The Institute for Critical Animal Studies is pleased to announce our 2012 Annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies Awards of the Year. Awards will be bestowed on March 3, 2012 during the conference at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY (March 2-4). We thank the many nominees for submitting their work. It was an honor to consider the wonderful nominations from around the world! Although the final decisions were difficult, we truly feel that the following award recipients have done superb work to help animals and end oppression. We are proud to recognize their contributions to the field of Critical Animal Studies.

Critical Animal Studies Grassroots Project of the Year
“Food Empowerment Project”: http://www.foodispower.org/

Critical Animal Studies Media of the Year
“Conflict Gypsy”: http://www.conflictgypsy.com/

Critical Animal Studies Faculty Paper/Project of the Year
Dr. Lori Gruen, “The first 100”: http://first100chimps.wesleyan.edu/

Critical Animal Studies Undergraduate Paper/Project/Thesis of the Year
Lara Drew: “Freirean Pedagogy and Activism: Radical Adult Education in the Animal Liberation Movement

Critical Animal Studies Graduate Paper/Project/Dissertation of the Year
James Stanescu: “The Abattoir of Humanity: Philosophy in the Age of the Factory Farm”

Critical Animal Studies Book of the Year
Jason Hribal: Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance

Critical Animal Studies Tyke Scholar of the Year
Tereza Vandrovcova

Critical Animal Studies Britches Scholar of the Year
Jessica Groling

Critical Animal Studies Hilda Scholar of the Year
Adam Weitzenfeld

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March 2 – 4, 2012
Canisius College
Buffalo, New York, USA

Host Sponsors:
Animal Allies Club of Canisius College

THEME:
From Greece to Wall St.: Global Economic Revolutions and Critical Animal Studies

As worldwide economies collapse and socio-political revolutions arise in response to education tuition increases, job losses, tax increases, land rights, and religious division, governments are collapsing only to be hijacked by corporations. In the US, national and transnational banks and financial institutions are being bailed out by the government, while common people are kicked out of their homes and fired from their jobs so corporations can save money. Simultaneously, global revolutionary fervor increases against corporations, banks, and corrupt financial institutions. People are demanding their rights and their nations back. The results of this backlash are police brutality and political repression toward activists worldwide. The theme of this year’s annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies is based on inquiry into how economic markets locally, regionally, nationally and globally affect nonhuman animals. Can these revolutions include a critical animal studies agenda? If not, why not? If they can, how would this agenda manifest both philosophically and strategically? How does the economy affect nonhuman animals? Are there alternative ethical and transformative economic systems that promote animal liberation? How are capitalism and transnational corporations affecting nonhuman animal exploitation? How do industrial complexes promote exploitive economic practices? What tactics and strategies can be used to resist economic exploitation? How do economic crises similarly oppress human and nonhuman animals and the environment? In what ways are the resulting oppressions intersectional? How are schooling, teaching, and education influenced by economic interests which promote exploitation?

We welcome proposals from community members including, but not limited to, nonprofit organizations, political leaders, activists, professors, staff, and students. We are especially interested in topics such as the history of social movements, spirituality and social movements, nonviolence, alliance politics, freedom, democracy, and notions of total inclusion. We are also interested in reaching across the disciplines and movements of environmentalism, education, poverty, feminism, LGBTQA, animal advocacy, globalization, prison abolition, prisoner support, labor rights, disability rights, anti-war activism, youth rights, indigenous rights/sovereignty, and other peace and social justice issues.

Areas of inquiry include:The Future of Critical Animal Studies
Revolution
Occupy Wall Street
Corporatization
Global Industrial Complex
Anarchist Studies
Feminism
Activism and Tactics for Social Change
Media
Social Networking
Critical Criminology
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)
Speciesism
Animals in Relation to Religion and Spirituality
Abolition as Theory or Strategy
Animals and Property
Challenges to Human Domination
Sexuality and Gender
Culture, Language, and Animals
Racism
Domesticated and Wild Animals
Capitalism
Deconstructing Human and Animal
Social Constructions
Re-Defining Nature
Bio Ethics and Universal Ethics
Post-Colonialism
Geography, Space and Place
Animal Epistemology
Education and Schooling

Presentations should be fifteen to twenty minutes in length.

