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

Philosopher Tom Regan, Emeritus Professor, North Carolina State University, and author of many books on animal rights and on the ethicist G. E. Moore, will give two talks at Pennsylvania State University.

___________

“G. E. Moore: The Liberator”
July 27, 7:00 p.m.
Palmer Lipcon Auditorium, Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University
___________

“Empty Cages: An Introduction to Animal Rights”
July 28, 10:00 a.m.
273 Willard Building, Pennsylvania State University

___________

***Both events are free and open to the public.

***More information is available at the Rock Ethics Institute‘s blog.

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Members of the newly formed Connecticut Animal Rights Network (CARN) along with New Haven residents protested at Yale University’s George St. building. Activists carried signs reading “Yale Tortures Animals”, “End Ivy League Animal Abuse”, and “Shut Down Yale Animal Labs.”

Leaflets were distributed detailing the lives of the 150,000 animals who are locked away with examples detailing how animals suffer in Yale labs along with the names of specific Yale faculty members who are responsible for such suffering and death.

“Yale has recently been cited with violating the Animal Welfare Act and has spun stories as to why this doesn’t matter; the real reason it doesn’t matter is because it is the every day, legally sanctioned operations that truly threaten the well being and the lives of animals,” said Christine Koczur, founder of the Connecticut Animal Rights Network. “We are not asking that Yale operate their animal labs within the law, we are demanding that they shut down the labs altogether.”

Yale University currently imprisons over 150,000 animals in laboratories at various locations throughout New Haven.  These animals have had holes drilled into their skulls, have been subject to “inescapable” electric shocks, have been forced to consume dangerous drugs including methamphetamines and cocaine, and are routinely killed.  Animals include primates, dogs, cats, ferrets, rodents, and others.

Local news coverage and video of the event can be found here.

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Bringing Academia and Community Activism together for Animal Liberation

Tuesday, July 13, 2010
7PM to 9PM
Brentwood Community Center, 2505 South Brentwood
Brentwood, Missouri

Join St. Louis Animal Rights Team (START) for a lecture by Laura Shields of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) next week.  Laura will being discussing the discipline of Critical Animal Studies and ways to bring activism into academia.

Laura Shields, Assistant Editor and Interview/Dialogue Editor of the Journal for Critical Animal Studies earned a B.A. from Willamette University in History and Spanish and is currently a doctoral student in American Studies at Saint Louis University. Her academic interests include: human-nonhuman animal interactions in culture, gender and sexuality, environmental history and prison studies. She has presented at several conferences including the International “Gender, Animals and Society” conference at Uppsala University in Sweden. She holds a certificate in University Teaching Skills and teaches a Middle Eastern dance class to young women in a St. Louis detention center. Laura lives in St. Louis city with her feline friends, Emmett and Ota, and her human partner, Matt.

________________________________________

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Photo: Deddeda Stemler for The Globe and Mail. Image at University of Victoria.
________________

The University of Victoria has given activists until the end of the month to remove 1,600 feral rabbits from campus before the mass slaughter begins.

Urgently needed:  Land donation/lease or money donation
If you or anyone you know has land to lease or donate, please let us know right away!
Since all existing rescues and sanctuaries are at capacity, activists are looking for any plots of land where the rabbits can go to live out the rest of their lives.  This will not be a permanent land donation/lease as the land will only be needed for the lifespan of the rabbits (7-8 years) and can be returned to the donor after the rabbits die.
All of the rabbits will be spayed and neutered.

If you have land or money and are able to help, please contact Susan Vickery immediately at  ears@x-mail.net or 250-538-8003

To donate by PayPal visit www.earthanimalrights.org

Thank you!

Joanne

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Here is a talk of Amie Breeze Harper presenting her new book Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society at AK Press Release. This talk concerns how her new book discusses racialization and white privilege in veganism and the animal rights movement. Check it out!

at AK Press Release.

Sistah Vegan AK Press Oakland, CA April 15 Part 1 from Sistah Vegan on Vimeo.

Sistah Vegan AK Press Oakland, CA April 15 2010 Part II from Sistah Vegan on Vimeo.

