Greetings:
Some general information below about an upcoming academic conference
at Brock University in Southern Ontario in March of 2007 which will
be of interest to some on this list. The contact information and
possible topics are given below. Three of us attended an earlier
conference at Brock in 2003 with a similar theme. The paper I gave at
the earlier conference which looked at animal rights/liberation from
the viewpoint of deep ecology is available on our web site at:
http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/DE-Animals.html
Best, David
******
Hi David, Hope all's well with you. Thought you might be interested
in this information below. Can you circulate? Thanks!
Best,
John Sorenson
CALL FOR PAPERS
THINKING ABOUT ANIMALS:
DOMINATION, CAPTIVITY, LIBERATION
CONFERENCE AT BROCK UNIVERSITY,
ST.CATHERINES, ONTARIO, CANADA
MARCH 15-16, 2007
To celebrate the creation of a new Concentration and Minor in Critical
Animal Studies, and as part of our commitment to engaged scholarship
directed towards social justice, the Department of Sociology at Brock
University is organizing a conference on the theme of ?Domination,
Captivity, Liberation? to be held at Brock campus on March 15-16,
2007. We are pleased to co-sponsor this event with Niagara Action for
Animals, a local non-profit, all-volunteer charity devoted to ending
all forms of animal cruelty through education, direct action and
legitimate protest.
We are all at a critical moment. The existing order of global
capitalism and industrialization is unsustainable, directly linked
with global warming and massive extinction of species. New social
movements offer an alternative future and require a different
consciousness about our place in the world. The animal liberation
movement, once dismissed as a ?single-issue? cause is increasingly
recognized as the logical next step in a broader emancipatory
struggle. As Steve Best states in his essay ?The New Abolitionism:
Capitalism, Slavery and Human Emancipation?:
?Animal liberation is not an alien concept to modern culture; rather
it builds on the most progressive ethical and political values
Westerners have devised in the last two hundred years --those of
equality, democracy, and rights ? as it carries them to their logical
conclusion?The next great step in moral evolution is to abolish the
last acceptable form of slavery that subjugates the vast majority of
species on this planet to the violent whim of one. Moral advance today
involves sending human supremacy to the same refuse bin that society
earlier discarded much male supremacy and white supremacy. Animal
liberation requires that people transcend the complacent boundaries of
humanism in order to make a qualitative leap in ethical consideration,
thereby moving the moral bar from reason and language to sentience and
subjectivity.?
(http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/new_abolitionism.php)
While Best and others recognize animal advocacy as a social movement
that should be seen in the context of other challenges to corporate
globalization and struggles for social justice, a growing number of
universities have been adding courses that explore various dimensions
of our relationships with other animals. At the same time, deep
divisions have developed within the animal liberation movement itself,
as outlined in Gary Francione?s Rain Without Thunder. Many of those in
the animal rights movement, such as Peter Singer, whose Animal
Liberation is widely credited as a key text in the movement, have
moved to reformist positions that embrace ?humane slaughter? while
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals applauds McDonald?s
hamburger corporation and kills pound animals. Meanwhile, the animal
exploitation industries and government have imposed new laws such as
the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act in the USA.
This conference is intended as a opportunity for discussion of these
developments. The conference is open to all and we invite
participation from academics and activists.
Those who register in advance will have the option of purchasing vegan meals.
Proposals for papers and panels are invited and activist groups may
request a table for display of their material.
Participants will discuss a wide variety of issues, such as the following:
?Spectres of speciesism?: philosophical and ideological
legitimizations for exploitation of animals and ethical challenges to
these legitimizations
Capitalism, ecological crisis and animal liberation
Representing animals: images of captivity, images of liberation
Manufacturing Consent: animals in advertising
Captivity industries and their prisoners
Animals as persons, property and commodities
Animals and the law
Boundaries, Empathy and Human Relationships with Other Animals
Us/Not Us: the imprisoning and liberating of apes -The Great Ape
Project and equality beyond humanity; Release and Restitution; The
Primate Freedom Project
Emotions and sentience and why they matter
Lessons from ethology
Cross-cultural perspectives
?The Case for Comparing Atrocities?: Factory farms and Holocaust imagery
Blowback: unintended consequences of domination and captivity: BSE,
Avian influenza, environmental degradation, dangers to human health,
psychological effects
Sanctuaries
Corporate and government responses to animal liberation
?Green is the New Red?: Constructing the Ecoterrorist Menace
?Terrorists or Freedom Fighters??
Animal liberation and social justice
Debates on the future of the animal rights movement
The nature of liberation: welfare vs. abolition
Humane slaughter? Cage-free eggs? Corporate compassion?
Veganism as direct action
Deadline for proposals: January 15, 2007
Proposals will be reviewed by the organizing committee and those whose
abstracts have been accepted will be notified by email. Please
indicate any special needs and/or equipment requests well in advance.
Please submit an abstract of approximately 500 words to:
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