objectives
The conference seeks to interrogate the epistemological continuities among ancient naturalistic observation, medieval representations of living beings, and modern ecological approaches. It aims to highlight the contribution of ancient traditions to contemporary ecological thinking, while offering biologists and ecologists a historically informed and critical perspective on models of animal–environment interaction. In the current context of biodiversity collapse, this meeting intends to reaffirm the value of dialogue between the humanities and the life sciences in rethinking the place of animals as sentient, acting, and situated beings.
Submission of Proposals
We welcome contributions from all disciplines (philology, history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, zoology, ethology, ecology, environmental studies). Talks will be delivered in English, French or Modern Greek. Note that a written version of the papers in (or translated into) English will be submitted promptly to an editor.
Conference papers will be 25 minutes, with 10 minutes for discussion. Interested scholars from all academic levels are invited to send an abstract of no more than 500 words to cepam.zoomathia.in.athens@univ-cotedazur.fr by May 15, 2026. Participants will be notified in June 15, 2026. Accepted papers will be presented on an equal footing with invited speakers. Accommodation and meal expenses will be covered by the organization.
Proposals may address topics including, but not limited to:
- ancient descriptions of environment-adapted behaviours
• conceptualisations of ecological niches in ancient and medieval sources
• practices of naturalistic observation in pre-modern societies
• literary representations of animal sensory and perceptual worlds
• comparisons between ancient explanatory models and contemporary ecological theory
• animal ecological awareness (perception, attention, orientation, environmental cognition)
• current issues in biodiversity viewed through the lens of ancient traditions
Organization committee
Stavros Lazaris (CNRS / ICP, Paris), Sophia Xenophontos (Academy of Athens), Arnaud Zucker (Université Côte-d’Azur, Nice)
Scientific committee
Ilias Anagnostakis (National Hellenic Research Foundation), Stathis Arapostathis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Isabelle Draelants (IRHT, CNRS), Cristiana Franco (Università per stranieri, Siena), Oliver Hellmann (Trier Universität), Stavros Lazaris (CNRS / ICP, Paris), Pascaline Le Gouar (Université de Rennes), Nelly Ménard (Université de Rennes), Cédric Sueur (Université de Strasbourg), Sophia Xenophontos (Academy of Athens), Arnaud Zucker (Université Côte-d’Azur, Nice)
