Dear colleagues,
Spring has arrived here in southeastern England! I'm watching it unfold from the window at my desk as we're on lockdown due to COVID-19. We get to go out once a day for exercise or to make essential grocery shops. That's it.
I've had a wet, cold winter in my neck of the woods. It seems especially cruel for the pandemic to hit right as the Western hemisphere is coming back to life. Many British folks are having trouble abiding the government mandate to stay inside. As for me, I have plenty to keep me busy. For instance, my second book, Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits has just published with The University of Michigan Press and I've been interviewed by a variety of podcasts and vegan projects in support of it (see below).
And the ball keeps rolling! I've just been offered a contract for my third book, Animals in Irish Society, by SUNY Press. As the manuscript is already complete, I expect it will launch in 2021. I also have a book chapter on the topic releasing in the next year or so in Laura Wright's Encyclopedia of Vegan Studies (Routledge).
I keep chugging along because the animals are depending on me. And, for that matter, the COVID-19 outbreak has created a crucial window of opportunity for our message. With the entire world brought to a standstill, the vital importance of vegan research could not be clearer. This is a crisis brought on, to an enormous extent, by animal agriculture. Animal agriculture has quickly diminished wild spaces and subsequently facilitated greater contact between humans and free-living nonhuman communities (and the diseases they harbor). Even within the confines of agricultural facilities, disease festers. As I write this, it is believed that Coronavirus may have emerged from piggeries.Countless pigs have met with horrific deaths ("culls") as a result.
As COVID-19 and hundreds of other zoonotic diseases have demonstrated, humanity’s oppressive relationship with other animals is not only dangerous for nonhumans, but for humans as well (particularly vulnerable folks such as the very young, the elderly, those with disabilities, those living with limited material means, etc.).
Perhaps the COVID-19 crisis will finally bring home the fact to policymakers and the public that human societies are deeply and consistently shaped by our relationships with other animals. The time for veganism is now.
Hang in there my friends. Hold your dogs, cats, and other companion animals close. For them, at least, having us home is felicific (Dictionary.com's word of the day!).
Cheers,
P.S. For urban dwellers, please don't forget the pigeons, gulls, stray dogs and cats, etc. who depend on busy streets for sustenance. Provide refuge, food, and water as you are able. No matter where you live, vegan sanctuaries and charities are experiencing funding drops; if you can afford to, please donate. Lastly, I have seen shelters asking folks to make the best of the isolation period and consider fostering companion animals. Open your home if you can.
Do your best! Be kind to all kinds. :)
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Climate Change and the Voiceless
I was pleased to host my colleague Dr. Randy Abate from Monmouth University in January. Randy gave two talks on intersections of environmental justice and Nonhuman Animal rights to the University of Kent community. His talk can be viewed here.
Animal Advocacy Conference Postponed
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, our conference, originally planned for June 2020, will now be held in 2021.
Course Approved
After much ado, I can proudly announce that my new course on Animals & Society is now approved and will roll out in Autumn 2021 at the University of Kent.
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On Ottawa public radio, I discuss how professionalized nonprofits ignore and suppress the radical, abolitionist vegan message, and how this compromise is harmful to the Nonhuman Animal rights movement.
In this short spot for International Women's Day, I pop in to discuss the history of vegan feminism as well as my upcoming book on Irish human/nonhuman relations.
Following my feature in The Daily Mail, I was asked to speak on the BBC's The Stephen Nolan Show on the politics of language surrounding pet-keeping. This is a thirty-minute program in debate with a journalist who is supportive of speciesist terminology.
Myself and colleague Dr. Kristof Dhont sit down with Jo Kidd, lead organizer for Kent Vegan Events, at the University of Kent to discuss our new books and the vegan programming we have upcoming at our university. Sadly, much of this programming was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
In episode 43 of Dr. Roger Yates' podcast, Roger and I discuss the sociology of anti-speciesist activism and the history of the movement.
In this text-based interview, I discuss the origins of Vegan Feminist Network, gender politics in the Nonhuman Animal rights movement, and the importance of sociological theory for informing our tactics and theory.
On Houston public radio, I discuss my new book, Piecemeal Protest.
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Zoos as Colonial Legacies of Injustice
The University of Kent requested my expert comment on the politics of zoos. In this short piece, I argue that the non-consensual control of vulnerable beings for the pleasure and convenience of humans is unethical. Having emerged in modern British society as an extension of the colonial project of dividing, categorising, and rationalising controlled groups, “zoos” are functional in their ability to maintain social inequality.
Read more >>
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A History of The Vegan Society
In the latest issue of The Vegan Society's magazine, animal rights were entirely absent. There wasn't even an image of a Nonhuman Animal. How could TVS, founded as it was on radical Nonhuman Animal rights ideology, turn to green consumerism and away from anti-speciesism? My research offers some explanation.
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Ireland: The Land of Meat, Dairy, And…Vegans?
My recent research on human/nonhuman relations in Ireland has been covered by Faunalytics. Ireland was once considered a most unlikely place for vegetarianism, veganism, and anti-speciesism. However, I argue that Ireland is carving space in the global vegan movement with a reimagining of its more animal-friendly Celtic roots merged with modern interests in social justice and local, sustainable foodways.
Read more >>
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Call Your Animal a "Companion" Instead of a Pet
I was quoted in the British newspaper The Daily Mail alongside Ingrid Newkirk. We both suggest that "pet" language symbolically and culturally protects human dominance and species inequality.
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Animal Rights Group Calls for Ban on the Word ‘Pet’ to Describe Animals
Following my feature in The Daily Mail, I was invited to participate in a debate on the language of pet-keeping on The Stephen Nolan Show on BBC5 Radio Live.
Listen >>
"Pets" Should Not Be Kept By Humans
In response to the media attention garnered by The Daily Mail and BBC coverage, I was asked by my university to release an expert comment on pet-keeping. In this short essay, I insist that, while we have an obligation to care for dogs, cats, and other animals dependent on us, we have no right to purpose-breed them for our entertainment and contentment.
Read more >>
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