 Well, first of all, thank you. I'm going to get a little feedback here. But Mark, let me say hello because it's nice to be able to see you. It makes me feel a little bit at home. And also, I'm sorry, I know you're there. And Chris, as I understand it, you're there. And Andrew, I wish I could shake your hand in person. And there are several others there I would love to be able to meet. I'm going to, in this very finite universe of about 20 minutes, try to address a fundamental topic. This is a difficult medium, in a sense, for primates because being in person is such a richer experience. But I'll do the best I can. I wanted to address the topic of how the field of animal studies is developing, especially in relation to the much more common notion of animal rights. I think this addressing this topic helps us think about what it means for humans to engage the profoundly important fact that each and every one of us lives in a multi-species world, as Mark's presentation no doubt underscored in many ways. And this world is quite correctly described as a more than human world. Now, this important fact suggests not only the possibility of non-anthropocentric views, but in many ways it can be seen as demanding or begging them. The salient fact that we live in a more than human world also prompts us to explore lots of the limits that we face in our own understanding of the world, for example, in our environmentally framed or what we consider environmentally framed viewpoints, whether those are secular, religious, theological, or philosophical. We know that there are limits in the way we do this. And trying to imagine other viewpoints helps us assess how we're framing adequately or less than adequately. I think also finally, the fact that we live in this clearly more than human world is in tension with the claims made implicitly and explicitly in our mainline institutions, our public policy that human exceptionalism is a morally acceptable position. I think the tension between human exceptionalism and the need for non-anthropocentric imagination drives us relentlessly to assess our ethical, intellectual, cultural resources for doing these kinds of things. I think we need the widest array of critical thinking skills to assess how self-serving our claims have been about the fact that we're the most important, the most intelligent, the most X, the most Y beings on the Earth. In order to address this relationship of animal studies to animal rights, let me come about this in a bit of an unusual way. In 1965, a very important documentary in the history of film came out. It's called The Battle of Algiers. Gilles Ponticorvo is the director. That film is important in its own right, but I want to use a particular comment by an Algerian during that film to frame what I want to do. A man by the name of Larvie Ben M. Headey says during that film to a young Algerian, it is hard to start a revolution, harder still to sustain it, hardest of all to win it, and when you have won, it is then that the difficulties begin. You might think the revolution I'm talking about is best referred to as animal rights in a minor way that might be true, because many of the notions we call animal rights relentlessly open doors for us or in the Algerian's terms, it either starts a revolution or helps sustain one that has already begun. But I want to suggest to you that animal rights is not the major revolution at hand in the topic that I'm talking about, even though I'm going to underscore that animal rights is extremely valuable because it opens door after door and thus hearts and minds. So although animal rights is important, I'm going to suggest that it's a derivative topic. It draws its lifeblood or its heartbeat to use biological images from a much deeper and wider revolution, which is, I'm going to suggest, reflected more broadly and more fully in the field of animal studies. All right, how to define this field? That's the study of our species' past relationships and treatment of other living beings. Certainly our present treatment, since that's so ethically relevant, but I think, as importantly, our future possibilities here. With a suitably large dose of concern to assess as accurately as we can from our limited vantage point the actual realities of other living beings. You can see Mark's work has really contributed to that latter, that heavy dose that I described. I'll come back to that. Now there are competing names for this field. Human animal studies, animal humanities sometimes, anthro-zoology, but all three of those alternatives have humans foregrounded in their names and certainly in the way that they're approached generally. And in an environment where really dysfunctional human-centerednesses, not all human-centeredness has to be dysfunctional, but many of the forms we have are that in such an environment we find it difficult to focus on non-human animals. So I think that the best term to use is animal studies because that does the minimal damage of obscuring other living beings in the face of our own incredible attitude towards our self-importance. Keeping one's balance as we go through this kind of animal studies is incredibly important. And I'm going to suggest to you that the way that we keep our balance in doing animal studies is to do