Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the Animals & Society Institute's Human-Animal Studies Report. 

It is always heartening to see growth in the field of Human-Animal Studies (HAS), and this month doesn't disappoint. A new HAS doctoral program and HAS articles in widely disparate journals show that both the discipline itself and the scholarly focus on human-nonhuman animal relationships continue to expand in exciting ways.

We at ASI are proud to be a part of that expansion. In this month’s HAS Report, check out our redesign of our website’s Degrees and Programs in Human-Animal Studies page, now open in BETA version solely for our friends here. The page—one of the most-visited resources on our website AnimalsandSociety.org—offers potential students the ability to search for programs, and faculty a place to highlight what they have to offer. And while you are there, take a moment to peruse and take advantage of the other resources, research, and memberships we provide for students, faculty, scholars, and mental health providers.

Your ongoing support of ASI and our Human-Animal Studies efforts continue to enable us to make these impacts. 

Have a great next month! 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.



ASI is pleased to announce the redesign of our website’s Degrees and Programs in Human-Animal Studies page. Previously we had separate pages for programs in various categories, but now all of those listings are on one page and each section is searchable. We think that the new format will be much easier to use. However, it has also been a while since we updated the data for these different categories, so we are asking our contacts here to review the BETA page linked above before our official launch. (Note that this page is still currently in its BETA form, so please do not share this link.) Also note that due to the proliferation of HAS-related degree programs, we are no longer posting courses, only programs. If you don’t see your program on our list or have additions or changes, please let us know by emailing hasdegreesandprograms@animalsandsociety.org. To be included in the first wave of updates and additions please send them to us by Monday, November 6. When doing so please make sure to include the following information:

• Name of university, organization, or other provider
• Name of program, degree, certificate, etc.
• Location of program: City, State/Province, Country 
• URL link to program webpage

ASI Board Member Julie Iovine recently published the Op-Ed, “Dog Parks Are Great for People. Too Bad They’re Terrible for Dogs,” in the New York Times. In her piece, Julie describes the ways in which dog parks are often enjoyed more by humans than their dog companions, and writes that “we’d be wiser to think of dog parks as undersupervised and vaguely dirty watering holes during thunderstorms when there’s a good chance of lightning: high risk and best avoided.” Find the full article here, as well as a Hounds Opinion Podcast where Julie and Bill Mayeroff discuss "Dog Park Thoughts."

ASI Human-Animal Studies Program Director, Gala Argent, recently presented a keynote address, “Can You Hear Me (Yet)?”— Horse-Human Relational Competence and Interpersonal Attunement,” at the Human Equine Relational Development (HERD) Institute conference. The organization operates within the equine-facilitated psychotherapy and learning space, and aims to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion and teach from a culturally informed perspective. The talk concerned the importance, to horses, of our relationships with them, and why we should include horses and other animals within our schemes of social justice.

ASI has a call out for a contract remote part-time Contract Project Coordinator to oversee the development, implementation, and validation of a psycho-educational diversion program. We are developing a diversion intervention for adults who have abused animals. As legislation in 34 states mandates or recommends assessment and/or treatment for animal abuse, an evidence-based intervention is needed. BARK (Behavior, Accountability, Responsibility, Knowledge) is designed to include some therapist involvement but will be largely self-directed. It will also include pre and post-validation instruments. BARK is adapted from AniCare Adult (Shapiro & Henderson, The Identification, Assessment, and Treatment of Adults Who Abuse Animals, Springer, 2016). Responsibilities include: Refine and complete existing draft version of BARK; oversee formatting the intervention for delivery on an electronic platform; train mental health providers in its use; and oversee the collection and analysis of validation data. For more information or to apply, contact Ken Shapiro with CV and letter of interest.

The new academic journal, Animal History is now inviting article submissions for its inaugural volume, to be published in 2025. (See below for the call.) Animal History publishes peer-reviewed research articles, reflective theoretical and methodological essays, and book reviews. The journal’s primary focus is on historical studies, conducted in History and adjacent academic fields, but it also welcomes animal-historical scholarship pursued across Animal Studies, broadly defined. ASI Board Member, Tom Aiello, is one of three lead editors and Board President, Ken Shapiro, is the founding Advisory Board Member. 

