Animal Conference - Domination, Captivity, Liberation

[Guest guest]

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:

animalconference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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