We are receptive to different and innovative formats including, but not limited to, roundtables, panels, community dialogues, theater, and workshops.

You may propose individual or group “panel” presentations, but please clearly specify the structure of your proposal.

Please stress in your paper/roundtable/panel/etc. how you will be focusing on the program theme and linking it to economics and critical animal studies.

Proposals or abstracts for panels, roundtables, workshops, or paper presentations should be no more than 500 words. Please send with each facilitator or presenter a 100 maximum word biography (speaking to your activism and scholarship) in third person paragraph form.

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2012.

Accepted presenters will be notified via e-mail by January 25, 2012.

Please send proposals/abstracts and biographies electronically using MS Word and as an attachments in Times Roman 12 point font to: 

Stephanie Jenkins
Co-Conference Chair
scjenkins@gmail.com

Logistics Contact:
Morgan Jamie Dunbar
dunbarm@my.canisius.edu

Conference Schedule Contact:
Sarat Colling

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2011 European 2nd Annual Conference for Critical Animal Studies

Prague, Czech Republic

October 15th – 16th, 2011

______________________________________________________________________________

THEME:

“RECONFIGURING THE ‘HUMAN’/’ANIMAL’ BINARY – RESISTING VIOLENCE”

For more information:

click here

__________________________________________________________________________

This two-day interdisciplinary conference will critically explore a variety of issues concerning the historic, current, and future situation of nonhuman animals across globally interconnected societies. Adopting a Critical Animal Studies perspective this conference seeks to interrogate not only the ‘question of the animal’ but also, with urgency, the deteriorating lived circumstances of many nonhuman animals. We are especially pleased to be hosting this conference in association with the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) as the 2nd Annual European Conference for Critical Animal Studies.

The 2nd annual European ICAS conference is an official pre-event for  Minding Animals 2 – which takes place at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 1-7th July 2012.

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THINKING ABOUT ANIMALS CONFERENCE
March 31 and April 1, 2010
10th Annual N. American Conference for Critical Animal Studies

REGISTRATION FORM
ACCOMMODATIONS
NIAGARA VEGAN GUIDE
Your Vegan Survival Guide for Brock University and the Niagara Region.
SEE US ON FACEBOOK
CONFERENCE EVENT INVITATION
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES AT BROCK

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Dear Colleagues,

I am the organizer for a session on Non-Human/Human Species and Inequalities at the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) that will be meeting in Las Vegas on Aug 19-21 (in conjunction with the American Sociological Association. SSSP is a smaller group of progressive educators and they have often had sessions on animal rights issues with fairly small attendance. I have three good papers so far but need two more to complete the session. This is a quick turn-around as I need to turn in my session (first deadline) tomorrow night. I could, however, still add papers until March 1st.

Please send papers to Julie at: jrandrzejewski@stcloudstate.edu

It is a great opportunity for junior faculty and graduate students to present at a national conference and to become involved in shaping next years sessions by getting involved with a division.

All the best,

Julie Andrzejewski, Professor
Co-Director, Social Responsibility Masters Program
Department of Human Relations and Multicultural Education
St. Cloud State University
720 4th Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN 56301

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While we don’t know about the commitments of the conference as a whole, check out this panel with three ICAS presenters at Wesleyan’s Sex, Gender, Species conference.  The panel is scheduled for 4pm on Saturday, February 26th.

“Precarious Life, Playful Life: The Ethics of Non-Violence”, Stephanie Jenkins, Penn State

“Species Trouble: Judith Butler’s Non-Sovereign Subject and the Human-Animal Divide”, Eric Jonas, Northwestern

“Frames of Life: Judith Butler and the Precarious Question of the Animal”, James Stanescu, Mercer

You can check out paper abstracts here.

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Thinking About Animals Conference
March 31st to April 1st, 2011
Brock University, Canada

____________________________

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Department of Sociology at Brock University is issuing a Call for Papers for a conference on “Thinking About Animals” to be held March 31 and April 1, 2011 at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.

This two-day conference will explore a variety of issues concerning the current and historical situation of nonhuman animals and interactions with humans.

The Department is organizing this conference with the assistance of the Office of the Dean of Social Sciences, the Departments of English, Political Science, History and Visual Arts, the MA Programme in Critical Sociology, and the MA Programme in Social Justice and Equity Studies.