In the recent Society & Animals' film review of Cow (2021) and Gunda (2020), Pete Porter writes that, "Cow and Gunda are welcome additions to a roster of films that give new visibility to nonhuman animals in farm settings." In celebration of National Farm Animals Awareness Week, enjoy this limited Open Access film review here. 

There is good news to report in the U.S. Congress. U.S. Senators John Kennedy (R-La.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in July introduced the Better Collaboration, Accountability, and Regulatory Enforcement (CARE) for Animals Act to protect livestock and other animals from abuse by strengthening law enforcement’s ability to penalize abusers. The Act would strengthen the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ability to enforce the Animal Welfare Act by clarifying that the DOJ has the same authority that the U.S. Department of Agriculture wields under the Animal Welfare Act, including the ability to seek license suspensions, revocations and civil penalties.

The University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand has announced its first Ph.D. graduates in Human-Animal Studies. The doctorate is coordinated by Professor Philip Armstrong in collaboration with Co-Directors of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies, Professors Annie Potts and Nik Taylor. We are always happy to see the field of Human-Animal Studies continue to grow!

Check out the National Link Coalition’s September Link-Letter concerning animal cruelty’s intersections with child, elder and domestic abuse and its implications for veterinarians, social workers, prosecutors, legislators, and therapists. 

We Animals Media celebrated their fourth anniversary by showcasing a selection of visuals, one from each of their 100 contributing photographers, as a sample of the work being done around the globe. 

Animal Think Tank is researching what moves people to support and take action for animal causes, and asking participants to take part in a short online survey. 

The journal Multispecies Futures explores the ways in which various contemporary artistic practices elaborate relationships between humans and nonhumans in the face of climate futures with a focus on Latin America. 

The latest issue of the ASI-managed Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 26(4), is now available with the following articles:

Too Close to Eat? Solidarity with Animals, Animal Welfare and Antibiotic Use. Albert Boaitey, Michaela Eden & Simon Jette-Nantel,  Pages: 479-492.

Evaluation of Light Color Manipulation on Behavior and Welfare of Broiler Chickens. Oyegunle Emmanuel Oke, Oluwadamilola Oso, Oluwaseun Iyasere, Aderanti Oni, Oluwatobiloba Bakre & Samson Rahman, Pages: 493-504

Welfare of broiler chickens in Brazilian free-range versus intensive indoor production systems. Elaine Cristina de Oliveira sans, Fabiano Dahlke, Juliana Freitas Federici, Frank Andre Maurice Tuyttens & Carla Forte Maiolino Molento, Pages: 505-517

New Perspectives In The Objective Evaluation Of Animal Welfare, With Focus On The Domestic Pig. Christian Manteuffel, Marion Spitschak, Carolin Ludwig & Elisa Wirthgen, Pages: 518-529.

Monitoring Blinks And Eyelid Twitches In Horses To Assess Stress During The Samples Collection Process. Monika Lelláková, Alexander Pavľak, Lenka Lešková, Martin Florián, Lenka Skurková, Lýdia Mesarčová, Lucia Kottferová, Daniela Takáčová& Jana Kottferová, Pages: 530-539

Development and initial validation of the Animal Welfare Cultural Competence Inventory (AWCCI) to assess cultural competence in animal welfare. Jaci Gandenberger, Sloane M. Hawes, Elizabeth Wheatall, Allison Pappas & Kevin N. Morris, Pages: 540-551

Developmental Programming, Evolution, and Animal Welfare: A Case for Evolutionary Veterinary Science. Walter Veit & Heather Browning, Pages: 552-564

Community attitudes and perceptions towards free-roaming dogs in Goa, India. J. Corfmat, A. D. Gibson, R. J. Mellanby, W. Watson, M. Appupillai, G. Yale, L. Gamble & S. Mazeri, Pages: 565-581

Building Sustainable Habitats for Free-Roaming Cats in Public Spaces: A Systematic Literature Review. Hisham Abusaada & Abeer Elshater, Pages: 582-595

