Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute's monthly Human-Animal Studies Report. This month’s Report has a bit for everyone. 

First, we at ASI are heartened to see our decades of work into The Link between animal abuse and human violence gaining significant public policy traction with bills concerning the evaluation and treatment for people who abuse animals progressing in two US state legislatures. We are also pleased to see our Animals & Society Colloquium Series—a collaboration with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society Section—well attended and growing. The series serves as a means of not only giving voice to new and established HAS scholars, but also bringing research to the broader general public interested in HAS issues.

Next, it’s the time of year when faculty and students are wrapping up the teaching semester, and that means looking forward to what comes next. The HAS Funding and Opportunities section is full of options, including jobs, PhD opportunities, and grant funding. 

Finally, particularly notable in the list of recently published articles this month is the overarching diversity of the journals now covering HAS-related issues. Articles in journals such as Cultural Politics, Review of Policy Research, Journal of Cultural Economy, Philosophy and Theology, Children & Society, and The Lancet Planetary Health show that interest in our relationships with nonhuman animals are broadening.

All good things!

Your ongoing support of ASI and our Human-Animal Studies efforts continue to enable us to have these positive results. 

Stay healthy and safe, and do what you can to protect those you can.

Best,

Gala

Editor’s note: The HAS e-newsletter is organized as follows: Jobs, grants, and calls are ordered chronologically by deadline dates, with the earliest first, and will continue to be posted until the deadlines expire. Books and articles include, where possible, links to access them directly from this email. Because publication reference styles vary by source, they might not always be consistent or pretty, but they will get you there. To read more about the topics discussed, click the bold hyperlinks for source material and additional information. 

Please send your comments, suggestions, and submissions to: gala.argent@animalsandsociety.org, and if possible include a URL link to your project or announcement.





Policies related to the provision of evaluation and treatment for people who abuse animals—an area in which ASI has been a leader in research with its BARK, and AniCare Adult and AniCare Child intervention programs—are gaining political traction with two legislative proposals. First, the California Assembly Public Safety Committee has unanimously passed AB 829: The Animal Cruelty and Violence Intervention Act. ASI co-founder and Board President Ken Shapiro and Executive Director Elijah Brice-Middleton were active in its passage, having recently submitted a testimony letter in support of the bill which noted, in part, “The relationship between human violence and animal abuse, referred to as the ‘link,’ is the finding that the two behaviors are correlated—they co-occur such that each is a predictor of the other. Violence against humans and animal abuse often have a similar psychology—similar motivations and dynamics underly them both. Violence is violence.” The bill will expand currently required counselling to include instances of animal abuse. The bill also codified language the encouraging judges to order a psychological evaluation and, if deemed beneficial, for the offender to undergo a higher level of counseling than is currently mandated. Second, a bill in Tennessee that will require juveniles committing aggravated animal cruelty to receive a mental health evaluation by a professional has unanimously passed both chambers.

ASI Board member Kimberly Spanjol has a new book chapter out, “Biophilia, One Health, and humane education: Mitigating global risk through embracing humanity’s interconnection with the natural world,” in which she discusses the concept of biophilia—the human attraction to nature and all forms of life—One Health, and humane education as step toward increasing prosocial attitudes, behavior and policy. The edited volume, Volume IV— Socio-Political Risk Management: Assessing and Managing Global Insecurity, is a part of the multi-volume work Developments in Managing and Exploiting Risk. 

Join us on May 25 for our last ASA-ASI Animals & Society Colloquium Series event of the academic year, “Co-Existence with Community Cats.”  In this presentation, Dr. Irina Frasin suggests that observing and learning more about the way cats live when less influenced by humans allows us to challenge popular conceptions about them so that we may begin to co-exist with them as subjects, partners, and co-workers. The Animals & Society Colloquium Series is an ongoing collaboration between ASI and the American Sociological Association’s Animals and Society Section. Register at the link above.

The recording of last month’s online Animals & Society Colloquium Series presentation by Isabella Clarke, “Animal Cultures: A Paradigm for Determining What Matters to Animals” is now available. In this presentation, Clarke argues that, while humans may never be able to speak for animals, we can learn to speak with them, and suggests ways we can seek to better embrace and support nonhuman animals.

