How goes it my dear colleagues?
Greetings from Canterbury, England! I'm settling in to my wonderful new career at the University of Kent and looking forward to a summer tour of exciting conferences in Sheffield, Canterbury, Barcelona, New York City, and Christchurch, New Zealand.
Other careers are also taking off. My best bud and fellow vegan feminist Cheryl Abbate came for a visit last month. We met in grad school at Colorado State University 10 years ago and remain the closest of friends. She has just accepted a position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Soon-to-be-Dr. Abbate is an accomplished philosopher of animal ethics.
Good times!
See below for my summer speaking schedule, comments on Beyoncé’s new 'vegan' campaign, a review of the Ko sisters' new book, and my fresh new lecture on vegan ecofeminism...free to you!
Hope to see you at a conference this year. :)
Yours truly,
Dr. CW
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Now in Paperback!
My 2016 publication is now available in paperback!
Applying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.
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Animal Spirits and their Gendered Earthly Remains: Summoning Masculinity and Femininity Norms in the Human-Nonhuman Relations of Ghost Stories
I will be presenting at the Animal Remains conference hosted by the Sheffield Animal Studies Research Centre held this April 29th and 30th.
Ghost stories can tell us a lot about our cultural values regarding personhood and identity. I conducted a content analysis of more than 600 ghost stories and found that Nonhuman Animals constitute 10% of the spirit sample. More than that, their presence often serves the gender role expectations of the humans who interact with them. A vegan feminist theory from the other side!
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On May 4th, I will be speaking at the Kent Vegan Festival in Canterbury, England. The topic? Rape Culture in the Animal Rights Movement.
Rape remains a global epidemic, a daily lived terror for women, girls, and other vulnerable groups. Quite problematically, the animal rights movement frequently exploits this gendered violence to shame or scare nonvegans into compliance.
View the Facebook event here.
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6th Conference of the European Association for Critical Animal Studies
I will also be presenting a paper, "Big Animal Rights and the Nonprofit Revolution" in Barcelona at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra for the 6th annual EACAS conference to be held between the 22-24th of May.
In the 1970s, professionalization emerged as a new and cemented form of advocacy in the Western social movement arena which can be traced to the state’s encroachment on grassroots resistance. As is the case with other movements, this manifests as professionalized hegemony in the Nonhuman Animal rights movement. I find this troublesome given its tendency to prioritize organizational wealth and elite interests over radical structural change.
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Decolonizing Animals
Perhaps most excitingly, I am taking my first trip to the other side of the world to present at the 2019 conference of the Australasian Animal Studies Association, Decolonizing Animals in Ōtautahi (Christchurch), Aotearoa (New Zealand) held from July 1-4.
My paper, titled, "Civilizing Horses and Travellers in Post-Colonial Ireland" examines postcolonial Ireland as a nation-state hoping to establish itself as a legitimate competitor in the capitalist world system with serious consequences for ethnic and species minorities alike.
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As the incoming chair of the Animals & Society Section of the American Sociological Association, I am pleased to announce that we have collaborated with the Environmental Studies Department at NYU for a mini-conference on animals and ecology on August 9th at New York University. Following the event, we will convene at a local vegan restaurant for dinner and drinks.
Live in the New York City area? Come on by!
Registration is free.
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How Dawn Saves Wildlife While Killing Other Animals En Masse
We should be wary of capitalist co-optations of compassion and social justice. Companies like Dawn dish soap misleadingly align themselves with wildlife rescue while profiting from the bodies of farm and laboratory animals. Read more >>
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Why I’m Giving Beyoncé’s Vegan Campaign a Chance
Although some (myself included) may understand veganism to be a matter of anti-speciesism, vegans should hesitate to insist that the Eurocentric interpretation of veganism is the only valid approach. Read more >>
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Ecofeminism and Human/Nonhuman Relations
On March 27th, I presented a lecture on vegan ecofeminism with my institution, the University of Kent. In this lecture, I discuss the many contradictions in the ecofeminist tradition as well as the imperative to employ a gendered lens with regard to human/nonhuman relations. Gender and species are historically entangled constructions.
This 5 part lecture (1 hr. 10 min. total) is free to view on my Youtube Channel.
Watch now >>
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Book Review: Aphro-ism
My review for the groundbreaking new book by Aph and Syl Ko was published by Society & Animals.
Animality is, they insist, endemic to the colonialist project, providing justification for social control and suppression. The Kos argue that anti-racism activists, feminists, and vegans all have a stake in challenging the false divide between human and animal, and, more specifically, challenging the category of “animal” itself.
Like all of my publications, you can read it for free on my website.
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