One Struggle: Intersectionality and Critical Animal Studies

Date/Time
Saturday
20 Oct 2012
11:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location
Heller Room, MLK Student Union

Event Type
Non-CSTMS Event


We have witnessed a surge in academic scholarship that examines how human identities, lived realities and histories are inextricably linked to the positioning of animals in human societies. The field of Critical Animal Studies (CAS) formed to investigate and challenge the complex structural, institutional and discursive dynamics surrounding human-animal relationships. CAS exists to facilitate the end of both human and nonhuman exploitation, oppression and domination based on this intersectional analysis of human and animal oppression. Hosted by the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, the first interdisciplinary scholarly nonprofit dedicated to furthering CAS in higher education, the conference will contribute to the formation of this new and exciting field of study and encourage critical dialogue about its potentials.

The conference will bring questions of the animal and animality in conversation with work from across academic fields and activism. Integrating theory and frameworks from fields such as Gender & Women’s Studies, Literature, Philosophy, Science & Technology Studies, Queer Studies, Rhetoric, Disability Studies, Linguistics, History, Cultural Studies, Geography, English, Political Science, and Ethnic Studies, the conference will offer a constructive space open to a diversity of ideologies, backgrounds, academic disciplines, activist work, and life experiences. Discussions will likely center around the ways in which the social, historical, political, and economic dimensions of animality inform academic scholarship. Issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, ability, and other forms of identity and their relationship to animals and animality will be discussed as well. Topics addressed include: What is the relationship between nation, culture, race and species in the contemporary USA? How can we understand the entanglements of animality, sexuality, and race? Why should feminists question the nature of human-animal relationships? In what ways do the “posthumanities” help us understand CAS paradigms? How are people of color, workers and animals situated within our food system?

This conference is equally open to academics, students, and activists.

Confirmed Speakers Include: Mel Y. Chen (UC Berkeley; Gender & Women’s Studies) Justin Eichenlaub (UC Berkeley; English) Carla Freccero (UC Santa Cruz; Literature, History of Consciousness, Feminist Studies) Breeze Harper (UC Davis; Geography) Claire Jean Kim (UC Irvine; Political Science, Asian American Studies, African American Studies) Monica Libell (UC Berkeley; Visiting Scholar from Sweden’s Lund University) Lauren Ornelas (Food Empowerment Project) Vasile Stanescu (Stanford; Program for Modern Thought and Literature) Charis Thompson (UC Berkeley; Gender & Women’s Studies)

Admission to this event is free.

The event will be ADA accessible. We also ask that you not use any scents on your body, hair or clothing such as colognes, perfumes, hair products, scented soaps essential oils etc. and do not smoke shortly before or during the conference so that the event will be accessible to those with chemical sensitivities. Please feel free to contact us about disability accommodations.

Direct any questions to Meg or Kim

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Learn more about the work ICAS does

This event is sponsored by: Institute for Critical Animal Studies