The Vegan Police

Interview: Vasile Stanescu (ICAS and the Occupy Movement)

February 26th, 2012

I remember reading Vasile’s “Green” Eggs and Ham? The Myth of Sustainable Meat and the Danger of the Local” in the Journal for Critical Animal Studies and being blown away by the analysis. When I finally got to meet Vasile at last years Critical Animal Studies Conference at Brock University it was evident that Vasile can not only write but he is also a really great speaker. I’ve followed Vasile’s work since, both his academic work and his activist work, and he is a constant source of inspiration. I am really glad that Vasile took the time to answer some questions for us and happy to share his work.

Can you talk a bit about your background in animal advocacy and your entry into the academy?

I have been vegetarian since I was nine years old and vegan since college so it has been, pretty much, a life-long affair with me. However while it has been life-long the type of advocacy has tended to change. In college I was more focused on personal direct action. I still do that type of work but I am now focused on thinking through how else I can make a difference in helping more people to confront speciesism and anthropocentric privilege. So I now focus more on teaching classes, publishing essays, making speeches, and providing interviews on the topic. I think, at least at times, it helps me to reach a wider, or at least a different audience in a more sustained and nuanced manner. For example, right now I am teaching a course entitled “Eating Animals,” which allows me to explore these issues with my students for an entire quarter. Speciesist ideology is so ingrained in many people that it is difficult to confront in a single flyer or demo (much less that awkward conversation about “Why are you vegan” over dinner that we have all had). So I have found the type of long-term, in-depth, and nuanced conversations that I am now able to have very helpful for both my own learning and for others. This is not, in any way, to criticize direct action, which I still support. It is to say that I am currently trying to think of new and different ways to continue to be an effective advocate for animals.

Can you tell us about what drew you to the Institute for Critical Animal Studies?

In essence there were three factors that drew me to the Institute. First, for me the most important aspect of critical animal studies is the way in which it can be used to help the lives of individual animals. So I appreciated the permission for a firm normative commitment—I don’t have to hide my views. Secondly, I care, deeply, about the idea of “intersectionality” (how the oppression of nonhuman animals is related to the oppression of human animals) and unfortunately even within animal studies this idea is still highly controversial. So I appreciate the ability to investigate, say, how fighting against classicism and animal liberation can be mutually helpful worldviews. And I appreciate the clear linkages to animal activism, in both directions – both how can we use insights in the academy to help activists on the ground? And how can activists actually help us to work on different and more intelligent questions in the academy? But honestly what most attracted me were the people themselves. In ICAS we have a sense of shared purpose greater than ourselves. We aren’t just trying to get another article published, or another line on our curriculum vitae. We actually want to change things and it creates a feeling of camaraderie, solidarity, and shared purpose that I crave and is what I have been search for since I first entered the academy.

You have written about the Green Scare and Locavorism in the Journal for Critical Animal Studies. Do you see a connection between these two issues/narratives? You point out the right wing ideas that root the Locavore movement – buying local and xenophobia, a defense of animal use and human supremacy, etc. and it seems as though locavorism is a counter narrative to the animal/earth liberation movements that can serve as a repressive force in itself.

This is less a question than a claim that you are forwarding, but I think a brilliant one. Just to agree with you, “locavorism” is, in part, an attempt to appear to remember issues of environmentalism (i.e. a romanticized notion of “back to earth”) without really confronting the issues that are confronting us. In other words it is a type of intentional forgetting that purport to be remembering of the issues. I don’t know if you have ever actually heard Joel Salatin speak but he is actually very conservative. I mean he is radically pro-life, makes comments in which he calls himself “really sexist”, and he’s very open about the fact that he is anti-evolution and anti-science. And these are not somehow unrelated comments or aspects but part of single coherent and highly conservative worldview. So yes, he is opposed to, say, genetic engineering, Monsanto, and factory farming, which are also views that we share. But the reason that he is opposed to these practices is because he believes that they are an aberration from a God ordained “natural order.” And it is this really Aristotelian idea of an “natural order” which is behind so many conservative’s views of men over women, parents over children, and humans over animals (even if such “dominion” is suppose to be “protective”). For example, when Salatin gives a talk entitled “ Food: the cornerstone of our Christian Credibility” at Patrick Henry College in which he critiques science and evolution and claims that the current industrial food system is a “trick by the Devil” designed to “keep Christians apathetic and lethargic” it is hard to know how to respond to these claims or to see in that a helpful response to our current environmental crises.