Impact of Visual Barrier Removal on the Behavior of Shelter-Housed Dogs. Allison L. Martin, Christina M. Walthers, Madison J. Pattillo, Jessica A. Catchpole, Lauren N. Mitchell & Emily W. Dowling. Pages: 596-606

A Prospective Study of Growth Rate, Disease Incidence, and Mortality in Kittens Less than 9 Weeks of Age in Shelter and Foster Care. Elizabeth A. Berliner, Janet M. Scarlett, Allison C. Cowan & Hussni Mohammed, Pages: 607-622

Hair Cortisol in Service Dogs for Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Compared to Companion Dogs (Canis Familiaris). Emmy A.E. van Houtert, Nienke Endenburg, Eric Vermetten & T. Bas Rodenburg, Pages: 623-633

Zookeepers – The most important animal in the zoo? Heather Bacon, Belinda Vigors, Darren J. Shaw, Natalie Waran, Cathy M. Dwyer & Catriona Bell, Pages: 634-646

Animals as performers or exhibits: A study of their relevance to Portuguese, Spanish, and Greek pre-service teachers. António Almeida, Beatriz García Fernández & Penelope Papadopoulou. Pages: 647-669

Effects of Complex Feeding Enrichment on the Behavior of Captive Malayan Sun Bears (Helarctos malayanus). Yasmeen Ghavamian, Darren E. Minier & Karin Enstam Jaffe, Pages: 670-684

Does Accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Correlate with Animal Welfare Act Compliance? Kailer K. Riedman, Gregory B. Cunningham & Louis DiVincenti, Pages: 685-692

The “Second Life” of laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus): Assessment of social behavior of a colony of rats based on social network analysis. Diana Mauri, Simona Bonelli & Laura Ozella.Pages: 693-707

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

The Animal Legal Defense Fund webinar, “Protecting Animals through Legislation: Local Fur Sales Bans and the Mink Virus Act,” will take place Thursday, September 28, 2023. Register for the free webinar.

The American Cetacean Society, Orange County is hosting a webinar with Lori Marino, “Tokitae, Kiska, and the Future for 18 Orcas” on September 28 at 9 PM US Central Time. Register here.

In Episode 3 of Think Like a Vegan Podcast, Dr. Corey Wrenn discusses factionalism in the vegan movement. 

Listen to Dr. Corey Wrenn’s talk, ‘Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Ireland’s First Colony’ on Sentient Rights Ireland. 

In Episode 219 of Knowing Animals, Professor Letitia Meynell, of the Department of Philosophy and the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at Dalhousie University in Canada, discusses her 2021 paper "Gendering animals", co-authored with Andrew Lopez, which was published in the journal Synthese.

In Episode 220 of Knowing Animals, Dr. Virginia Thomas, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter, discusses her paper “Categorisation of cats: managing boundary felids in Aotearoa New Zealand and Britain.”

In Episode 221 of Knowing Animals, Rhys Borchert and Dr Aliya Dewey discuss their paper “In Praise of Animals,” which was the winner of the inaugural essay prize competition of The Philosophy of Animal Minds and Behavior Association.

In Episode 222 of Knowing Animals, Dr Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa talks about his 2023 book The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life, which was published by the University of California Press.   

Episode 97 of Always for Animal Rights interviews animal rights author Joan Dunayer about what led her to become a vegan and write her first book.

In this episode of the New Books Network’s Animal Studies Podcast, philosophy instructor Kyle Johannsen interviews Arin Greenwood about her book, Your Robot Dog Will Die. 

Episode 72 of The Deal With Animals Podcast discusses “7 Misunderstood Beliefs in Animal Welfare: Myth Busting” with Scott Giacoppo.



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

Florence Burgat, Emilie Dardenne, 2023. Animal Suffering: The Ethics and Politics of Animal Lives. Wiley.

Aubrey H. Fine, Megan K. Mueller, Zenithson Y. Ng, Alan M. Beck, Jose M. Peralta (eds.), 2023. The Routledge International Handbook of Human-Animal Interactions and Anthrozoology. Routledge.

Kavesh, M. A. and Fijn, N. (eds) 2024. Nurturing Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World.  Routledge.

McKay, R. and McHugh, S. (eds) 2023. Animal Satire. Palgrave Macmillan.