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Call for Book Proposals

We are pleased to invite proposals for a new book series, Critical Animal Studies, to be published by Rodopi Press, one of Europe’s premiere academic presses. The main goals of the series, which differentiates it from the pre-existing series in the field of animal studies, are that we are particularly looking to publish works that:

(a) focus on ethical issues pertinent to actual animals (as opposed to animals as only metaphors, tropes, or philosophical concepts); i.e. work with a certain normative value;

(b) adopt a broad critical orientation to animal studies, including (but not limited to) work that investigates and challenges the complex dynamics of structural, institutional, and discursive power formations that organize life conditions, relations, and experiences of animals, humans, and the environment alike; work that explores diverse forms and sites of human/animal resistance; work that contributes to current global debates by contextualizing critical animal issues within, for instance, processes of globalization, climate change, and biotechnology; work that intervenes in the animal economy of the production, science, service, experience, and culture industries; as well as work that critically analyzes ideologies, practices and effects of the current animal welfare movement;

(c) bridge boundaries between academic/activist knowledge, between theory/practice, as well as between existing disciplines. Based on this commitment to interdisciplinarity, all work published must be in language that is as clear and accessible to as wide an audience as possible;

(d) contribute to creative, bold, innovative, and boundary shifting knowledge development in critical animal studies.

If we can be of any further help or assistance in discussing projects please do not hesitate to contact either of us via email. Further information and submission guidelines are found on the book series website: http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/?page_id=299

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Helena Pedersen
Senior Co-Editor, Submissions and Review Process

Malmö University
helena.pedersen@mah.se

Vasile Stãnescu
Senior Co-Editor, Promotions and Outreach

Stanford University
vts@stanford.edu

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ICAS now offers unpaid internships and volunteer positions for anyone interested in learning how to run a program or project, delegate tasks, edit articles, public relations, write policy reports, and conduct research and analysis.

This is a great experience for college students and activists to gain skills working with a professional non-profit animal advocacy organization while fostering positive social change. _________________________

• The internship program with ICAS is open to students and community members and is more formal and directed overseen by a faculty member. The internship program can be either a semester or a academic year long. Internship programs are typically dedicated to a specific goal, project, time line, and process. Internships can be either academic based with credits (1 to 3) or non-academic, but either of the two they are both structured with a set number of hour of work a week for ICAS. All interns are via internet unless the intern is a SUNY Cortland student.

• The volunteer program with ICAS is open to students and community members and is more informal and gear around the schedule and energy of the individual. Volunteers can either be short-term focusing on a specific event or project or long-term assisting ICAS when they have time.

_________________________

If you would like to apply please send:

1. A 500 word personal statement
2. Your full contact information (phone-number, e-mail, name, address)
3. 3 references
4. Skills you have
5. Area of ICAS you would like to assist with

Send everything to:  icas@criticalanimalstudies.org

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The U.S. animal advocacy movement is truly growing. One can judge its complexity, maturity, and seriousness by the many important forums that are coming up in the near future. To add a note, each of the forums address a different issue of concern with a diversity of different speakers, rather than the same speakers, which would be the case ten years ago, speak over and over again. New and wonderful voices are being heard. In the multitude of activist based conference is the North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies a blend of activist-academic, but leaning more academic, geared for students and faculty in aiding the development and legitimizing of critical animal studies in higher education.

Animal Liberation Forum 2010 CSU-Long Beach, Long Beach CA April 15th – 18th

Animal Ethics Conference Utah Valley University, Provo UT March 29th – April 2nd

North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies SUNY Cortland, Syracuse NY, April 9th, 10th, and 11th

Let Live Conference Portland State University, Portland OR June 25th – 27th

Animal Rights National Conference 2010 Hilton Hotel, Alexandria, VA July 15th – 19th

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Lodging and Travel
9th Annual North American Conference for Critical Animal Studies
Unveiling Anarchist Studies Initiative &
Farm Sanctuary Tour

April 9, 10, and 11, 2010
SUNY, Cortland, NY
http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/conference-for-critical-animal-studies/north-american-conference-for-cas/

________________________________________________

Hi everyone,

Below is some information on discount lodging and the new ICAS message board which can be used for conference related discussion.

Hotel Discount

The Econo Lodge with provide a 12% discount which comes to $79.00/night. The benefit of this hotel is its proximity to the SUNY Cortland campus. It is only ten minutes walking distance, or a short taxi ride away.

If you would like to stay at the Econo with the discount, contact:
Beth Green at bethgreen05@yahoo.com

Please inform Beth what type of room you would like and which nights you plan to stay. Once close to 10 rooms are confirmed Beth will pass the information on to the hotel. The hotel and Beth will then contact guests individually to confirm reservation and discuss payments (for those who prefer to pay once they arrive, the hotel must be provided with a credit card number). If you contact Beth and 10 rooms are already booked, she will advise you to contact Econo Lodge directly and simply state you are part of the conference to get the discount.

Please note that if there are not close to ten people interested in this hotel, a smaller discount will be applied.

Message Boar

There is a new message board for the conference. This can be used for travel and rideshare organizing, or anything else conference related that you would like to discuss. You can view it at:
http://excoboard.com/icas. You do not need to be registered to post on this board.

We look forward to meeting you in Cortland!

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