Two other important points about “humane” farming and locavorism. It touts itself as a “return” to an earlier time in animal agriculture. But this is a false myth. Almost all “humane” farms, including Salatin’s, uses genetically modified “poultry” whose lives are short and, necessarily, painful. Selective breeding and genetic modification of animals isn’t less control than a small cage, in many ways it is more. But that control is now simply more hidden. So when someone comes to visit a local farm everything looks more open and freer without, necessarily, being more open or free. It is in many ways similar to the move in zoos in which the cage walls were removed for the viewing public. But while the diorama where the animals live may look more open, in reality it just helps to hide the ongoing reality of their captivity. So locavorism and humane farming is not, to my mind, a step “back” at all – it is a step “sideways” (if you will) to try to create something which can look like a romanticized notion of an open and bucolic farm while, in reality, relying on the type of selective breeding and genetic manipulation which “local” or “humane” farmers, such as Salatin, purport so much to oppose.

The second point is that while “humane” farming purports to be a critique of the factory farm system it is, in reality, part of the same system. Factory farms have a problem, which is that they can never allow people to see what actually occurs on these “farms.” Humane farms have the problem that they can never actually feed the world’s population (at least in terms of animal products.) So the two work together—synergistically. Consumer can go and visit a “humane” farm and feels as though they are seeing and experiencing what animal husbandry is “actually like” (even if, in reality, what they are experiencing is nothing like typical animal husbandry). And, at the same time, those who purport to eat “humane meat” can feel as though there is still plenty of meat for everyone to consume by consuming factory-farmed flesh the rest of the time. So the “humane farms” actually help to render the brutality of the factory farms as invisible and the ubiquity of the factory farm system helps to hide the inability of the “humane” farms to ever “scale up” in any meaningful sense of that term.

So all of these ways in which the local or humane farms represent a sort of “active forgetting” or a way of seeming to confront issues of genetic modification, environmental degradation, or the factory farm system, while, in reality, merely helping to hide these issues even more thoroughly. So yes, you are exactly correct. It is a way of, in fact, supporting a highly conservative worldview while at the exact same time hiding the reality of the need for truly progressive or radical action. Someone who goes to Salatin’s Polyface farms and personally kills one of “his” own chickens may feel like they have “gone beyond the bar code” fought against the factory farm system, and helped to save the environment. But these views are entirely false. In reality all they have done is– kill a chicken.

I know you have made a point to be involved “in the streets” with the Occupy Wall Street Movement – specifically Occupy Oakland. Can you speak a bit about your involvement and why you think it is critical for academics to be involved and also for advocates to be involved?

Of course. And I think this is critical on two levels. On the first level it is hard to actually understand what is occurring in a social movement (such as “Occupy”) if you do not have first hand, or “ethnographic” experience. On the second hand if you are studying a social justice movement and it does not move you to action then I think there is some failure in the purpose of your thought.

From where I am there is a definite romanticism when talking about Occupy Oakland. The strength in numbers, the response, the tactics being used, have all brought a lot of attention to Oakland. Do you feel like anything has been overlooked in this? Are there things people can learn from Occupy Oakland and if so, are we taking away the right messages?

You are exactly correct that the movement has been greatly romanticized. From the very beginning we have had the idea of being involved in something far larger than ourselves (captured in such phrases as “the whole words is watching” while filming police brutality). As scholars we are trained to be highly critical of “romanticization” and I think rightly so. But as an activist trying to build a large scale and successful grassroots campaign I think it has an important part to play in maintaining morale, particularly against harsh police repression. So I think romanticization itself has an important place in activism.

The question of are we taking away the right message is an interesting one and, to be honest, no I don’t think we are. The real message, I think, is the manner in which the police actively serve and protect capital accumulation (the manner in which the market and the state have become one). So unarmed protesters who are, in fact, protesting against economic inequality are responded to with overwhelming police violence. This, to me, is a powerful if still little understood message. But instead, what I see being reported is a conversation about whether protesters threw paint, or who threw what, etc. The question of whether we are “nonviolent” or not to my mind is missing the message. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were exceptional and powerful figures but I don’t think they should represent the only way in which protest can, or should, be understood and supported. It is not unreasonable that when someone is being tear-gassed that we will throw back tear gas canisters. But if throwing back the tear gas canisters counts as “violence” what does the tear gas itself constitute? That point is that we are unarmed. After the first crackdown (where Scott Olsen had his head fractured) the claim was that we caused it by throwing balloons filled with paint. I’m serious—paint. And in the most recent mass arrest the police focused on how someone had thrown a bicycle at the police while he was being tear-gassed. A bicycle? Paint and bicycles are supposed to be our violent weapons? And this is supposed to somehow justify indiscriminate tear gassing, sound cannons, pepper spraying, police beatings, and mass arrests? There is simply no proportionality in the response. None.