We are especially pleased to be hosting this conference in association with the Institute of Critical Animal Studies as 10th Annual Northern American Conference for Critical Animal Studies.

As with past conferences, we welcome participation from both activists and academics. The conference will be completely vegan.

Please send a short proposal (2-3 paragraphs or enough details to describe your idea) to: ac2011@BrockU.CA
Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2011
We will consider proposals on any relevant topics but some suggestions include:
Animal exploitation industries (economic, environmental, ethical aspects)
Analyzing Industry Propaganda
Undercover investigations
Anarchy and animals
Animals in War
Current campaigns and issues in animal rights activism
Sanctuaries
Humane education
Horse Slaughter in Canada: Cashing in on US Legislation
Captivity: Animals in zoos and “marine parks”
Vivisection and animals in scientific research
Biotechnology and animals
Historical understandings of animals
Animal rights history
Animal rights and social justice
Wildlife conservation and animal protection
Companion animals
Veganism and Vegetarianism
Meat and gender identities
Animals, labour and the working class
Compassion, empathy, solidarity
Animals and human identities
Wildlife trade
Social construction of animals
What animals think
Images of animals and animal activists
Developing animal rights activism and creating cultures of compassion

————————-

Check out the Call for Presentations/Papers here:
http://www.brocku.ca/social-sciences/undergraduate-programs/sociology/thinking-about-animals

Facebook Event page for this Conference is here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=162030053842020



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The 18^th Annual American University Conference on

Lavender Languages and Linguistics

American University, Washington DC

February 11-13, 2011

www.american.edu/lavenderlanguages

With great excitement Jennifer Grubbs, who manages the CriticalAnimalStudies listserve is helping organize the 18th Annual American University Conference on Lavender Languages and Linguistics. There will be two panels on veganism and speciesism that Anthony J. Nocella II and Jennifer Grubbs will be presenting on, so do not miss it. It will be great!!!

About the Conference: Stated broadly, the Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference examines language use in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer life. Linguistic inquiry is broadly defined here, to include studies of: pronunciation, vocabulary and meaning, conversational structures and styles, life stories and other narratives, fiction, and poetry, the “language” of scientific and historic documents and print media, meanings encoded in spatial practices, sign language, non-verbal communication, and communication through photography, cinema and other visual arts. While presentations usually focus on local linguistic practices, they do not neglect the global spread of North Atlantic “gayspeak” and the growing tensions between (homo)sexuality and citizenship worldwide, and they acknowledge the need to position site-specific practices within broader contexts of social, cultural and linguistic theory. The language of conference presentation is English, but the languages explored in presentations have been as varied as Navajo and Japanese, Ukrainian and Hindi, Nicaraguan vernacular Spanish or Kechuan. Presentations from established scholars and from those just beginning to explore lavender language issues are welcomed.

The CONFERENCE program

Ver 121410

Friday, February 11^th

9:00 a.m. Conference registration opens

10:00 a.m. – 12N   Conference Roundtable: Lavender Language Activism

Scholar/activists and community discuss ways that they use use lavender             language             research as an entry points for social change.

12N – 1:30 p.m.    Luncheon on your own

1:30 – 5:30 p.m.   Scheduled Sessions I

a. 1:30- 4:30 p.m. Language and Homophobia

b. 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. “In and Out of the Coffin”: Queerness in contemporary                                     vampire fiction

3:45 – 5:15 p.m. Queer/Vegan/Language Part I: Othering other bodies: The                                     embodiment of speciesism in language

Saturday, February12th

9:00 a.m. Conference registration and book table open

10:00 – 12N Scheduled Sessions II

a. Exploring Possibilities for LGBTQ Discourses in School Settings

b. Queer/Vegan/Language Part II: Cyborgs, gastronomy, and felines, Oh My!                                     Queer             vegan explorations of representations of gender and sexuality.

c. Queer French & Francophone Voices and Spaces

12N – 1:30 p.m. Luncheon on-site

12:15 N  – 1:30 pm. WORKSHOP: Say My Name: Explorations of the Labels                                     that Confine             Queer Womyn of Color

1:30 – 2:30  Keynote Presentation I

• Scott Kiesling (U Pittsburgh) Taking a Queer Stance

2:30 – 5:30 PM Scheduled Sessions III

a. 2:30 – 4:30 p.m. Queer Composition and Rhetoric

b. 2:30 – 5:30 p.m. Queer (and Other) Masculinities.