In this final blog of a three-part series, Verónica Policarpo, Project Coordinator of ASI’s 2019 HAS International Development Program grant winner, the University of Lisbon’s HAS-Hub, reflects on the opportunities and challenges of establishing the field of HAS in Portugal. 



The National Link Coalition’s May LINK-Letter concerning animal cruelty’s intersections with child, elder and domestic abuse covers, among other topics: Cross-reporting between child and animal protection agencies in Connecticut has increased by 51%. An Australian study confirms US findings that fear for animals’ welfare keeps abused women from escaping. A coordinated campaign is stopping the decriminalization of cockfighting in Oklahoma.

Check out the new Open Access journal, Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations (PHAIR). The goal of the journal is to publish scientific research on a wide range of topics related to how people perceive, treat, and interact with animals. The journal is open to studies from moral and social psychology, attitudes and persuasion, diet and health, human-animal relationships, personality/individual differences, sustainability and environmental psychology, and other related sub-fields. The journal is free of charge for both readers and authors.

Faunalytics has released a new study, Comparing U.S. Groups' Openness to Pro-Animal Actions, which surveyed thousands of people across the United States and asked how likely they would be to try a number of pro-animal actions, such as voting for a ballot measure, buying cruelty-free products, or giving up meat. While the results are based on self-reported likelihood, the comparison among a wide range of groups will enable animal advocates to be more effective by focusing on the most promising strategies or tailoring specific “asks” for the most receptive groups.

The first global census of wild mammal biomass shows that the biomass of wild mammals on land and at sea is dwarfed by the combined weight of cattle, pigs, sheep and other domesticated mammals. Conducted by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers and reported today in PNAS, the study reveals the extent to which our natural world—along with its most iconic animals—is a vanishing one. The report found that wild land mammals weigh less than 10 percent of the combined weight of humans and are outweighed by cattle and other domesticated mammals by a factor of 30.

We Animals Media has concluded its initiative, The Unbound Project. From 2016 to 2023, it has celebrated more than 150 women across eras and the world at the forefront of animal advocacy. These women have done and continue to do incredible work—rescuing animals, running vegan companies, changing laws, engaging communities—and they invite you to view their uplifting features, which will remain on this website. 

This section includes both upcoming live events, and past events that were recorded.

The University of Essex will host the hybrid in-person and online colloquium, “Total liberation: The case for vegan sociology” on June 1, 2023 at 11am-1pm BST.

In Part 1 of a series on animal agency by Storytelling Animals, author Carol Gigliotti discusses her recent book, The Creative Lies of Animals.

In Episode 22 of The Anthrozoology Podcast: Discussing Humanimality, the authors of the Open Access paper, ‘Uncivilized Behaviors’ unpack what it means to be labelled “feral.” 

In Episode 53 of Knowing Animals’ Protecting Animals podcast series, Erik Marcus, the animal activist behind Vegan.com, discusses vegan activism in the early days of the internet, communication gaps between activists and academics, and the challenge of uninformed activists.

In Episode 213 of Knowing Animals, Dr Rachel Robison-Green, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University and author of Edibility and In Vitro Meat: Ethical Considerations, discusses cultivated meat. 

Following are some recent books published of interest to the field of Human-Animal Studies.

Stacy Banwell (2023). The War Against Nonhuman Animals: A Non-Speciesist Understanding of Gendered Reproductive Violence. Palgrave McMillan.

Cudworth, E., McKie, R. E., Turqoose, D. (2023). Feminist Animal Studies: Theories, Practices, Politics. Routlege.

Rosalie Jones McVey (2023). Human-Horse Relations and the Ethics of Knowing. Routledge.

Milburn, J. (2023). Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully. Oxford University Press. 

Missy Malloy, Pansy Duncan & Claire Henry (2023) Screening the Posthuman. Oxford University Press.

Gary Steiner (2023). What We Owe to Nonhuman Animals: The Historical Pretensions of Reason and the Ideal of Felt Kinship. Routledge.



Following are some recent articles and book chapters of interest to the field of Human-Animal Studies.

The Journal of Social Psychology, 163(3), just published the special issue edited by John B. Nezlek on The Social Psychology of Vegetarianism and Meat Restriction. 

The journal Cultural Politics, 19(1), has a Special Issue out on Multispecies Justice with several articles Open Access.