The other point that people need to understand and take away from Occupy is that our “civil rights” are purely theoretical—and this applies to animal activism as well. We may seem to have them, but the moment we attempt to actively to exercise them, in any meaningful sense, the crack down is fierce and determined. The vast majority of Occupy’s actions have consisted of exercising constitutionally protected rights like “assembly” and “free speech” and the response has been severe police repression. Even if someone does not support any of the redistributive justice ideas of the Occupy movement that alone should give them pause. And, as you have mentioned earlier, we see a very similar type of response in regards to animal rights activism. Even basic and clearly protected forms of free speech—like hosting a webpage, or engaging in “whistleblowing”—can now come with felony jail time. The idea is that we are suppose to accept economic inequality, a large military, and so many actions because it “protects” our “freedoms.” But, in practice, we appear to not even have these supposed rights in the first place.

Finally, let me end with just a personal memory. Of everything I have seen and saw in the last several months one story stands out in my mind more than any other. It was the evening of the General Strike and a small group had liberated a foreclosed-on homeless nonprofit in order to provide housing for the occupy movement for the coming winter. It was announced that 500 sheriffs were on the way to force us to leave. The General Strike had called on students to walk out of school and Deborah (my wife) and I were standing beside two high school aged protestors when this was announced. One of the girls said to other “remember to stay nonviolent.” I told them that I agreed that they should stay nonviolence but they needed to understand that was not going to keep them safe. She said that “It was still the right thing to do.” I told her that I agreed but she needed to understand that the police were going to come in and tear gas everyone all together at once and she needed to be prepared. If she had a bandana or scarf she should dip it in water and wear it over her mouth and nose. If she got hit with tear gas or pepper spray too hard she needed to yell “medic” and one of the volunteers would come up help. She needed to make sure she did not get too close to the front of the police line because the police had been known to hit people who got to close to them with their batons. She needed to know the number for the lawyer’s guild and she needed to remember it because if she was arrested they might take away her phone so she needed to memorize it. She and her friend looked at us with disbelief and horror and ending up leaving early. That was not our goal and in a way I am sorry that they did. But it did point out to me that even some protestors have romanticized notions of what is going on and what will happen to them. We need everyone to come but people also need to be knowledgeable and prepared so everyone can stay as safe as they can. So everyone does need to get involved but, at the same time, be smart, be prepared, and stay safe.

Tags: Green Scare, ICAS, Locavore, Occupy Wall Street, Vasile Stanescu
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Interview: Kim Socha “Women, Destruction, and the Avant-Garde: A Paradigm for Animal Liberation”

February 5th, 2012

The 11th Annual Institute for Critical Animal Studies Conference is coming up soon at Canisius College (Buffalo, NY) from March 2nd to the 4th. We thought it would be a great time to contact some of the people pushing ICAS forward to find out about how they got involved, and how their work is shaped by, and shaping, Critical Animal Studies. The first up in this series is Prof. Kim Socha (Normandale Community College). Kim is a Director with ICAS and just released a book “Women, Destruction, and the Avant-Garde: A Paradigm for Animal Liberation” as part of the Critical Animal Studies series at Rodopi Press. We thank Kim for taking the time to answer some questions for us and look forward to her upcoming presentation at the Conference!

Can you talk a bit about your background in animal advocacy and your entry into the academy?

It took me a while to really get involved in animal advocacy in an intensive way, as opposed to dabbling in groups here and there. I was a vegetarian for a long time, but struggled with going vegan for the simple reason that I liked cheese; I won’t even try to pretend I had some great philosophical purpose for not going vegan sooner. My reasons were purely self-indulgent. It was when I began my Ph.D. program in 2006 that I began to work more ardently as an animal advocate. I took a course in Critical Vanguard Studies—which entails exploration of aesthetic and political groups such as Dada, Surrealism, the Black Arts Movement, etc.—to solidify what I have come to see as my personal conception of the animal liberation movement (ALM). While taking that course, I also began to read about the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) via Anthony Nocella II and Steven Best’s Terrorists or Freedom Fighters. I became convinced that the ALM is a contemporary manifestation of the avant-garde, those groups and individuals who see reality in advance of mainstream popular conceptions (i.e. war is an inevitability of human existence and humans must eat nonhumans to live), and we strive to help others see the world differently as well. At that time, I began to volunteer at a no-kill animal shelter and speak on campus about nonhuman animal issues. And, of course, I went vegan. My timidity had also held me back from being a stronger advocate for years, but viewing Shannon Keith’s documentary Behind the Mask, about the ALF, allowed me to put my social anxieties aside and realize that my fears of being misunderstood and mocked were far less significant than the institutionalized brutality of animal treatment the world over. Once moving to Minnesota from Pennsylvania in 2009, I joined the Animal Rights Coalition (ARC), a grassroots abolitionist animal advocacy group with a thirty year history. I now sit on ARC’s board, and I am also on the board if the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS).