5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Keynote Presentation II

• Carlos Decena (Rutgers U )  Code Swishing

Sunday, February 13

9:00 a.m. Conference registration and book table open

9:30 – 12N Scheduled Sessions IV

a. 9:30 a.m.  – 11:30 Textual and Discursive Practices I : Retrieving textual and                                     discursive practices from the  literary record

b. 9:30 a.m. – 12N Language, Migration, and Sexualities I

12N – 1: 00 p.m. Luncheon on-site

12:15 – 1:30 p.m.  Film Screenings

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.   Keynote Presentation III

• Sharif Mowlabocus (U Sussex)  Gaydar Culture: Gay Men, Technology and Embodiment in the Digital Age

2:30 – 4:30 p.m.   Scheduled Sessions V

a. 2:30 p.m.  – 4:30 p.m. Textual and Discursive Practices II: Accounting for                                     textual and discursive practices in the current moment

b. 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Language, Migration, and Sexualities II

4:30 p.m. Conference closing events

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Featured speakers

• Scott Kiesling (U Pittsburgh) Taking a Queer Stance
• Sharif Mowlabocus (U Sussex)  Gaydar Culture: Gay Men, Technology and Embodiment in the Digital Age
• Carlos Decena (Rutgers U )   Code Swishing

Scheduled Sessions and Presentations

Friday, February 11

Language and Homophobia

Gosse, Douglas (Nipissing University) douglasg@nipissingu.ca

Authorized and legitimate identities in elementary education: Queering the workplace experiences of male teachers

Martin, Richard Joseph (Princeton University) rjmartinjr@gmail.com

Outside the Charmed Circles: Xeno/Homophobia and the Politics of Analogy

Moreno, Sara ( independent scholar) saramdenicolas@hotmail.com

[Media Representations of Gay Marriage in Spain]

Lynch, Andrew (U Miami) alynch@mail.as.miami.edu

‘Banquemos a los putos’: The discourse of gay marriage in Argentina

Peterson, David (University of Nebraska at Omaha) davidpeterso1@unomaha.edu

Homophobic speech acts & space-time: National and international representations of queer cowboy subjectivity

Seals, Corinne A. (Georgetown University) cas257@georgetown.edu

When a ‘Non-issue’ Becomes an Issue in Newspaper Discourse Surrounding the LGBT Community

“In and Out of the Coffin”: Queerness in Contemporary Vampire Fiction”

Maria Verena Siebert (Ruhr University Bochum)     Maria.Siebert@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Outing Edward: Re-writing the Fetishized Male Vampire

Kindinger, Lia (Ruhr University Bochum)   evangelia.kindinger@rub.de
‘It ain’t possible to live until you cross somebody’s line’: The Queer South
in HBO’s True Blood

Krause, Amanda  (American University Washington, D.C.) ak1574a@student.american.edu

Fatal Attraction:  A study of sexuality, pain, and violence in Twilight Fan Forums

Queer/Vegan/Language Part I: Othering other bodies: The embodiment of speciesism in language

Grubbs, Jenny (American University) jennygrubbs@gmail.com The Black Sexualized Politics of PETA

Haynes, Nell (American University) nellhaynes@gmail.com Buttering up Women: Gender, Performance, and the Miss Butter Princess Contest

Nocella II, Anthony (Syracuse University’s Maxwell School) nocellat@yahoo.com Transgressing the Animal Otherness: Dis-Ableing the Queer Alien

Saturday, February 12

Exploring Possibilities for LGBTQ Discourses in School Settings

Kerr, Ryan ,  Author, On Growin’ Up Gay

Wall, Lucy (American U)    Heteronormativity Goes to School: On Positioning and Being Positioned

Discussant : Vivian Vasquez (American University)

Queer/Vegan/Language Part II: Cyborgs, gastronomy, and felines, Oh My! Queer vegan explorations of representations of gender and sexuality.