Richard Miller, 2023. The Rise and Fall of Animal Experimentation: Empathy, Science, and the Future of Research. Oxford University Press.

Darcia Narvaez & G. A. Bradshaw, 2023. The Evolved Nest: Nature's Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities. North Atlantic Books.  

Tamar Novick, 2023. Milk & Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land. Inside Technology” series, MIT Press.

Iyan Offor, 2024. Global Animal Law from the Margins: International Trade in Animals and their Bodies. Routledge.

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

The 2^nd volume of the Student Journal of Vegan Sociology is now available. 

Volume 26, Issue 2 of Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy is out. 

Elan Louis Abrell, 2023. Reinventing the meal: a genealogy of plant-based alternative proteins.Agriculture and Human Values.

Pooja Agrawal, Virendra Kushwaha, Vipul Shukla and Anuj Kumar, 2023. Animal Research Ethics: An Overview. European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 10(7).  

Pelican Baloyi, 2023. Children Abusing Animals: A Red Flag. Servamus Community-based Safety and Security, 116(9).

Blesch, K., 2023. Animal Ethics in Animal-Assisted Therapy. In: Animal-Assisted Therapy with Dogs. 23-35. Springer. 

Chazin, Hannah.  2023. Animal work before capitalism: Sheep's reproductive labor in the ancient South Caucasus. American Anthropologist.

Donoso, A., 2023. Climate Injustice in a More-Than-Human World. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 36(19). 

Carrie P. Freeman & Debra Merskin, 2023. Fostering human animal earthling identities in Just One Health messages for multi-species food justice. CABI One Health.

Maria Elena Garcia, 2023. Killing Kin/Haunting Life: Towards Indigenous Vocabularies of Loss and Repair. In: Elizabeth Sumida Huaman, Nathan D. Martin (Eds), Indigenous Research Design: Transnational Perspectives in Practice. Canadian Scholar’s Press.

Guenther, Katja M., 2023. Challenging and Reinforcing the Ability/Disability System through Advocacy for Disabled Dogs. Disability Studies Quarterly 42(3-4). 

Georgia E. Grey, Gareth J. Treharne, Damien W. Riggs, Kimberly A. Fuller, Nik Taylor & Heather Fraser, 2023. The ‘pet effect’ and trans people: Associations between living with animal companions and wellbeing, social support, and trans-related marginalization in three international studies. International Journal of Transgender Health.

A Hope-Forest, E Gladkova, T Wyatt, 2023. The Attitudes of People with Different Gender Identities and Different Perceptions of Gender Roles towards Nonhuman Animals and Their Welfare. In: Emma Milne, Pamela Davies, James Heydon, Kay Peggs & Tanya Wyatt (Eds.). Gendering Green Criminology.

Kopnina, H., 2023. The Promise of Multispecies Justice by Sophie Chao, Karin Bolender, and Eben Kirksey. Book Review. Journal of Anthropological Research. 79(3). 

Tamar Novick, 2022. On All Fours: Transient Laborers, the Threat of Movement, and the Aftermath of Disease, special issue: “Medical Mobilities in the Middle East,” Bulletin for the History of Medicine, 96(3), 431-457.

Palmer, A, Greenhough, B, Hobson-West, P, Davies, G & Message, R 2023, What do scientists mean when they talk about research animals ‘volunteering'?, Society & Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies, pp. 1-22. OPEN ACCESS.

Sonia Smith, Colleen Dell, Tim Claypool, Darlene Chalmers, Aliya Khalid, 2023. A community case study of the human-animal bond in animal-assisted therapy: The experiences of psychiatric prisoners with therapy dogs. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14.

Tomlinson, M., 2023. ‘Clean communication’: Felt-sense methodologies and the reflexive researcher in equine-assisted personal development. The Sociological Review.

Kevin Vezirian & Laurent Bègue, 2023. The Gender Gap in Animal Experimentation Support: The Mediating Roles of Empathy and Speciesism. Anthrozoös.

Warwick C, Pilny A, Steedman C, and Grant R. (2023). Elephant tourism: An analysis and recommendations for public health, safety, and animal welfare. Int. J. One Health, 9(2): 49–66.