Can you tell us about what drew you to the Institute for Critical Animal Studies?

ICAS’s Rodopi book series was the second publisher to whom I sent my book manuscript. And the only reason they were not the first is because I was not immediately aware that they had a book series. I had faith in ICAS because of their stated mission to abolish exploitation in a holistic way, including animals, humans and the environment, and I was pleased that their book series accepted manuscripts from academics and activists. I did not see ICAS as trying to establish yet another esoteric theory that with no real world applications (all deference to the Deconstructionists) that will only hold meaning in higher education. Plus, I was a follower of Nocella’s work, so his association with ICAS as co-founder and Executive Director made me confident that this was a sound organization. I feel honored to have published through their Rodopi series, edited by Drs. Vasile Stănescu and Helena Pederson, two of the best editors I can imagine working with.

You are also involved in prison abolition advocacy as well as radical education advocacy. Can you tell us a bit about the projects you are involved in?

I believe that our overflowing prisons are society’s problem, and not necessarily the problems of individual prisoners. In many ways, our culture produces prisoners because it is fundamentally unjust and set up for certain demographic groups to “fail” at the American dream (i.e. African Americans in poor urban communities). This is especially true in terms of America’s drug laws, with about half of U.S. prisoners sitting in jail cells for drug-related crimes. I should also explain that I do support anarchism, as well as the legalization of all drugs. (The anarchy/drug connection is a much longer story that I don’t have time to discuss here.) This is why I am interested in prisoner advocacy work. The incarcerated are not evil individuals, but rather, individuals who have been forced by an inherently flawed system to engage in illegal activities. Due to prison overpopulation, the term “correctional” facility has become laughable. Not enough prisoners are given the chance to actually transform. Rather, they often leave prison more hardened then when they first got there. I’m not talking about the Ted Bundys of the world, of course, but those who break laws in a country where laws are set by a few privileged people who often have financial motives for establishing those laws. In other words, we live in a plutocracy, not a democratic nation, and until the broken system is fixed, prisons will never be the answer to social ills.

As to my advocacy work, I am involved with Minnesota Circles of Support and Accountability (MnCoSA), a program that helps recently paroled sex offenders integrate back into society so that they do not repeat their offenses. I have worked with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault before, so my interest in MnCoSA—which has about a 75% success rate in helping offenders not to repeat their crimes—is not just about the individual offender, who may have committed a crime that I personally find revolting; it is about making sure that those in the community remain safe from sexual violence. And again, it is the crime that is revolting, not the offender.

I am also a part of Twin Cities Save the Kids (STK), which Anthony Nocella was a part of in New York and has now brought to Minnesota. This award-winning program enters youth detention facilities to help children develop skills and perspectives that will keep them out of incarceration and break the school-to-prison pipeline. Some of this is done through hip hop pedagogy and poetry, which the kids find much more relatable than what they were learning in school (which may be why many stop going to school). We are also beginning to develop a program at local jails where we can work with teaching adults, some of whom are going to be in prison for life, through group building activities and education (i.e. obtaining a GED). Change is possible if people are given access to the means of transformation. I don’t want to sound too Pollyanna-ish, as I don’t think that I or any of these programs will change every individual or the world within my lifetime. My realistic goal is simply to let the incarcerated know that alternatives exist. There are many who want to take advantage of these alternatives, which are what MnCoSA and STK offer.

As to our educational system, from kindergarten to higher education, it is a fucking mess. Based on Euro-American models of learning, students are taught early on to stifle creativity and learning is cordoned off into disciplines (English, History, Math, Science) with very little thought to the intersectional, holistic nature of learning. I am part of the problem. I work as a community college instructor because I believe that education should be open to and affordable for everyone. However, I am also an English instructor, and in order to keep in step with the policies of my institution, I teach many traditional modes of writing, which are formulaic and based upon Western conceptions of reason-based rhetoric and logic. I struggle with this on an ideological level, but I also want to give my students what they want—preparation for the world we currently live in, not Kim Socha’s vision of what that world should look like.

There is a belief that much of the confusion around “Human Animal Studies” and “Critical Animal Studies” can be traced back to disciplines “English” and “Cultural Studies.” As someone from the academy who works in those disciplines do you feel like this criticism is unfair? Or do you struggle with finding peers who keep their work rooted in liberatory praxis?