Aho, Tanja N. (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)                                                                             “The work goes on hungry or starving for hope/a pomegranate swollen in red rage”: Rethinking class through Dorothy Allison’s alimentary language

Cleman, Tess, (Holmes Art Studio)                                                                                                Women in relation to the feline archetype

Rabinowicz, Anna ( The New School for Design, New York)                                               Animal- based prosthetics and femininity: A redefinition of what it means to be human

Parry, Jovian. (York University) feralkindling@gmail.com Gender and slaughter in popular gastronomy

Queer French & Francophone Voices and Spaces

Thomann, Matthew (American) mathomann@gmail.com

Mapping Visibility in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire: Claims and counter claims tohegemonic LGBT discourse

Mack, Mehammed  (Columbia) mam2225@columbia.edu

‘How to speak the clandestine?’ Homosexuality, ethnicity, and disclosure in Téchiné’s Les Témoins and beyond

Maroun, Dan (U Illinois) dmaroun2@illinois.edu

Heterosexual Taming and Arab Animal Desire

Provencher, Denis  M. (U Maryland Baltimore County)  provench@umbc.edu

Family Ties and Sexual Independence in Medhi Ben Attia’s Le Fil (2010)

WORKSHOP: Say My Name: Explorations of the Labels that Confine Queer Womyn of Color

Monique D. Walker, MS (Drexel U)  mdw49@drexel.edu

Tifphane M. Riley, MA (Drexel U)

Queer Composition and Rhetoric

Varmavuori, Emilia (University of Jyväskylä) emilia.varmavuori@jyu.fi  & Marlen Eliot Harrison (University of Jyväskylä) marlen.harrison@jyu.fi
The Issue of Gay and Lesbian Parenting: Rhetorical Examinations of Finnish University Students’ Beliefs

McCleaf, Andrew (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) a.c.mccleaf@iup.edu
Five Silent Miles: A Working Title

McBeth, Mark (CUNY) jjmark.mcbeth@yahoo.com
Prompts, Props, Performativities: Enacting Education

Kaufman, Erica (CUNY) ericajane0808@gmail.com
Queering “Difficult” Texts: A Classroom Practice

Queer (and other) Masculinities

Gill, Harjant (American U)  harjant@gmail.com                                                                          Locating queer, dislocating masculinity in Indian cinema

Jensen, Randall  (Anthropologist/filmmaker) randalljensen@gmail.com

“50 Faggots”: A film project

Sikorski, Grace (Anne Arundel Community College)  gsikorski@aacc.edu  Deconstructing and Reconstructing Gender: The Technology of Transmasculinity

Ziman, Lal (U Colorado)  zimman@colorado.edu

Social and biological changes sin the voices of trans men: Early findings from a longitudinal study

Johnson, E. Patrick (Northwestern ) e-johnson10@northwestern.edu

My Indifference: Transgressing Transgender Normativity

Leap, William (American U) wlm@american.edu                                                                                 The “new gay man” in U.S.  gay porn, 1985

Sunday, February 13

Textual and discursive practices I : Retrieving textual and discursive practices from the  literary record

Montero, Erin C.A. (Warren Wilson College)  e.montero@warren-wilson.edu                             In the Borderlands: Browning Masculinities in Rigoberto González’s Butterfly Boy

Phillips, Angela  (Warren-Wilson College) aphillips@warren-wilson.edu

Cross-dressing gender in Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s  “Le Bonheur dans le crime”

Hunter, Clive ( Queens University, Belfast/Vanderbilt) clivehunter@hotmail.com

Queering hegemony: Hervé Guibert, writing, and role-play

Breidenbach, Carla (College of Charleston)  BreidenbachC@cofc.edu

I swear I am (not): The use of swear words in the fictional construction of the butch/femme identity in Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood

Language, Migration, and Sexualities I

ORAM (Organization for Refuge Asylum and Migration)

Representatives discuss s the activities of this NGO             and the particular conditions facing             LGBT asylum seekers

Lainez, Rafael A.  (American U)   RafaelAlberto@msn.com The perfect neoliberal subjects: How Necropolitics helps shape Latino gay immigrants’ subjectivity

Moore, Ashley (Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan)                          ashley-m@kanda.kuis.ac.jp

New affordances, new constraints: a case study of the motivations, behaviours and attitude of Japanese gay men crossing borders

Dougher, Gerard (University of Chicago) gdougher@uchicago.edu

“The Cruisin’ Gate”:  Or What Narratives Of Gay Bars in Luang Prabang, Laos Say About Narratives of Belonging in UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Film Screening

Harjant Gill  (American U)   “Roots of Love”

Randall Jensen  (Anthropologist and film maker)  “50 Faggots”

Textual and discursive practices II: Accounting for textual and discursive practices in the current moment

Marcon, Mario (U Udine) mario.marcon@unid.it

Daddy & son: A corpus-based lexicographic perspective

Caskey, Forrest  (Western Carolina University) friscoforrest.com

‘Holding the linguistic floor’: A corpus and discourse analysis of male, female, and queer speech.

