Date: October 23, 2006 6:30:34 PM  EDT
Call for  papers - Thinking about animals:
Domination, Captivity, Liberation  Conference

Begin  Forwarded Message:

Can you please post this? May be of interest  to your members.

Thanks!

John Sorenson
animalconference @ brocku.ca
Professor, Dept of Sociology
Brock University

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 @ brocku.ca  <remove spaces to email>