I think the criticism is fair. I’d also like to think that although my doctoral diploma says “English Literature and Criticism,” that my degree is really in Cultural Studies (when I discuss my book, this will become clearer). I’ve met those academics who continue to look at English via New Criticism and Formulism, but I also see a massive shift away from those out-dated modes and into the arena of Cultural Studies, which is less Euro-centric and more holistic. However, I think that to be a real Cultural Studies scholar, one must be an activist. Many aren’t. I’ve met these individuals in higher education and looked at them for mentorship, but all I found was careerism. In kind, I think that street-level activists are engaged in Cultural Studies on a fundamental plane that scholarship alone will never reach.

The same can be said for the rift between Human Animal Studies (HAS) and Critical Animal Studies (CAS). Some facets of HAS seem to look at animals as curiosities, as objects with very little agency, which is not to discount those vegan HAS scholars who are sympathetic to nonhumans. However, much of HAS seems divorced from, as you say, “liberatory praxis.” (Ok, so an anthropology scholar has analyzed the use of snake symbolism throughout human history. So what? How does this help animals now?) I have been on HAS discussion boards, and I have seen those who support vivisection identifying as HAS scholars, even if they want to make animal research more “humane.” Even the term Human Animal Studies seems to reinforce the binary between humans and animals. In contrast, CAS scholars and activists are just that—critical of human use of nonhuman animals and active in their protest of that use. Yes, I write CAS scholarship, but I also “hit the streets” to take part in protests, leaflet, organize events, etc. CAS also considers how oppressed human animals and the environment factor into a more encompassing view of domination. When I look at the term “Critical Animal Studies,” I include humans in that conception of animals, and I think that part of our goal as activists and scholars is to destroy the binary by reminding others that humans are animals too, though animals with greater social agency and, thus, greater responsibility to end oppression.

You just released the first book in an ICAS series, entitled, “Women, Destruction, and the Avant-Garde: A Paradigm for Animal Liberation.” Can you tell us about the book and do you think it will be useful for people trying to bridge these two communities of thought/resistance?

Women, Destruction and the Avant-Garde: A Paradigm for Animal Liberation (WDAG) attempts to integrate the animal liberation movement into the history of the avant-garde, which refers to those politico-aesthetic groups who use(d) the arts as a means of social protest. The term avant-garde literally translates from the French as “advanced guard,” in military terms, and it has been used to refer to social critics who are ahead of their time, who see a reality that the popular mainstream either cannot see or chooses to ignore. For example, early twentieth-century Dada and Surrealism arose in response to the massive loss of human lives in WWI, and these individuals were fierce social critics as well as poets and artists. The animal liberation movement (ALM) arose in response to the indefensible way that humans use nonhumans, and we are a political movement that relies on the symbolism of the artist. To wit, my book looks at protests and ALF/ELF actions as symbolic acts that attempt to help others see the dangers of speciesism, capitalism and environmental destruction. I consider WDAG interdisciplinary, factoring in literary analysis, feminist manifestos, popular culture, radical political theory, true crime and, of course, animal liberation theory and praxis. Whether or not this can bridge the chasm between HAS, CAS and other academic disciplines remains to be seen.

Now, on to the problem. As visionary as they were, the Surrealists were (justifiably) accused of misogyny, so to the ALM. This is a movement dominated by women, but the patriarchal, rationalist male voice continues to govern the movement (though some contest this idea). Thus, WDAG looks at how avant-garde female writers and performance artists have responded to patriarchy and misogyny in marginalized vanguard culture, considering how their performances can act as a “paradigm” for the ALM. Quite often, these women have used their bodies to protest their cultural impotence on the social hierarchy of rights, but often times the ways they use their bodies simply mirror the position that patriarchal culture has put them in: as objectified beings desired for their bodies but ignored as independent individuals with social agency. PETA does this with women as well, hoping that by exploiting one group of animal, women, they will liberate other species. In contrast, there are those artists who have used their bodies with integrity (i.e. Carolee Schneemann and Coco Fusco), so I look at the ways in which the ALM can adopt their attempts at liberation.

I am drawn to the notion of “destruction” that runs through the your new book as the term itself carries such power. Do you see “destruction” as a narrative that can lead us out of stalled understandings of “reform” vs. “abolition.”