CL Wrenn, 2023. Nonhuman Animal Rights. In: Michael Long, Michael Lynch, and Paul Stretesky (eds). Handbook on Inequality and the Environment. Elgaronline.

CL Wrenn & LM Korimboccus, 2023. Vegan Feminism Then and Now: Women's Resistance to Legalised Speciesism across Three Waves of Activism. In: Emma Milne, Pamela Davies, James Heydon, Kay Peggs & Tanya Wyatt (Eds.). Gendering Green Criminology.



The editors of Animal History invite article submissions for its inaugural volume, to be published in 2025. The journal seeks research on all time periods from the late Paleolithic to the early twenty-first century. Article manuscripts may focus on any geographic region, time period, or species, although they are especially interested in studies concerning peoples of color, indigenous peoples, rural and working-class populations, marginalized communities, and less familiar but important species (from worms and centipedes, to antelope, lizards, clams, and bitterns). They seek to publish rigorous historical work, reading primary sources and material culture against the grain to recover nonhuman lives excluded, ignored, and erased.Submissions open September 15. Find out more here.

A call is out for chapters for a volume edited by Angela Bartram (Univ. of Derby) and Laura D. Gelfand (Utah State University), “Punk and the Animal: Ethos, Ethics and Aesthetics.” Punk, and the spirit of being anti to and outside of the hegemonic norm, has influenced, and shaped the interdisciplinary field of animal studies from its inception twenty years ago, and more specifically in developments in recent years in art and its critical analysis. Chapters are welcome from artists, scholars of visual and popular culture, animal studies specialists, and others in artistic and art affiliated disciplines who have found their way into animal studies from one of the many manifestations of punk and who see punk’s ethos, ethics, and aesthetics as formative to their own work. Abstracts are due September 20.

The UK Centre for Animal Law (A-LAW) welcomes papers for the UK Journal of Animal Law. The journal provides an interdisciplinary and critical study of the law (including comparative law) as it applies to the rights and welfare of animals. It is peer reviewed and is open access for all but the current edition. The deadline for submission is September 30, 2023 and can be sent to Contact journaleditor@alaw.org.uk. 

The Hispanic Review journal calls or papers for the Special Issue, Native Fauna in Latin American Literatures: Precolonial to Present Times. The deadline for abstract submission is September 30, 2023. 

Cambridge University Press calls for papers for the Special Issue, Extinction Studies Across the Disciplines. The main question that contributors in this SI are invited to ask is what extinction means – biologically, culturally, socially – in contemporary contexts of global crisis: the decline of species, the death of languages, and the seemingly inexorable deterioration of already vulnerable human societies and natural ecosystems. The deadline for abstract submission is September 30, 2023. 

A call is out for a Special Issue of Science Fiction Film and Television, “Screening Speculative Animals.” The issue will explore the interface of nonhuman animals, speculation, and audiovisual media. Within the realm of sf audiovisual media, other animals assume diverse roles and functions, embodying themes such as bioengineering, posthumanism, or ecological concerns. However, other animal figures do not merely enrich the narrative landscapes, but further invite critical reflections on the nature of interspecies relationships and the ethical dimensions of human-animal interactions. Thus, we are seeking to uncover the speculative and imaginative potentialities of sf film, television, and video games to deepen, challenge, and redefine more-than-human worlds, and transcend anthropocentric ways of seeing and, more importantly, of looking. Guest editors: Paweł Frelik (p.frelik@uw.edu.pl) and Anna Maria Grzybowska (a.grzybowska@uw.edu.pl). 300-word abstracts are due October 2, 2023; please email both editors.

The Journal of Aging Studies calls for papers for the Special Issue, The Growing Older of Humans, Non-Humans, and More-than-Humans. This special issue is aimed at broadening the study of aging by addressing three main points. First, aging is almost exclusively associated with humans. Second, human beings become older with multiple others, like objects, technologies, animals, plants, digital data, etc. Third, humans and more-than-humans become-older-together with infrastructures they intra-act with. Applications are open until December 15, 2023.

Trace is a peer-reviewed, fully open access online journal that invites contributions to human-animal studies that deal with a wide range of topics and represent diverse perspectives. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2023. 

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!