animal studies in the key of animal rights as it were. Now, four points to help you grasp what I mean by this. The phrase animal rights means different things to different people, of course. I'll deal with that in a moment. The phrase in any of its forms does at least two things. One, it reflects a reawakening of time-honored ideas that have appeared in countless cultures. Secondly, it also constitutes or any use of animal rights also constitutes an appeal to some altogether fundamental features of human life found in our daily life. Humans all around the world feature these. And these features are remarkably feckoned abilities to be concerned about others. And secondly, our capacious human imagination by which we assess who those others might be. By reawakening these time-honored ideas about others, by appealing to these foundational features of our ability to care about others, that is how animal studies is in. Well, first of all, it's made real by animal studies. And it's the reason I suggest that the larger revolution is animal studies and that animal rights, an important social movement around the world without question, is just a part of this larger revolution. Let me turn to the phrase animal rights because it means different things, as I said. There are many senses of animal rights, but two very distinct ones. The principal versions are the older version, the sense of ethics-based, ethics-informed concern for other living beings. A great challenge for us as individuals, of course. But here, animal rights means something like moral rights for animals outside our species. There is a newer competing sense, particularly we find this, for example, in American law schools. Animal rights means specific legal protections for specific living beings outside our species. These are law-based, law-mediated protections. And they come in many forms, to be sure. But the historically significant one is the use of specific legal rights for specific individuals offered in a specific jurisdiction. For example, the kinds of specific protections offered by the American Bill of Rights. When used in this law-based sense, animal rights has a moral dimension, to be sure. But the significant conceptual move and the significant political aspect of this meaning of animal rights is that specific legal protections actually called legal rights are characteristically tied to individuals of some species outside our own. Now, that's important, but I want to suggest to you that as important as that is, there is a way in which it is a derivative problem, a minor problem. Historically, animal protection has been pitched in this important key of animal rights in the moral sense. Rights, of course, historically, since the 16th, 17th, 18th century, that discourse has carried incredibly important psychological political value. And that's no doubt the reason that rights-based approaches today continue to be very important. But there are many problems with rights-based approaches for both humans and non-humans, particularly because it's tied to a Western enlightenment vector conceptuality that has limits with regard to fundamental protections that we can offer other living beings. Please don't misunderstand, surely animal rights has been and will remain a valuable approach in many different ways. It underscores the importance of other living beings' realities from their vantage point. It underscores the importance of seeing their interests, not our interests, in using them. But I really want to go beyond animal rights here and suggest that in a very forceful way, the larger field of animal studies is the way we recognize the more-than-human world, not just animal rights, set another way, starting, sustaining, winning the real revolution requires animal studies, not just animal rights, because only then will the social movement around the world, called the animal protection movement, often only then will it really win. And of course, if it then wins to use the Algerian's insight, that's when the difficulties will begin. But that's something our species is up to, meeting that ethical challenge of living in a multi-species world. That's the first point. Animal rights means different things, and it is an important concept, but it is a derivative problem from the larger task that animal studies sets itself. A second point that reflects this claim that animal studies needs to be done in the key of animal rights. We need to speak carefully. We use the phrase animal relentlessly to mean other animals, living beings outside our own species. Now, think of this. We recognize we're mammals. We recognize we're primates. These are animal categories. Many of us recognize, although it's less well known, that we're also great apes. If we take the scientific revolution seriously, not as a new fundamentalism, but as an essential partner in exploring the world, and you can see in Mark's work how remarkably able science is to explore world when it's done humbly, then we recognize our animality. If we take that revolution seriously, we recognize our animality and our citizenship in a more than human world. And doing so is a wonderful way to problematize human exceptionalism and all its dysfunctions. So a major reason why the revolution has a possibility of actually being