Michael D. Briscoe & Jennifer E. Givens (2023). Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Farm Animal Welfare: An Empirical Analysis Using the Voiceless Animal Cruelty Index, The Sociological Quarterly, (preprint).

Fırat Bozçalı (2023). Partners in crime: smuggling economies (Kaçak/Qaçax) and human-animal collaborations in Turkey’s Kurdish borderlands, Journal of Cultural Economy, (preprint).

Alicia Fenner (2022). Facing Life in the Open: The(Post)humanist Worldmaking of My Octopus Teacher. In: Alice Maurice (Ed.). Faces on Screen: New Approaches. Cambridge University Press.

Eva Haifa Giraud (2022). Animal Studies. The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Studies, 30(1).

Renate Marie Butli Hårstad (2023). The politics of animal welfare: A scoping review of farm animal welfare governance. Review of Policy Research. (preprint)

Janet Hoy-Gerlach & Lisa Townsend (2023). Reimagining Healthcare: Human–Animal Bond Support as a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Public Health Intervention. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 20(7), 5272.

Yunus Kara (2023). Supporting living together: Group work on animal rights for children. Children & Society. (preprint)

Jochen Krattenmacher, et al. (2023). Universities should lead on the plant-based dietary transition. The Lancet Planetary Health, 7(5). 

Bradford McCall (2023). Derrida and Non-Human Animals: An Exploration of Shared Animality. Philosophy and Theology. (preprint)

Ana Paula Motta and Martin Porr (2023). The jaguar gaze: Is it possible to decolonise human–animal relationships through archaeology? In: Rick De Vos (Ed.). Decolonizing Animals. Sydney University Press.

Wijngaarden, V. (2023) Interviewing Animals Through Animal Communicators: Potentials of Intuitive Interspecies Communication for Multispecies Methods. Society & Animals. (preprint)



The University of Minnesota Press call for book ideas for the "Art after Nature" series, co-edited by Giovanni Aloi and Caroline Picard. This series explores the epistemological questions that emerge from the expanding, environmental consciousness of the humanities. The deadline for abstracts is June 1, 2023. 

A new volume of the journal, Transpositiones, calls for papers that speak to the thematic focus of ‘Queer Animalities’.  Proposals comprising a 250-word abstract in English and a brief biographical note should be sent to: animalitiesqueer@gmail.com by June 15, 2023.

A Call for Papers is out for a Special Issue of Qualitative Research in Psychology, Qualitative methods in psychology after the animal turn: human-animal and multi-species relations. The key aim of this special issue is to showcase how qualitive methods in psychology can make nuanced, insightful and critical contributions to our understanding of the relations between human and nonhuman animals, other species, and aspects of nature. The editor invites explorations of any human-animal or multispecies domains in or relevant to psychology informed by qualitative methods; as well as reflections on adapting existing qualitative methods to meet the challenges of studying human-animal relationships. Qualitative methods here include visual, creative, and arts-based approaches. Deadline for submission of full paper (6000-8000w): November 15, 2023. Initial, informal discussion of potential proposals is encouraged, and should be sent with abstract draft to Dr. Matthew Adams at matthew.adams@brighton.ac.uk by July 1st 2023.

A call is out for chapter contributions to a volume Reclaiming historically silenced voices of the natural world, Volume 2: Animals. This volume will be part of a five-volume series, “Gender, Colonialism, and Science: A Cross-Cultural Compendium of Primary Sources” (General Editors: Donald L. Opitz and Banu Subramaniam) from Routledge. Collectively, the volumes aim to offer a readily-accessible compendium of primary source materials that span geographies and cultural perspectives, during a period when understandings of nature by women, queer, non-binary, two-spirit and/or transgender persons, became increasingly visible and important, and yet all the more contested. More details on the project are available here. Submissions and questions go to volume editors Samantha Muka (smuka@stevens.edu) and Ariehn Matamonasa (amatamo1@depaul.edu). No deadline given.



As you can see, ASI is promoting a tremendous amount of activity in the field of Human-Animal Studies. We always invite your input and participation.

Your donation to the Animals & Society Institute will enable us to continue to expand the field in many more ways and work in conjunction with others around the world who share these goals.

Thank you for supporting ASI's Human-Animal Studies efforts!