The first chapter of WDAG looks at a mid-ish twentieth-century anti-capitalist avant-garde movement known as the Destructivists, for through destruction, they claimed, rebirth and renewal are possible. They didn’t go around destroying things for the sake of destruction alone, but to dispute the commodification of art. They would, in fact, destroy their own art as a way to protest art as object desired and “corporatized.” I relate this aesthetic to both a true crime event—the mutilation and torture death of Sylvia Likens—and the work of three female writers who have written about destruction in the sense that if you destroy what keeps you oppressed, you will be free. In 1914, Mina Loy’s “Feminist Manifesto” declares that when girls hit puberty, their hymens should be destroyed, for virginity held cultural capital during that time period. In 1967, Valerie Solanas, famous for shooting Pop artist Andy Warhol, wrote the SCUM Manifesto, in which she explains that the only hope for a culture in decline is to scrap the whole thing and start over, and this included the mass genocide of all men. Next, I look at a novel by Katherine Dunn called Geek Love; there is a lot going on in this interesting text, but here I want to focus on a character named Miss Mary Lick, a wealthy woman who pays attractive women to make themselves undesirable through horrible acts of disfigurement. She believes that only by making women unattractive to men can they became independent beings. These are fascinating ideas, but ethically unviable, as well as presented tongue-in-cheek (one hopes). Still, these varied writers touch on a significant point: destroying the cause of the problem may be the only avenue for renewal.

This is why I am against reform, though not reformists, as I believe that they do work that is in keeping with their compassion for animals, however misguided I find them to be. However, reform is just that, a way of reforming what already exists—laws and standards developed by those with financial interest in maintaining animals as machines. When that power is kept in the hands of the power brokers, real change is off the agenda. The recent agreement between the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and United Egg Producers (UEP) is a perfect example of this agenda, and the moderate changes the UEP promises to make in egg production still maintain animals as property, product and machine. I think the legal system and humans’ views of nonhuman animals need to be destroyed before there is any chance for liberation, and this destruction can manifest in varied ways: from helping someone go vegan at outreach event to starting a revolution that topples the legal system and the animal/global industrial complex. Destruction need not be a bad word. In fact, I find it liberating, whether one is vandalizing public property to leave an animal liberation message or breaking into a research lab to save a nonhuman animal from his/her life of torture.

As to whether or not destruction “can lead us out of stalled understandings of ‘reform’ vs. ‘abolition,’” I have my doubts because reformists and even some abolitionists will not be able and/or willing to divorce that term from the violence that seems to go along with it, which is not necessarily the case. That said, I hope that those who read my book gain a better understanding of destruction as an avenue out the desperate situations into which we’ve imprisoned nonhuman animals, the environment and ourselves.

Tags: ICAS, Interview, Kim Socha
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Critical Animal Studies “Thinking About Animals Conference 2011″ Review.

April 12th, 2011

While I was blasting out twitter updates at the Conference I had a couple people ask for a review of the Confernce. Here goes.

Disclaimer: There is only so much one can see at a two day Conference of this size. At some points there were 3-4 consecutive panels running at the same time and I definitely missed out on a lot of speakers I would have really liked to see; Jodey Castricano, Jovian Perry, Keri Cronin, Adam Weitzenfeld, Kimberly Costello, Aaron Bell, Lauren Corman, Jenny Grubs and Stefan Hnat, etc. That is just to name a few. I tabled a ton (Vegan Police, Arissa Media, Niagara Vegan Baking Militia, Live Free, Brock Animal Rights Club, Institute for Critical Animal Studies) so I was also locked in position at Pond Inlet for most of the Conference. So, what all of this means is that if I don’t speak glowingly or omit someone it is probably not because I think their talk sucked, it’s much more likely that I fail at breaking the space/time continuum. If others have written reviews, or would like to write a review, please let me know and I will add a link, or post the material here. Also, I encourage anyone who sees something they are interested in to contact the person presenting. The vast majority are willing to share and love to talk about things they are passionate about.

The Beginning: One of my favorite highlights of the Conference was the introduction from Professor John Sorenson. John has organized four of these Conferences over the last decade and was the leading force in creating the Critical Animal Studies concentration at Brock University. For John, every single moment of the Conference is a direct representation of years of protracted struggle within academia. When John went up for the introduction everyone was expecting something low-key, as John is a very low key person, however, at the end of the introduction John graced everyone with a statement from Ronnie Lee, founder of the Animal Liberation Front. My jaw dropped. Some may not have grasped the importance, but for me it is a clear statement in support of direct action on the part of (CAS). Academia has been a site where direct action has been contested in recent memory, with some, within and outside of the movement, going as far as to paint all those who support those tactics as “violent terrorists.” For a conference that also featured a panel on Government repression, the statement was clear; direct action is a part of Animal Liberation and (CAS) will not be moved by those who wish to drive a wedge between the two.