Kelley, Jeremy (UCLA) jerekell@gmail.com

The practice of  referencing in gay men’s interactions

Cho, John (Song Pae)  (U Illinois – Urbana) songcho@illinois.edu

No future? “Cool” meetings and the “cold” internet in South Korea

Nance, Stephen (U Oregon)  snance@uoregon.edu

Between lavender and light blue: Negotiating transnational and local gay identities in Russian

Language, Migration, and Sexualities II

Roebuck, Chris (UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco)

Between the Border and the Clinic: Transgender asylum and the biopolitics of a life

Pagliai, Valentina (American University) v.pagliai@yahoo.com

The Good and the Bad (Queer) Immigrant in the Italian Mass Media

Hwahng, Sel J. (Columbia University) sw2211@columbia.edu

On Poverty and People of Color: Male-to-Female Transfeminine People, Drug-using WSW/M, and the Eurocentric Heteropatriarchal (Un)Intelligibility of Public Health and Queer Studies Discourse

Khubchandani, Kareem (Northwestern University) kareemkhubchandani2013@u.northwestern.edu

A Faggo’ in Central Park: A Short Story Performance

Discussant: Galey Modan (Ohio State University )

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At the 22nd Annual Peace Studies Conference at SUNY Cortland, New York on November 13, 2010, with more than 115 attendees from all over the world and from 15 different universities, 10 nonprofits, 2 prisons, and 1 detention center, there were a lot of people buying books and picking up free literature at the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) table. Besides ICAS there were a number of other nonprofits tabling as well, including Cortland Animal Allies, Save the Kids, American Friends Service Committee, and Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies. There was also an amazing panel – Critical Animal Studies in Higher Education; the presenters included Dr. Brian Lowe, Oneonta, SUNY and president of ICAS, Dylan Powell, Vegan Police Radio, Stephanie Jenkins, Penn State University, and Dr. Colin Salter, McMaster University.

No related posts.

CALL FOR PAPERS:

2010 THINKING ABOUT ANIMALS
10th Annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies
BROCK UNIVERSITY, Canada

(Please distribute widely!)

The Department of Sociology at Brock University is issuing a Call for Papers for a conference on “Thinking About Animals” the 10th Annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies to be held March 31 and April 1, 2011 at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.  This two-day conference will explore a variety of issues concerning the current and historical situation of nonhuman animals and interactions with humans.

The Department is organizing this conference with the assistance of the Office of the Dean of Social Sciences, the Departments of English, Political Science, History and Visual Arts, the MA Programme in Critical Sociology, and the MA Programme in Social Justice and Equity Studies.

We are especially pleased to be hosting this conference in association with the Institute of Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) as the 10th annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies.

As with past conferences, we welcome participation from both activists and academics.  The conference will be completely vegan.

Please send a short proposal (2-3 paragraphs or enough details to describe your idea) to: ac2011@BrockU.CA

Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2011

We will consider proposals on any relevant topics but some suggestions include:

Animal exploitation industries (economic, environmental, ethical aspects)

Analyzing Industry Propaganda

Undercover investigations

Anarchy and animals

Animals in War

Current campaigns and issues in animal rights activism

Sanctuaries

Humane education

Horse Slaughter in Canada: Cashing in on US Legislation

Captivity: Animals in zoos and “marine parks”

Vivisection and animals in scientific research

Biotechnology and animals

Historical understandings of animals

Animal rights history

Animal rights and social justice

Wildlife conservation and animal protection

Companion animals

Veganism and vegetarianism

Meat and gender identities

Animals, labour and the working class

Compassion, empathy, solidarity

Animals and human identities

Wildlife trade

Social construction of animals

What animals think

Images of animals and animal activists

Developing animal rights activism and creating cultures of compassion

Racism and animal rights

Colonialism, imperialism, and animal rights

Transphobia and animal rights

Posthumanism and animality

Queer theory and animal issues

Animal agency and resistance

Animal subjectivities

Animal rights and the Global South

Nationalism and animal rights

Food justice and animal rights

International animal rights campaigns

Abolitionism

Ableism and animal rights

Art and animal exploitation

Fat phobia and veganism

Feminism and animal rights

No related posts.