one at some point is that science is accompanying us here. Of course, then, difficulties will still ensue. What do we do with our wonderful ethical abilities? They're finite, but capacious. So what do we do with them? So a second point here is that we need to speak very carefully about the issues before us. It's something we've not inherited particularly, phrases like humans and animals, great dualisms that are unrealistic, unscientific, and need to be surmounted. A third point, the central importance of humbly, honestly, communally, searching out other animals' realities. We must do that together. The task belongs to all of us. I see this as a point of combined humility and togetherness as the most important point to make about either animal rights studies. We approach the human world in many different ways, various ethical, cultural, everyday encounters. So you want me to hang up and call back? So here, to focus, I'm on the third of the four points, central importance of being humble, honest, communal as we pursue, searching out other animals' realities and our possibilities with them. Because this is necessary because we approach these problems with our sciences, ethical, religious, cultural traditions. We approach them in everyday encounters. We have deep and rich literatures on this. We're environmental. We're members of communities of faith sometimes, members of local communities. So we really need multiple, humble, mutual, communal ways of searching out other animals' reality. As we do this togetherness, one of the resources is the ancient nature of moral insights. For example, I hope you've heard Chris Chappell this morning with regard to the Jain tradition and it's amazingly rich and deep insights. But we could say that about Chinese traditions. We could certainly say that about other Indian subcontinent traditions. Sara Talili today will no doubt talk about some of the extraordinary resources in Islam and Andrew will talk about Christianity's surpassingly capable resources for approaching other living beings generally. Bottom line, there really are diverse forms of the animal protection movement around the world as people respond to an entire range of issues and that's what makes it mandatory for us to do this humbly, honestly and communally in some different way. A fourth point, this humble, honest communal work requires interdisciplinary approaches and animal studies is the epitome of an interdisciplinary mega field as were. The humility takes us well beyond any one discipline's discourse. It certainly takes us beyond the human centeredness of our education. It requires of us many different kinds of literacy, scientific literacy, arts literacy, environmental abilities and awareness and all of the very complex aspects that brings to us generally. In the concluding few minutes, let me just review some of the things going on. I'll suggest to you that a lot of animal studies today remains extremely centered. This is clearly the case in animal law. It continues to focus primarily on the animals that humans are most close to. That's a rich preoccupation but not an exclusive one. The preoccupation with legal rights is a very human centered approach. Generally there are lots of other tools in the legal toolbox. Fields such as critical studies have wonderful insights to offer deeply ethical commitments but they often push us to sort of theoretical interest that may be wandering away from other animals realities. That's a central task that we're almost accomplished. Contemporary philosophy and epistemology, major contributions feel heavily human focused in some way, certainly a cutting edge of animal studies and trying to get beyond. Lastly, science. As practiced, science has continued to be extremely human centered. Mark Bekos ends with the treatment of people like Donald Griffin at Harvard. And Donald Griffin's work made it very clear that science in a very biased way approached other human animals and needed to open up that cognitive revolution. Mark is one of the three stellar examples of how rich, I think, can be somebody takes the cognitive revolution seriously. Lastly, if you reviewed our public policy, social movement theory, these remain so focused that they need to get beyond and to understand that are truly rich in flexibility like self-information solely but in transcendence. It's that humility is so spacious. One said, not one stupid, there's a basic education or education there's humans that we end up circumscribing rather than animating them. So for me, animal studies is an approach that can help us see to quote, the world isn't a collection object. So, let me, I can. Yes, yes, I can. And Peter, can you repeat that? Yes, yes, I can. Sure, sure. This is a quote from Thomas Berry, a theologian slash geologian who just died recently. The world is not a collection of objects but a communion of subjects. And one, I'll finish with this comment. There are individuals in your crowd who've been working on this insight for a long time, although Thomas Berry said it beautifully. Andrew Lindsay's were, Stephen Clark's were, Mark's were, Chris's were. People have been doing this for decades. And I hope that one of the wonderful things about the conference is that it honors that particular insight. Thank you.