Capitalism and Exploitation Panel – David Nibert, Zipporah Weisberg, Julia Gutjahr & Marcel Sebastian, Richard Twine. I was lucky enough to chair for this panel. Zipporah’s and I met at the ICAS Conference last year and I was already a pretty big fan of her work. Richard I hadn’t met yet (we were facebook pals!) but I had known of his work and was also a fan. David is most likely not on facebook, but I had also enjoyed his writing. The only panelists I didn’t at least know of were Julia and Marcel.

David started off with a presentation on “Domesecration,” Expansionism and Capitalism. I can’t stress how important this talk was as far as setting the tone for the rest of the Conference. Domestication was a re-occurring theme at the Conference and David’s concept provided the perfect lens for destroying the convenience of human-centered ideas around “pets.” I felt horrible trying to push David along with the time constraints because his presentation covered such a large swath of human history and his concepts were so important, he didn’t mind though. As the Conference went on I talked quite a bit with David, sharing ideas on other presentations and just small talk. Aside from being a really great academic, he is also a really nice and humble guy. I look forward to reading more of his work and seeing him at more events in the future.

Zipporah Weisberg gave a talk on Techno capitalism that you really had to be there to understand. I think it is a pretty easy call at this point to say that Zipporah is going to be considered one of the most important and influential animal rights theorists within the next decade.

Julia and Marcel gave a great presentation expanding on the ideas of the Frankfurt School. I don’t want to fetishize or exoticize accents, but it was extremely nice to hear some accents at this years Conference and see the expanding reach of CAS and ICAS. Julia and Marcel (as well as Stefan) were a breath of fresh air throughout the Conference, giving numerous talks that were original and engaging. Julia’s talk on the Meat/Gender panel directly after this panel was a great application of ideas around masculinity and meat culture, updating that analysis to the 21st Century and expanding on it without some of the crummy stuff that sometimes comes along with it.

Richard Twine refused to look at my notes as I pressed him to wrap up! He gets let off though because he went the extra mile to locate his presentation and talk about genetic engineering animal enterprise companies here in Southern Ontario. That alone was a pretty big highlight for me. That is something most don’t think about when traveling to new places and he gave a talk that was arguably the most accessible to activists and academics at the Conference.

Meat/Gender – Julia Guthjar, Steve Romanin, Anthony Nocella

I already talked about Julia’s great presentation on this panel. Things got off to a bit of an odd start as two panelists didn’t show, however, Steve managed to push it along and his presentation on Masculinity was a great application of analysis to not just masculinity within “meat culture” but also accepted normative values of masculinity within vegan communities. Anthony topped this panel off with an impromptu throw down on masculinity in straight edge, hip hop and the A.L.F, advancing a critique to place all of those things back within a liberatory context. It was a bit of a bummer that the panelists who was to present on Queer(y)ing Veganism did not make it as I think that presentation really would have solidified this as an amazing panel.

Critical Theory and Animal Liberation Book Launch – I saw John Sanbonmatsu at the ICAS Conference last year at SUNY Cortland and I was blown away. He has a natural speaking ability, a toolbox that is heavy influenced by Marxism and existentialism and he has that self deprecating humor that endears me to people. We both commiserated over the fact that his book was priced out of the range of a lot of people at the Conference and I squeed a bit. Anyways, this panel was great. John Sorenson, Zipporah, Dennis Soron, Aaron Bell, John, etc. Standout was easily Vasile Stanescu. Vasile has some pretty unique speaking skills and I have been a huge fan since I read his piece on locavorism in a JCAS Journal. Vasile gave another great talk later that night on the Green Scare panel. I encourage everyone to really read and support his work as well keep an eye out for things he is doing on the horizon.

Green Scare – I labelled this “The Kids Will Have Their Say” Panel. I don’t know if anyone got it. It was so nice to see a panel of people in their 20’s and 30’s bridging activist and academic communities. Everyone knows I love Will Potter’s work and you can expect a gushing review of his book very soon on the site. Michael Loadenthal and Carol Glasser both did a really good job of putting things into perspective (and into graphs!). I really hope they work together moving forward because I think there is a lot of strength and legitimacy in what they are doing.

DAY ONE OVER.

DAY TWO

I was happy to catch the tail end of Sherri and Co. talk about Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary. If you follow the site you know that is where our current t-shirt fundraiser is for. I really respect their approach and love how motivated they are to really get out and tell the story of the primates that they care for. I also got to see my good friend Catharine Brigantino talk on the same panel about what happened last year locally at the Happy Ralph’s Petting Zoo. Again, for people who follow the site you probably know about the time and energy I put into writing about the issue and it was great to see that be carried on and given a really great analysis.