Call for Papers

Sex, Gender, Species

Deadline for Abstract Submissions: October 1, 2010

The growing field of animal studies has turned critical attention to the real conditions and stakes of human-animal relations. It has also become a new and important focus for debates over identity and difference that have embroiled academic theory over the past quarter century. Recent scholarship on animal otherness as well as discussions of how to traverse boundaries of difference often draws upon a history of feminist theory and practice even as this borrowing remains unacknowledged. The purpose of this conference is to foreground the relations between feminist and animal studies and to examine the real and theoretical problems that are central to both fields of inquiry.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

• gendered ethics and the politics of animal rights discourse and activism
• queering the animal
• animals and “nature”/ animals in “culture”
• violence against women and violence against animals
• material feminism and companion species
• pet love and the boundaries of kin, kind, and sex
• technologies of seeing or the gaze of/on sex and species
• otherness, empathy, and animal care ethics
• the woman and the animal – pitfalls and strategies of essentialism.

We are soliciting abstracts for papers that can be presented in 30 minute time slots. Selected presenters will receive a $1000 honorarium to cover travel expenses.

Submission guidelines: Please email a 1-2 page (500 -750 word) abstract for your proposed paper to lgruen@wesleyan.edu and kweil@wesleyan.edu

Conference Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Public Life and the Ethics in Society Project

For more information, see http://sexgenderspecies.conference.wesleyan.edu/

Related posts:

1. Campus Progress Snubs Animal Rights

July 7 saw the confluence of thousands of student progressives in Washington D.C. to share information and learn about progressive causes and strategy at the 2010 Campus Progress National Conference. The Feminist Majority, the SEIU, and the Enough Project were just a few of the groups present along with myself, representing peta2. Sadly, the wide array of campaigns presented at the conference by speakers, panelists, exhibitors, and students seemed to leave little room for animal liberation.

Originally thinking peta2 would help facilitate the Force of Food panel discussion, I was ultimately relegated to a place in the audience, frantically waving my arm as the discussion closed without anyone mentioning animal suffering. The sole and fleeting moment of respite came when Malik Yakini, chairman of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, confessed—rather dismissively—to being vegan, and prompting applause from several audience members.

Following the panel, which focused on food inequality and the industrialization of agriculture, each table from the audience discussed the issue. I was left to address animal liberation to my table of progressive students, who attempted to placate me with polite and dismissive responses. The woman to my right claimed the reason for silence on animal rights is because “we know” about the cruelty. One man said that eating meat was a comfort food to him and part of his Greek culture. A black woman said that she read Eating Animals but buttressed it with “I like meat” and asked what people like her can do to help animals (short of not oppressing them).

The table was primarily interested in how to bring fresh, local, healthy food to those in disenfranchised communities without being seen as intruders. Important, to be sure. And necessary for liberating humans and nonhumans alike. But avoiding the most abject form of oppression inherent to the system of animal agriculture—the animals.

I was further disappointed by the limited selection of vegetarian fare available during meal times. If meat, milk, and eggs are environmental, human rights, and animal issues, and the environment, human rights, and animal issues are pillars of progressive discourse, then someone forgot to tell the lunch and dinner organizers. The website’s FAQ responds to the question of whether the conference will be environmentally-friendly with: “Duh.” The boxed turkey sandwiches say something equally flippant, but much less reassuring.

On one hand, we should embrace the terms on which the “progressive movement” wishes to discuss factory farming and veganism (if this conference is an accurate sampling of some “progressive ideology”). At the same time a group that, at least on its face, seems so wrapped up in addressing inequality, is ripe for a critique of its anthropocentrism.

Related posts:

1. Call for Presentations – Sex, Gender, and Species Conference