Devva,

As ever you are a brilliant wordsmith!

Dr Fiona A Kumari Campbell

PhD QUT; BLegSt (Hons) La Trobe; AdvDipTheol Univ Div; JP (Qual)

Chair, Disabled Staff Network

School of Education & Social Work, University of Dundee,

Perth Road, Dundee, DD14HN. SCOTLAND, United Kingdom

Twitter: http://twitter.com/f_k_campbell

Academia site: https://dundee.academia.edu/FionaKumariCampbell

Adjunct Professor in Disability Studies, Department of Disability Studies, Faculty of Medicine

University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

 

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From: The Disability-Research Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Devva Kasnitz <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2019 6:17 pm
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Canadian Animal Law Conference

 

Dear Jodi and Camille,

Thank you for you note. I appreciate that you responded with such a warm and reasoned tone. I organize conferences for the Society for Disability Studies as part of my job and I do understand your process. However, the boundaries of a conference subject matter are pretty well set on the date that abstracts are due in your Call for Papers--unless you don't do peer review and/or if you reopen the Call for Papers, or make a lot of invitations to presenters outside the proposal/peer review structure. From your Call for Papers:

“In particular, we invite presentations that reflect on lessons learned in the last decade, and what the future of the field might hold. Subjects might include, but are not limited to, legislative reform, litigation strategies, law enforcement, policy, and education. We welcome a variety of perspectives and formats, including traditional academic paper presentations, panel discussion proposals on a particular issue, debates, and shorter presentations on cases and other topics of interest. The focus of the conference is on advancing the field of animal law in Canada, but the goal is to do so through meaningful engagement with law, policy, and scholarship happening across the globe, with a focus on North America and Canada in particular.”

There is nothing in this to indicate that you are aware of the controversy that Singer brings with him, nor that it is something you will address. In your outreach to 50,000 people for the CFPs it did not include either the US Society for Disability Studies, nor our sister the Canadian Disability Studies Association. To us this can only be interpreted as either you are ignorant of the debate Singer brings with him, or that you left it to others to bring it up. For us to have felt heard, we would have needed to be included, at least minimally in that 50,000 people. “Nothing about us without us,” is a pretty firm ethic. Where is the note to the disability community that explains your goals and encourages us to come and present? I appreciate that you can't say who your second invited speaker is until they are confirmed, but you didn’t see a need to do that to balance Singer BEFORE the Call for Papers went out, or even reach out to us now after realizing the mess into which you have stepped from Tanya’s first email.

I prefer to think of you as naive about Singer’s work on disability, than cognizant of it. But then I must assume a narrowness to your scholarship that I would find insulting were it applied to me. Your note below, like your earlier one, neither encourages us to submit abstracts by the 18^th, nor does it extend your deadline in recognition that the disability community has both a lot to say about Singer and a lot to say about the intersection of animal, plant, and environment. For example, there is a whole group of scholars working in the area of geography and disability, but we saw none of your 50,000 Call for Papers in the “Geoable” list. Where is your “Woops, we are so sorry you didn't find out about this until the last moment. Please do submit and let us know if you need more time?” Or, “Who would you suggest we reach out to, to bridge this gap?” Be aware that almost no one I know can afford to go to a conference unless they present. That decision window closes in 3 days.

I hate to make dramatic comparisons, but it’s kind of like having a conference on neo-Nazism and not sending the CFPs to any holocaust scholars, or a conference about Israel without reaching out to Palestinian scholars. Your assurance that some sessions will cover intersectionality is interesting. None of the 2,000 disability studies scholars in on this correspondence have indicated they are submitting abstracts. Some of us are debating it with ourselves—I love Nova Scotia in October being from Massachusetts, but it would be an expensive trip to be where I know I would be on hyper alert status.

Peter Singer is not afraid of controversy, he thrives on it. You have put yourselves in the unenviable position of needing to defend your choice perhaps, in fact, derailing your purpose of a focus on non-humans in the process. The entire phenomenon of animal domestication, for example, creates species that can't even breed without human intervention. Critical disability studies theory goes there. How do we both respond ethically to current disability in ALL animals at the same time that we work to promote the future health and free choice of all living things?

 

Sincerely.

Devva

 

Devva Kasnitz, PhD

Spring 2018 -- Kate Welling Distinguished Scholar in Disability Studies, Miami University, Oxford, OH

Adj Professor, City University of New York—School of Professional Studies—Disability Studies

Executive Director, Society for Disability Studies, PO BOX 5570, Eureka CA 95502

 

From: Animal Law Conference <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2019 7:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reply to earlier emails

 

Dear Dr. Kasnitz, Dr. Titchkosky and colleagues, 

 

Thank you for your correspondence. As requested, we are pleased to provide you with some further information and to respond to some of your concerns about the upcoming animal law conference.

 

First, it is true that our website does not include the names of the conference organizers. This is not an effort to remain anonymous. Rather, it is just a reflection of the fact that the website is a work in progress, and the conference is still in the early stages of planning, being nearly seven months away. More information will be added to the website as the agenda and organizing advance. 

 

Second, you noted that a reply sent to Dr. Titchkosky included no personal names. We apologize if this was perceived as an effort to remain anonymous. The letter was signed in relation to our collective role as the co-organizers of the conference rather than by name.

 

Third, regarding accessibility, the conference will take place at the Schulich School of Law and we can confirm that the is building is accessible. This fact was not included on the website as we assumed, obviously in error, that it would be understood that the venue – a university campus – is accessible. This information, and many other further details, will be added to the website as we move forward.

 

Fourth, with respect to the “Call for Proposals,” this was circulated by email, through Animal Justice’s mailing list comprising of nearly 50,000 individuals, and on various social media platforms, with a combined reach of more than 50,000 people. It was our hope that the call would then be shared and reach an even wider audience. It has also been provided directly to the intended audience of potential conference presenters—academics, lawyers, animal advocates, law students, and other interested members of the public—through multiple channels. Given the focus of the conference, this seemed a reasonable distribution strategy. Further details will be included on Animal Justice’s website once we move toward opening registration. 

 

Fifth, we regret that you found our previous reply to be dismissive, which was not our intention. Rather, we wanted to respond to your request that we explain our motivation for asking Peter Singer to open our conference — that is, his inextricable connection with the history of the animal rights movement, which is the first half of the conference theme, “Learning from the past, looking to the future.”

 

Sixth, we acknowledge the concerns that have been raised about having Peter Singer give a plenary address at the conference. Please know that we are seeking meaningful ways to be responsive to those concerns. We have reached out to a leading scholar, working at the intersection of animal rights and disability justice, in the hopes that they will deliver a plenary address (which, like Peter Singer’s but unlike the other sessions, would be open to the public). Our belief is that this speaker will anchor the discussions within the second half of the conference theme. Our program is still in development, and we are making it our priority to respond to the concerns, and to demonstrate our understanding that the future of animal rights, and animal law, must include building bridges between social justice movements, which must work together for a better future. We thus particularly appreciate you highlighting, in your email, some of the overlapping ways that different communities are oppressed by the same structures. The rest of the conference programming is still in the early stages of development, but we anticipate that several sessions will address themes of intersectionality and overlapping oppressions as this is an issue of strong interest to us, and the animal law community more broadly.

 

Again, we regret the ill-feelings caused through the choice of one of the conference plenary speakers. We are working hard to address the concerns raised and to ensure that everyone feels heard, welcome, and respected at our conference.  

 

Sincerely,

 

Jodi Lazare, Assistant Professor, Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University 

Camille Labchuk, Executive Director, Animal Justice

 

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