Next up was my panel. I talked a bit about abolitionist history and appropriation. Expect to read a lot more about that on this site in the near future. Kristen Hardy also gave a really great paper on this panel about Fatphobia in the Animal Rights Movement.

Colin Salter. Colin may be heading back to Australia soon and if that happens he will be sorely missed. He gave a great paper on disruption masculinist either/or binary thinking towards animals and instead using and/both as a framework. I really look forward to the completion of all the projects Colin is currently working on because I know they are going to be really groundbreaking stuff. PLEASE STAY!

Ran fast to catch my boy Paul Hamilton give a paper on Canada, Japan and the Whale and Seal Hunts. It was a really great panel (missed the first speaker) and I think a lot of people came away from that panel with a much better understanding of how and why the seal hunt exists and how we can end it.

Last panel! – This panel was a highlight for me because of the paper given by Sarat Colling and the talk given by Gwen Dunlop. Sarat extending a critique of slaughterhouses as a site of contention for thinking about non human animals, but also criminalized and marginalized humans. Her talk about “space” and “normativity” was a really great end to a conference that didn’t broach those topics as much as it should have.

Gwen Dunlop had me in tears when she talked about the vigil she has been keeping now for years outside of a slaughterhouse in Toronto. It was without question the most powerful presentation of the two days and I know I will take Gwen’s presentation with me.

For people who want to see the schedule in its entirety, you can find it here.

Overall it was a great two days that spilled over to a third. I want to thank everyone who organized for the Conference, namely, Lauren Corman, John Sorenson, Nikita Cox, Kimberly Costello and Sarat Colling. I also want to thank the caterers, Rise Above Bakery and Brooklyn’s Restaurant, for providing really great vegan food throughout the Conference. Lastly, I want to thank Will Potter for giving his talk at the NAFA Potluck on Friday night, as well as to everyone who came to the Anti-Seal Hunt Demo on Saturday and/or Anthony Nocella’s book release “Call to Compassion.” It was an amazing time and I hope to really continue on with the spirit of those days until we all meet again.

UPDATE: For people looking for more content on the conference our friends at Animal Voices have posted some of the talks from the Conference, including awesome people like David Nibert, Zipporah Weisberg, Vasile Stanescu and more. Go here and enjoy!

Tags: ICAS, Review
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Interview with Professor John Sorenson (About Canada: Animal Rights)

October 15th, 2010

The influence that Prof Sorsenson has had on the burgeoning animal rights community in Niagara has been something special to chart. The growth of the Critical Animal Studies Department at Brock University has injected the community with a wealth of young, dedicated and critically thinking activists and also provided a campus with a slowly awakening consciousness towards animal exploitation. John would be much more humble in describing the change, but that is part of the reason for the success. John has written extensively on issues of human and non human animal oppression and frequently writes great commentary for the Mark News, which I recommend, but this interview centered specifically his latest book “About Canada: Animal Rights.” A review of this book is coming, but it is safe for me to tell you that it is the most comprehensive and up to date study of animal exploitation and oppression in Canada. If you are an activist in Canada, get a copy of the book and keep it in your back pocket at all times! Also, to prospective students who want to study these issues in University, come to Brock University in St. Catharines, minor in Critical Animal Studies and hang out with me!

This current book was released through Fernwood Publishing in their “About Canada” series. Did they approach you about the book or was this something you pitched to them? How important was it for you to work with a publisher like Fernwood?

I had met both of the publishers Errol Sharpe and Wayne Anthony when they were visiting Brock and I enjoyed chatting with them both. Errol originally raised the idea of an animal rights book. I was really excited about the possibility of working with a progressive publisher like Fernwood. They have a terrific list of titles themselves and distribute for other presses that do good books like Pluto, Monthly Review and Zed. And working with Candida Hadley as an editor was great, she was very encouraging and had many good ideas. Unlike some other presses that are only interested in apolitical animal studies, there was never any pressure to tone down the “radical” (or, we might just say, sensible and compassionate) animal rights message. Fernwood really “got” the idea that animal rights is a progressive social movement linked to other forms of human emancipation and in fact they encouraged me to stress that aspect, which I was completely happy to do. Unfortunately, many individuals and organizations who may have advanced ideas about human problems are completely blind to the significance of animal rights so it was really encouraging to get this support from Fernwood. It was great working with them.

As an activist in Canada I have always struggled to find information specific to Canada. So much of the statistics and analysis either comes from the United Kingdom or the United States. What were some of the texts and sources that you relied on heavily for Canadian based analysis? What advice to have for those looking for information specific to where they are? (Keep Reading)

Tags: ICAS, Interview, John Sorenson
Posted in News, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »