Talk:Vegan studies/Archive 2

Critical animal studies

I'm not sure I understand the following and what the function of the final paragraph is:

In The Vegan Studies Project, Wright ... views vegan studies as "informed by and divergent from" animal studies, which, she argues, "consists of critical animal studies, human–animal studies, and posthumanism". Vegan studies "engages a lived politics of listening, care, emotion, and the empathetic imagination ...", she writes, "and this reality is what distinguishes a specifically vegan studies mode of inquiry from animal studies more generally".... For example, in the introductory chapter of Through a Vegan Studies Lens, Wright notes that critical animal studies has historically made the case for animal rights based on how much like humans non-human animals are, which underscores an idea that humanity is the norm by which the worth of non-human animals is measured. Furthermore, despite developing alongside the animal protection movement, human-animal studies examines how humans and animals interact across the boundary that separates species, and therefore does not challenge the binary maintained by critical animal studies. Finally, posthumanism's challenge to the concept of human as distinct from our technology and the other species that make up our biome does challenge the binary of animal and human that underscores both critical animal studies and animal-human studies, but its assertion that we are also imbricated with and posthuman because of the animals that we eat, is an affront to ethical veganism.

Questions:

• Who, other than Wright, describes animal studies as consisting of critical animal studies, human–animal studies, and posthumanism?
• Re: "Wright argues that it can be difficult to make a vegan perspective "fit" within animal studies": within all animal studies, including CAS?
• What is the function of the final paragraph, and how are the sources being used? For example, the part about CAS and the animal protection movement is sourced to DeMello. It used to say: "Furthermore, despite giving rise to the animal protection movement, human-animal studies examines how humans and animals interact across the boundary that separates species, and therefore does not challenge the binary maintained by critical animal studies." (This was changed recently to "despite developing alongside the animal protection movement"). That comes from Wright 2015: "Even though human-animal studies may have real-world policy implications and, in fact, gave rise to the animal protection movement, it is not a means of advocating for animals." How does critical animal studies maintain the binary? Where does McCance 2013 say that it does? (This is attributed to her: "critical animal studies has historically made the case for animal rights based on how much like humans non-human animals are, which underscores an idea that humanity is the norm by which the worth of non-human animals is measured"). Also "human-animal studies ... does not challenge the binary maintained by critical animal studies."
• What does the final sentence mean, i.e. how is posthumanism's challenge an affront to ethical veganism, and how is this related to a description of vegan studies?

SarahSV ^(talk) 23:01, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

I was trying to show how vegan studies is different from animal studies in all of its incarnations. And my sense is that folks doing work in the field of animal studies know that there are three areas within it (the Animal Studies wikipedia page, which I was using as a model, is very unhelpful in this regard. And it has almost no citations. Is that the case because it is so well known?). I think that I make a better case for the ways that vegan studies is different from animal studies (CAS, HAS, and posthumanism) in the introduction to The Vegan Studies Project (pp. 11-14). One of the readers reports on the initial draft of the book noted that I needed to situate vegan studies within the "three-pronged" field of animal studies (my assumption is that that criticism came from Greta Gaard), so doing that has become a big part of what my current work is all about. How is vegan studies different? It's different because it considers the non-human animal as animal and not as like or unlike human animals.

Taylor and Twine discuss the differences between CAS and HAS in the introduction to their book (and they note the "fractious" AS-CAS divide on p. 2). Here are tow other folks making various distinctions between the areas of Animal Studies: https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2011.621663, https://doi.org/10.1080/01596301003679750.

In making a case for posthumanism, Cary Wolfe claims "the rubrics animal studies and human-animal studies are both problem- atic, I think, in the light of the fundamental challenge that animal studies poses to the disciplinarity of the humanities and cultural studies" (568). https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Wolfe_Human.pdf.

BUT: I might be the only person saying "three-pronged." But it seems that if I am the only one, then that's significant --and, I would think, foundational to the field of vegan studies-- because the whole point of my work is to show how vegan studies arises and is very different from these three modes of inquiry. CAS and HAS maintain the human/animal binary in that they both view non-human animals solely in relation to humans. Posthumanism just erases non-human animals -- and one of the most noted posthumanists working, Donna Haraway, is a carnist who uses her posthumanist position to argue for eating animals. So there's no way that vegan studies can be fully aligned with that methodology.

I'll try to answer the other concerns later, if I can. LWPocoecofem (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi Laura, thanks for the reply and the links. Re: Vegan studies is "different because it considers the non-human animal as animal and not as like or unlike human animals," can you point me to an example of vegan-studies writing that does this? I'm having difficulty seeing how vegan studies does it in a way that CAS does not.

Another question. I'm having difficulty parsing this sentence, which I'd like to summarize rather than quote, namely that vegan studies is posited "as a product of the discourse of vegan representation as situated within and outside of extant conceptions of animal studies, animal welfare/rights/liberation, and ecofeminism". Can you express that differently for me? SarahSV ^(talk) 01:54, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Break

@Pocoecofem: you asked on my talk whether there were any questions outstanding. Yes, all to do with the final paragraph, namely the relationship between vegan studies and CAS, and the assertion of the three prongs, and who is making these claims. I'm having difficulty understanding it, and difficulty untangling which parts come from you and which from other sources. For example, you added to the draft on 26 December:

For example, critical animal studies has historically made the case for animal rights based on how much like humans non-human animals are, which underscores the reality that humanity is the norm by which the worth all other non-human animals is measured. Furthermore, despite giving rise to the animal protection movement, human-animal studies examines how humans and animals interact across the boundary that separates species, and therefore does not challenge the binary maintained by critical animal studies. Finally, posthumanism's challenge to the notion of the concept of human as distinct from our technology and the other species that make up our biome may work to challenge that Cartesian dualism of animal and human that underscores both critical animal studies and animal-human studies ...

Although you added secondary sources, that text seems to be from your own work. For example, re: "gave rise to the animal protection movement", you wrote in Wright 2015, p. 12: "[E]ven though human–animal studies may have real-world policy implications and, in fact, gave rise to the animal protection movement, it is not a means of advocating for animals." You cited DeMello 2012, p. 17, in your WP edit and in your book. But DeMello doesn't say that about the animal protection movement. She writes: "Although human–animal studies was born out of interest in animals in society, which also led to the rise of the animal protection movement, it is not about animal advocacy." That is, interest in animals, not human–animal studies, gave rise to the animal protection movement.

My concern is in case there is other material like that: WP stating your work in its own voice, while citing other sources who don't quite say what your work says. Untangling this is time-consuming. So, some questions:

1. The claim that CAS is maintaining the human-animal binary does not sound right. Who is saying that CAS has "historically made the case for animal rights based on how much like humans non-human animals are, which underscores the reality that humanity is the norm by which the worth all other non-human animals is measured"? And what does that source say?

2. Who is saying that "Cartesian dualism of animal and human ... underscores critical animal studies"?

3. You wrote above that vegan studies "is different because it considers the non-human animal as animal and not as like or unlike human animals". Can you point to an example of vegan studies writing that does this in a way that CAS does not?

SarahSV ^(talk) 01:35, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

OK, so the whole goal of that paragraph was to distinguish vegan studies from those other branches of animal studies. Let me see if I can clarify. But maybe the whole paragraph can just be cut. My thinking in writing it was that the animal rights philosophers (Singer and Regan, for example) who were writing first were arguing that animals deserve ethical consideration because of their likeness to humans (not necessarily because animals deserve consideration in their own right): "Much of the work on animal rights, most notably by Peter Singer, Tom Regan (Case and Empty Cages), and, more recently, Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum, sees animals as on an ethical continuum with humans. In animal rights discourses, primates, companion species (dogs, cats, horses), domesticated human food animals such as cows and pigs, and other intelligent mammals and birds have the same rights as mentally challenged or immature humans" (p. 363 Marianne DeKoven, "Why Animals Now?" PMLA, Vol. 124, No. 2 (Mar., 2009), pp. 361-369). And some animals get more consideration than others (primates, for example) -- but they are still considered in the context of "mentally challenged or immature humans."

So for CAS: Here's Cary Wolfe in his 2009 PMLA essay (which is regarded as the work that codified the animal turn in the humanities away from Singer and Regan's philosophies): "As I have argued elsewhere, this suggests two important things about animal studies: first, that it studies both a material entity (nonhuman beings) and a discourse of species difference that need not be limited to its application to nonhumans alone and, second, that taking animal studies seriously thus has nothing to do, strictly speaking, with whether or not you like animals." (567) Vegan studies scholars disagree: you might not need to "like" animals, but you can't eat them and you better give them ethical consideration. Further, "the rubrics animal studies and human-animal studies are both problematic, I think, in the light of the fundamental challenge that animal studies poses to the disciplinarily of the humanities and cultural studies," and "To put it bluntly, just because we study nonhuman animals does not mean that we are not continuing to be humanist—and therefore, by definition, anthropocentric."(568) (Cary Wolfe, "Human, All Too Human: 'Animal Studies' and the Humanities," PMLA Vol. 124, No. 2 (Mar., 2009), pp. 564-575). Wolfe is foundational in the articulation of Critical Animal Studies, and he's clearly talking here about the anthropocentrism of animal studies (that is, the way that the field maintains the animal human binary).

On posthumanism erasing the animal from consideration (you didn't ask about this one, but I think this source might be useful): "On the other hand, particularly for the radical post-humanist, there is no animal-as-such: it is social construction all the way down (Wolfe, 2010). Deconstructing animals reveals the permanent blur between the species and the shifting nature of the categories 'animal' and 'human.'" (https://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=acwp_sata). The animal, like the human, is a construct in this methodology, which is antithetical to those of us doing vegan studies work. The animal is an entity that we can't know but that we must nonetheless consider.

So what I think a vegan studies approach does is

1. Maintain the alterity of nonhuman animals as entities that we cannot know but that nevertheless deserve ethical consideration, regardless of how like or unlike human animals they are.

2. Insists that insofar as one is able, one should not participate in the exploitation and consumption of animals and

3. Reads the textual world through the lens of an ethical veganism.

This approach is radically different from CAS, HAS, and posthumanism because it requires empathy for the animal as animal (and it doesn't give you a pass if you eat animals ;)). That empathy is often gendered as female, which, I think should be apparent at this point, has resulted in the erasure of a decades long feminist vegetarian scholarly underpinning of animal studies more generally. Caitlyn Stobie discusses this in her essay in ISLE. I think her essay is a great example of work that addresses your question in #3 above. Her essay deconstructs the shortcomings of animal studies more broadly in its inability and/or refusal to engage with veganism as a concern -- and with foundational women scholars more generally. Cole and Stwart's essay in that same volume also does this work. I don't know if you can access the essays in the vegan studies cluster, but I think that they would be helpful. As I noted previously, I can share them with you, if you'd like. I'm assuming that since you haven't responded that sharing them via dropbox might violate something.

Anyway, none of this may be of any help, but these are some of the sources that are informing my thinking. If they aren't helpful, or if I've just muddied the waters, please just nix that paragraph. And, for what it's worth, I think the article is amazing. The work you've done is rigorous and provocative, and the field will be the better for it. LWPocoecofem (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Pocoecofem, thanks for the explanation. I've removed the final paragraph, because it doesn't seem correct as written. I'm also about to remove the following, because I can't see what it means or how to phrase it differently: vegan studies is "a product of the discourse of vegan representation as situated within and outside of extant conceptions of animal studies, animal welfare/rights/liberation, and ecofeminism".

Re: "Vegan studies scholars disagree: you might not need to 'like' animals, but you can't eat them and you better give them ethical consideration." Who in CAS or animal rights in general would not agree with that?

Re: "Wolfe is foundational in the articulation of Critical Animal Studies, and he's clearly talking here about the anthropocentrism of animal studies (that is, the way that the field maintains the animal human binary)." In what sense was Wolfe foundational in the articulation of critical animal studies? And how does CAS (not animal studies in general) maintain the human–animal binary?

Re: "This approach is radically different from CAS, HAS, and posthumanism because it requires empathy for the animal as animal". In what way does CAS not require that empathy? I'd appreciate seeing an example of a CAS scholar doing something that you believe fails to show empathy for an animal as animal, or a vegan scholar doing something that a CAS scholar wouldn't do.

SarahSV ^(talk) 03:05, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Sarah, I'll try to get to these questions in the next couple of days. LWPocoecofem (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Defining critical animal studies

Pocoecofem, there's no rush for any of this, so take your time. I wonder whether we're using term "critical animal studies" differently. I'm using it to refer to the field that arose in 2001 directly out of the animal liberation movement (Taylor and Twine 2014, p. 1). But I see McCance seems to use it as a synonym for human–animal studies. She writes that it emerged some 40 years ago within analytic philosophy (McCance 2013, p. 4). If you're using it in her sense, that would explain why we seem to be talking at cross purposes. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:10, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I think I'm somehow unable to convey my meaning with regard to CAS... I don't have time at present to parse the Taylor and Twine vs. McCance distinction, but I'll work on it when I have more time (I have to go back to professoring tomorrow. :(

Re who in CAS would disagree: literally tons of CAS scholars write and theorize about animals but still eat them. Derrida, who came to the game late (but is still heavily cited for his supposed importance) wrote about animals but still ate them (see this pg. in Attridge's book about that https://books.google.com/books?id=NY5vAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=derrida+steak+tartare&source=bl&ots=Vu3FVlGocJ&sig=JLX8j3TikYPTPUowWWAGw-QzoSI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiftK614-vfAhWBTd8KHWhXB6AQ6AEwFXoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=derrida%20steak%20tartare&f=false). In Gruen and Weil's special edition of Hypatia, Tracy Warkentin's essay "Must Every Animal Studies Scholar be Vegan?" engages with the complicated politics of veganism with regard to animal studies (the whole issue of Hypatia is here: https://www.academia.edu/6834067/Must_every_animal_studies_scholar_be_vegan). And here's a great interview with Carol Adams in which she takes apart Donna Haraway for only caring about dogs (and for eating other animals and dismissing animal rights): https://caroljadams.com/an-animal-manifesto/. The thing about many CAS scholars is that they discuss animals from a rational, detached, and philosophical perspective. The field has opted to embrace those things and abandon a politics of care, empathy, and vegan activism (in large part because those things are considered feminine -- and easily dismissible). This is why ecofeminists, vegan feminists, and vegan studies scholars are working so hard to place the emphasis back on care. In some ways, it's a reaction to the ways that preeminent scholars like Wolfe and Haraway dismiss veganism and ecofeminism.

And I think that these examples also address your question about vegan studies scholars doing things that CAS scholars wouldn't: the focus on veganism and the insistence upon it distinguishes the ethical position of those of us who do vegan studies work. As I pointed out, plenty of animal scholars people theorize about animals -- and even advocate for them not to be exploited -- but they draw a line at not eating them.

Re Wolfe: the dropbox article that I shared with you by Wolfe is seen as the piece of writing that precipitated the so-called animal turn in literary studies. And, yeah, CAS does work to problematize and challenge the human-animal binary, but if you're a CAS scholar and still eat animals, then you're upholding that binary in your life. I recognize that this is a complicated position to take (Wartenkin really unpacks why -- and she's critical of an unreflective militant vegan approach), but CAS only goes so far; vegan studies goes further, which is why I named it as something distinct. OK, more soon. Best, LWPocoecofem (talk) 22:45, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Works Cited

Carol Adams appears as "Carole" in the Works Cited. Please fix that. Thanks, LWPocoecofem (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Done 02:07, 5 January 2019 (UTC) valereee (talk) 02:08, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Submit to AfC and keep developing?

Would anyone object to going ahead and submitting this article for review? I feel like it's clearly going to pass review now, and it might get some more eyes on it, which would be helpful for further development. valereee (talk) 14:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I object. We still don't know what to call it, to what extent it really exists, and how to describe it. The characteristics section is a mess. What's the rush? SarahSV ^(talk) 20:25, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

To elaborate, I feel uncomfortable about what has happened here, including the push to have this published, especially given that a bio, a draft article on the book, and a DYK have also been created. I'd like to think about whether we need to run it past several others before publishing. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:35, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

No rush. I had a question at DYK about why the article hadn't been submitted yet to be developed further during that process and thought, yeah, it probably could be submitted at this point. In general I feel more eyes on a developing article are always good. If you object, that's a good enough reason not to for me. But I'd like to talk more about what is making you uncomfortable. I hadn't realized you were unsure about what to call it and were still unsure it actually exists. What are your concerns? Let's talk. valereee (talk) 21:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

What would help is if you'd be willing to share the reading load, because there's a lot to get through. The characteristics section doesn't really say anything. The parameters of the topic are unclear. A key question is what counts as "vegan studies" or "vegan theory", i.e. which texts we can write about and use as sources. There are few sources using those terms explicitly, but there are lots of sources (going back many years) who have done the work. Do we restrict ourselves to sources using the terms? That would seem absurd. But if not, how do we avoid OR/SYN? How do we introduce it? Is it an approach/framework/academic field? All these issues need to be considered by editors with no COI who have done the reading.

The reason it's difficult to pin this down is that there are few secondary/tertiary sources, which means it's borderline notable, so it makes sense not to race ahead. The creation of a DYK has complicated the process, because you're now champing at the bit to get this published. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:44, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Totally willing to share the reading load. I'd offered to help this COI get the article into shape, and when we got here, I thought you were indicating you didn't think my plan for starting over was what was needed. I was getting out of your way.

I'm not champing at the bit. I told the folks at DYK that we can remove the link to this redlinked article or can wait until it gets through review. I think I made it clear there that the only reason I submitted was to get in under the expiry date. When it got picked up for review weeks earlier than I expected, the editor who was reviewing it for DYK said they'd looked at the article and why were we waiting? I explained that it was complicated due to the COI issues. They said maybe submit anyway as it looked good, and when I thought about it and looked at the current state of the article, there didn't seem to be any reason not to submit and keep working, and as I had no idea you still had apparently major concerns, I came here and checked to see if anyone objected. You did, and that's fine. I'm feeling a bit taken aback. As I said, I thought I was keeping out of your way. It looked like you had a vision, and it seriously didn't occur to me that you'd put the kind of work you clearly have into any article if you still had questions about its very validity as an article. I'm feeling a bit blindsided, here.

As I get into all of the above, I'm also wondering about your statement that you're "uncomfortable about what has happened here." Please elaborate, as this is making me seriously uncomfortable in turn. Exactly what are you feeling uncomfortable about that has happened here? valereee (talk) 23:36, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't want to list the concerns here, because all that achieves is to add to them. The only way to resolve whether this is a valid topic for a stand-alone article is to do the reading. There's no shortcut. What I'd like is that attempts to slant the article in a certain direction stop, and for there to be no time pressure, so it would help if you would put the DYK on hold. If you publish it as written, with or without the red link, someone else will try to create a stub and then we'll have a mess. When Kellen and I were first pinged, I thought this could be handled slowly on a draft page, without any time pressure, so I was envisaging lots of time (weeks or months) to do the reading. It's harder to write about this than it looks, and because some of the books have low print runs and are so expensive, they're hard to get hold of. I was mistaken in thinking this could be done without pressure, but because I encouraged it, I feel that I (or we) ought at least to produce a viable draft, then I can take it off my watchlist and let others decide what to do with it.

If you're willing to share the reading, it would help if you could look at the ISLE articles in case there's anything in them we can use as examples of a vegan-studies approach: Wright, Joelle, McCorry, Cole and Stewart, Stobie. (Wright and Stobie are already used.) If you don't have access, you can request it at WP:RX. As far as I'm concerned, there's no deadline for this, so you should take as long as you need.

Anything you can read about critical animal studies too would help us to know what to say about the relationship between that and vegan studies. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:53, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Wow, I feel like there's a lot to unpack. If you didn't want to get into concerns here, I wish you'd brought them to my talk page or emailed me instead of bringing them up here, saying you didn't want to discuss here when I asked what they were, and then expressing further concerns that I assume you also don't want to discuss here. I will email you.

I will state clearly that there is no pressure to submit on my part. I asked one question here on the talk page and asked for objections, which I got, and which I immediately accepted. No one had indicated that the article was weeks or months from being ready. In fact, a week ago you'd posted that you thought the article was close to being ready to submit; that was the last I saw about anything regarding submission. I'm happy to put the DYK on hold or pull it. I put it on DYK only to get it there in time, as I thought it was a more interesting hook than most. DYKs are typically taking weeks to review and more weeks to appear, so I thought there was plenty of time.

I tried to find that cluster once before and failed, but I'll try again, happy to do that reading if I can find them. I am out of town now but will be back home tomorrow and will work on it then. Regarding reading about critical animal studies to find a connection, I'm not sure I have the background to be able to do that; another editor with academic familiarity with CAS would probably be more help, as I'm not sure I'd ever even heard of CAS before starting to do the reading I've done for this, the Wright article, and the userspace draft I've been adding to. And look at me, now I'm using the acronym, lol valereee (talk) 11:18, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I've been lost on this discussion page, as there has been so much discussion. I've been so vocal and involved because I'm passionate, I'm also on break (so I was trying to do as much as possible with the time that I had), so I apologize if my enthusiasm has indicated that there was a rush. For me there is, as my time to do things other than teach is almost up.

For those of us doing work in what we're calling a field, we very much believe that this is a field. Would it help to call it a sub-field within animal studies, which I'm not crazy about but might make sense? Or in his editor's note about the cluster in ISLE, Scott Slovic calls it a "coordinating" field (alongside animal studies and ecofeminism), which I think is more correct: it's its own thing, but it coordinates with these other areas. I have all the articles from that issue, as well as other sources about the history of animal studies, which might be helpful. Would it be appropriate to share a drop box with the editors? Or is there another way to share scholarly materials?

And there's a chronological point or two that need to be fixed: in the initial section on "Animal Studies:" "This work in philosophy triggered the so-called "animal turn" in the humanities and social sciences." Singer and Regan (1975 and 1983) did not trigger the "animal turn"; Cary Wolfe's work did (for better or worse). Singer and Regan are foundational to animal studies more broadly. Wolfe's article "Human, All Too Human: 'Animal Studies' and the Humanities" is in a 2009 issue of PMLA, where he makes the case. I have it, and can share as well (one could argue similarly that my work triggered the turn to vegan studies? Wolfe, as a single scholar, gets immense credit for what he did with regard to animal studies within the humanities, even as ecofeminists -- like myself -- don't appreciate the erasure of women's scholarship that went along with his fame). Second, to that point, the incredibly important feminist animals studies era of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, even early 2000s (before Cary Wolfe stepped in and published) is a part of the chronology that needs to be considered, particularly as it is so important. I had something in there about it. Gaard's "Feminist Animal Studies in the U.S.: Bodies Matter," which still shows up in the WC, even as the reference has disappeared, gives a great overview of this work -- and I have it, if I can share it with anyone). "Sistah Vegan" was (sadly) not Vegan Studies' "entry into the academy." It's important as the first book of black feminist veganism, but it's nonacademic and has a nonacademic -- but activist -- publisher (Lantern Books). And lastly, Melanie Joy's work is accessible and much read, which is great and important, but it's a bit weird to have a pic of her on a page about vegan studies (as it would be to have a pic of me on a page about carnism). What about a pic of someone more diverse? Like Han Kang (whose novel The Vegetarian has become incredibly important for vegan studies scholars?).

I'm not sure how much I should be involved at this point. I have stopped editing the page, but it's hard for me not to want to give feedback on the most important work of my life. Please know that I'm very much only wanting to help, and I am very sorry if I've done anything to create the issues Sarah references. Please do ask me if there are questions that I can answer. I know that this is a ton of work and I'm amazed at how much you've put into it.LWPocoecofem (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Valereee and Pocoecofem, thanks for the replies and for agreeing to allow more time. I've added a source for Singer and Regan and the "animal turn". Remaining issues are mostly to do with the relationship of vegan studies to critical animal studies (the current final paragraph, which I've made invisible for now), and I've left some questions about that above. Another issue is that the article is a bit of a quote farm; too much quoting on Wikipedia gives the impression that it's there in lieu of understanding, so I'd like to remove some quotes and summarize, but whoever does that needs to understand the issues; hence the request for more time.

A third issue is how to write the first sentence: "Vegan studies is ...": what? An approach to the study of veganism; an emerging academic field; a school of critical theory (see the lead of Critical legal studies); a school of thought; a field for interdisciplinary study (see Gender studies); the critical examination of veganism and carnism (following Food studies); "a new lens for ecocritical textual analysis" of veganism and its representation in literature, etc. I hope how to introduce it will become clearer as the draft develops. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:59, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Sarah. I'll address your questions about that pesky paragraph today. What do you think about using Scott Slovic's language, that vegan studies is a coordinating field alongside animal studies and ecofeminism? I rather like that take, and Slovic is a very important source, as he's the editor of ISLE, the preeminent journal in the field of ecocriticism. Would it be ok for me to go in and work on the quote issue? I don't want to edit if you guys feel that it would be inappropriate for me to do so at this point, but I might be able to help with regard to that issue. I will also be completely ok if you tell me not to do that. Thanks. LWPocoecofem (talk) 14:36, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Slovic refers to "the relationship between vegan studies and the corresponding disciplines of animal studies and ecofeminism". I think it's premature to think of it as a field. A field would normally have its own institute, journal, experts, conferences, scholarships, and courses. Re: the quote issue, could you make some suggestions here? SarahSV ^(talk) 18:29, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Happy to. I'll try to get to it asap, but it might take me a few days; I'm heading out of town for a couple of days (to the beach in Charleston! In winter! It will be cold!). Best, LWPocoecofem (talk) 23:48, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to have to concur with SarahSV here; I think it's questionable whether this meets the notability criteria and I think that it's a stretch to call this an established field of study. I do not have access to all of the sources, but the impression I get from the article at present is that it is a more an argument for the field's existence than documentation of it. I also share the concerns about how to properly characterize what the thing is that the article is about; that is typically the easiest part of writing a WP article. Separately from the question of whether there should be a wikipedia article, I personally think the whole idea of 'vegan studies' is kind of silly; veganism is a specific result of a variety of overlapping phenomenons (animal rights, environmental or health concerns, religion, etc) rather than a singular thing in itself. Kellen^T 15:56, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Vegan studies cluster of essays from ISLE

Re: connecting vegan studies with critical animal studies. I see nothing that explicitly does this. Cole and Stewart talk a lot about issues that do overlap between the two (and cite multiple works in CAS journals) but do not make statements connecting the two fields. Joelle also cites two works that either have titles including CAS or that appeared in CAS journals, but again nothing in her essay explicitly connecting the fields. Slovic in discussing Cole and Stewart says they are “arguing the film normalizes the consumption of animal products and extending this consumption to large-scale processes of environmental destruction, such as deforestation and climate change” but again no mention of CAS explicitly.

Re: examples of a vegan studies approach.

Joelle doesn’t mention vegan studies. McCorry cites Wright but doesn’t mention vegan studies.

Cole & Stewart read the film Sausage Party; from their introduction: “Such a reading is situated within an emerging vegan studies framework (Wright 2015 ) that is sensitive to the reproduction of unequal power relations between humans and other species, but also how those power inequalities intersect with intra-human power relations along the lines of gender, sexuality, “race,” age, class, different experiences of embodiment and so on.”

“In this article, we argue that Sausage Party provides an exemplary case study in the cultural reproduction of such an intersected relational system of power. It celebrates ecocidal, oppressive consumption practices at the same time as it reproduces ideas and beliefs, or social norms, of unequal relations between species, between genders, between the differently abled, and so on. This may be made clearer by situating the critique of Sausage Party in the context of recent research that may be broadly construed as operating within a vegan studies framework.

And then first section of the body is headed: “Sausage Party in the Context of Vegan Studies” and the body ends with “This reading disputes the dominant meanings of Sausage Party, demonstrates the critical capacity of a vegan studies framework for destabilizing oppressive power relations”

Slovic in his editor’s note: “the current cluster extends the scrutiny of food, agriculture, healthh, animal welfare/rights, and related topics by using environmental literature and film to help theorize veganism. Wright’s introduction builds upon the work of her monograph The Vegan Studies Project in describing the relationship between vegan studies and the corresponding disciplines of animal studies and ecofeminism.” “Sarah Kane’s Blasted is viewed from a vegan perspective.”

Wright on the difficulties of using the concept of “intersectionality” within vegan studies:

“They see intersectionality as a “consensus-creating signifier” (234) that has allowed white and non-white feminisms to find common ground. I concur with these assessments, even as I recognize that intersectionality has shied away—with legitimate and extremely understandable reasons—from considering the relationships between the subjection of women and the subjection of nonhuman animals”

And: “there continues to be resistance to the inclusion of nonhuman animals (in particular female animals4 ) within theorizations and applications of intersectionality. Because of this resistance—and also out of respect for the work that intersectionality has done with regard to consensus building and increased inclusivity within feminism—I will refrain from using “intersectional” to describe the role of nonhuman animals in vegan studies, preferring instead a discussion of “enmeshed subjections,”

She describes the cluster as “a variety of forays into vegan studies.” valereee (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all of this. Keep in mind that just because they don't mention "vegan studies" explicitly, they're still doing that work (otherwise we wouldn't have chosen them). I'm glad that those works do vegan studies as an assumed paradigm, as that only strengthens the case for the field. And one thing to mention that might show the significance of VS in the current moment: when I issued the Call for Papers for that special cluster (of 3-5 essays, which is all that ISLE allows, as opposed to a whole special issue), I received about 30 essays. I was stunned. One of the people who contributed, Tom Hertweck, edits the "Cultural Ecologies of Food in the 21st Century" series for the U of Nevada P, so when I wrote to all the people who had submitted abstracts to say that I was overwhelmed and planned to pursue a book in addition to the cluster in ISLE, he offered me a contract for the book that will be out next month. LWPocoecofem (talk) 13:47, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

pocoecofem The fact a particular article doesn't make an explicit connection isn't an indication for purposes of WP that they aren't making that connection implicitly; it only means that there's nothing within the article that would support such an assertion for our purposes. Lol, if academics want to be cited in WP articles they'll just have to learn to make explicit connections for us, because we can't read subtext.at.all. :D valereee (talk) 14:24, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Valereee, thank you for writing this up. It's very helpful. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:44, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

No problem! Happy to do more, just let me know if there's some reading you'd like me to do. valereee (talk) 14:20, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Drop box articles

pocoecofem I think you could probably share via drop box articles you have access to that aren't otherwise easily accessible. I don't know that I'd put the link here, as there might be copyright issues, but you could email the link to people. I can't remember which of the articles we've discussed so far that I hadn't been able to get to. Everything is starting to blur together. As we come across ones we're looking for, maybe we put them here so that you can share if you have them? And as new articles about vegan studies appear, you could list them in this section if you can share. valereee (talk) 13:29, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll send the link to you and Sarah.

Pocoecofem (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Archiving

The page was getting harder to use, probably particularly for Pocoecofem, so I've archived, but anyone should feel free to retrieve a section if you feel it hasn't been dealt with. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:59, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

remaining concerns/val

For me, I think I can live with everything except the Giraud and Larue mentions, which I've know I've brought up multiple times, but I still think they need work. I'm also a little uneasy about some of the Harper stuff.

Giraud's use of the phrase 'vegan studies' was really almost a throwaway line -- it literally appeared once in the article, within parentheses. I think it's a huge stretch to call it anything more than 'used the phrase'; it IMO comes nowhere near being characterizable as 'discussed the relationship of veganism and vegan studies.' Here's the totality of what she said about vegan studies in a 33-page article: "This framing of veganism as totalising is also connected with a wider suspicion of deep ecology, with which animal rights praxis frequently associated (an association that masks the more complex evolution of vegan studies within ecological critique)." That's it. That's not a discussion of the relationship. It's almost synthesis to even call it a mention of the relationship between veganism and vegan studies; what she mentioning is the relationship of vegan studies to ecological critique, and even that's no more than a passing mention IMO. I feel like Giraud is an example of the zeitgeist, but not critical in development of the field.

Larue started teaching the class in 2016. The way it's presented in the article is "From 2015 the French scholar Renan Larue [fr], author of Le végétarisme et ses ennemis: Vingt-cinq siècles de débats (2015), offered a vegan studies course at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which he began teaching in January 2016." This is convoluted enough to make it feel almost as if it were being written that way to force that paragraph into a specific spot in the chronology, but I can't for the life of me figure out why we'd want to do that. Why not simply say, as I've suggested more than once, "In 2016 the French scholar Renan Larue [fr], author of Le végétarisme et ses ennemis: Vingt-cinq siècles de débats (2015), started teaching a vegan studies course at the University of California, Santa Barbara."

I'm also a little concerned about the Harper stuff. I just kind of feel if we're going to search the web for the earliest mentions of the phrase in various blogs etc. and then use that as part of the history of developing the theory/field, we're deep into original research. Most of the mentions seem to be from Harper herself. Is anyone else saying Harper is part of the history of the development of vegan studies? The Fourson & Counihan quote is from Harper's bio, and the Yarborough & Thomas just says, "We felt it was necessary to devote an entire issue to women of color because the voices and perspectives of women of color were eerily absent from critical animal studies and vegan studies in general. After six months of soliciting and reading papers, we finally consolidated an issue: five voices, five women of color. It is well-timed, given the recent book Sistah Vegan by Breeze Harper, who is a contributor to this issue." So I'm not sure they're explicitly connecting Harper to the development of vegan studies? I feel like Harper, like Giraud, was certainly an example of the zeitgeist of the time, but maybe can't be called out as instrumental in developing the field?

Other than that, I can live with the article as it stands for now! It's going to be a developing article as the field develops, I would imagine! valereee (talk) 17:04, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi. First of all, I really think the article looks great. I appreciate all the work that has gone into it. I have just a few minor concerns that in some ways mirror Valeree's -- and that might be easily assuaged by changing the order of the history section.

I share the concerns about Giraud and Larue, which I've noted previously. Giraud's sole mention of "vegan studies" (in a parenthetical aside) is not in reference to the field; in this singular usage, she means studies of veganism as a cultural practice (so studies ABOUT veganism). To say that "Eva Giraud discussed the relationship of veganism and vegan studies to animal studies, ecofeminism and posthumanism" is inaccurate. She's unpacking the work of ecofeminist vegans and situating it within the context of animal studies more broadly. A connected concern that I have is that links between vegan studies an ecofeminism seem to have disappeared, but that's something that will likely be fixed after publication when ecofeminist editors get a chance to look at it.

In terms of Larue, like Giraud, I think the article as it currently stands is giving him undo credit in the history. He created a class that examines veganism, and as I noted in a previous post, he credits me as foundational to the creation of that class. He's not doing "vegan studies," nor is he contributing to the field.

With regard to Harper, as I noted previously, her work is important, but it's not scholarly. And it's not vegan studies; it's critical race studies work that engages with veganism.

As the history section is currently written, these three folks appear to have had a significant role in contributing to the establishment of vegan studies as proposed in my work and as noted by the multitude of other scholarly cited in the article. They didn't. I (and well as Quinn and Westwood and others) reference Harper's work as important in terms of the ways that it engages with black women and veganism, but the nature of her work lies well outside of what vegan studies scholars are doing -- particularly as defined by the article. Second, I never knew about the Giraud article until we began this process. I found out about Larue after my book came out -- and I contacted him to discuss his usage of "vegan studies," which he attributed to me.

I have another source, one that actually engages with race through a vegan studies lens, should it prove useful. This one is very recent and situates vegan studies within the context of food studies:

"Vegans of color: managing visible and invisible stigmas," Jessica Greenebaum, Food, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2018.1512285

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2018.1512285. Published online: 04 Oct 2018.

Here's a quote: "Within the interdisciplinary field of food studies, vegan studies is a scholarly enterprise that analyzes and deconstructs the history of veganism, vegan identity, and the representation of veganism in popular and academic discourse (Wright 2015)." Best, LW Pocoecofem (talk) 22:57, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not seeing any objections. I will work on the issues that concern me over the next few days. pocoecofem Let's discuss Harper further. I have no objection to including her work if it contributed to the general zeitgeist that led to the development of the field; the fact she isn't an academic is maybe not crucial? Or are you making a more nuanced point? Ditto LaRue -- the fact he taught the first class is worth a mention in an article about the field, even if he isn't contributing in a scholarly way to its development. I'm not sure what to do about Giraud. Are you saying that she was using the term "vegan studies" in a completely different usage than as a reference to the field? She's using it more like, "Vegan studies have shown that vegans can easily get enough protein?" and could just as easily have used the term "studies of veganism" and kept her meaning the same? valereee (talk) 15:34, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

As is clear from the above exchange, we still don't know what "vegan studies" is, because there aren't enough sources, and there are almost no independent sources. I think Feminist shouldn't have moved this to mainspace, and I wonder whether it should be re-draftified until more sources become available. Pinging Kellen and Josh. The more I read about it, the more I understood Josh's point about being "unsure whether there truly is a literature sufficiently unified to be labelled a new discipline". SarahSV ^(talk) 21:45, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

I would hate to see it go back to drafts, as I think it's doing a good job laying out what Vegan Studies is. Regardless, thanks for all the work on it so far. Pocoecofem (talk) 23:26, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

If the discipline isn't sufficiently unified, we can specify that in the article. Or should the article be kept in draftspace until more literature is published, at which point the article needs to be rewritten anyway? Anyway as there appears to be no consensus to move this back to draftspace, such a proposal would have to be via AfD. feminist (talk) 00:58, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I’m not sure why we would be questioning whether it’s a thing and whether there are independent sources indicating that when we have sources like Martinelli and Berkmaniene saying "The presence and legitimacy of 'vegan studies' within the academic world, especially since Wright cared to formalize the expression and define a paradigm, is something that should no longer require an explanation or a justification." That's a pretty strong statement from an independent source. I'm open to the idea we aren't describing it accurately yet, but I don't think not having the article perfect yet is really a reason not to move to article space and keep working. I've always figured it's a good way to get other eyes on an article to help make it better. valereee (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

My general feeling is the same as before: this article reads as an argument for a new field rather than a documentation of it. Much of the style seems non-encyclopedic to me, and despite reading the article several times, I do not have a clear understanding of what "vegan studies" actually is.

• "Vegan studies ... seeks to establish" ? A field of study can't *seek* anything, it can either do something or not.
• "Because the field is new, its parameters are unclear". If you can barely define what a thing is, it's maybe not a thing.
• The "vegan studies" section seems to cite all possible mentions of the term.
• The "time has come" quote is repeated twice but is completely free of information.
• The second sentence of "Views" says that "[Vegan studies] aims to establish ...". Again, it either exists and does this thing or it doesn't exist.
• "vegan studies is a "lived and embodied ethic"" -- how are "studies" an "ethic"? Even veganism itself isn't an ethic; it's a choice/action/lack-of-action taken as a result of an ethic.
• The last two paragraphs of 'Views' summarize two specific (supposed) 'vegan studies' analyses(?), neither of which illustrate the "views" of this "field of study".

I support moving this back to Drafts. This reminds me of the case of the veganarchism article, where very thin references were being used to give the term more legitimacy and visibility than it carried in the real world. At best, I think "vegan studies" currently deserves a mention on Veganism but even there I think its notability is questionable. Kellen^T 15:46, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping; I've been watching the article develop, but don't have as much time as I might like for Wikipedia right now. I strongly disagree with Kellen that the topic does not warrant an article (as seems to be implied by "I think 'vegan studies' currently deserves a mention on Veganism but even there I think its notability is questionable"). There are a multitude of good, scholarly sources exploring what vegan studies is or could be, and plenty of academics who explicitly frame their work as in vegan studies. I think the Martinelli and Berkmaniene quote that Valereee points too is testament to that. I can expand on my view if people remain unconvinced. I agree with Feminist that "If the discipline isn't sufficiently unified, we can specify that in the article". The challenge, as I see it, is trying to work out how to neutrally present the topic - that, of course, may be tricky, but shouldn't be impossible, especially as more sources emerge. At present, I lean towards keeping the article in the mainspace; yes, there are still improvements that could be made, as have been identified in this section by Kellen and Slimvirgin, among others. However, in all, I don't think the article does a bad job. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:36, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm seeing no consensus to move back to draft, and no discussion for over a week. I plan to continue editing unless there is more to discuss. valereee (talk) 16:34, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Harper

@Pocoecofem: I'd like to talk more about Harper. You wrote above:

″With regard to Harper, as I noted previously, her work is important, but it's not scholarly. And it's not vegan studies; it's critical race studies work that engages with veganism.″

I think the fact it's not scholarly probably isn't important, so let's set that aside for now and just talk about how we know her work is "critical race studies that engages with veganism" rather than vegan studies. valereee (talk) 16:21, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, so here's what I think: 1. Vegan studies is about studying and critiquing, among other things, representations of veganism in art, media, literature, etc. And it's a way of reading texts (broadly speaking) through the lens of a vegan perspective. 2. Harper defines herself as a critical race, decolonial, and black feminist theorist in all of her online profiles (see her FB page: https://www.facebook.com/abreezeharper/). 3. Harper's work examines the reasons why black women are or are not vegan; Sistah Vegan is an anthology of women's stories, which explore the reasons for their veganism as often vastly different from the reasons that white people become vegan (and the ways that white veganism unfairly dominates the narratives that exist about veganism). Her work is very intersectional in that it unpacks the linkages between sexism, racism, speciesism, etc.

Here are some things that have been written about her work:

Women and the Animal Rights Movement, Emily Gaarder, 2011:

The recent anthology by A. Breeze Harper, Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health and Society, contains a variety of reflections on the intersection of animal rights and antiracist work, including concrete examples of how to authentically build coalitions among social justice campaigns and organizations. 140

On Animals: Volume II: Theological Ethics, David Clough, 2019.

Harper's groundbreaking book . . . explores the connections between concern for the health of black women, food justice, racial oppression, sexual equality, poverty, and the exploitation of farmed animals. 70

Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism, Greta Gaard, 2011 Feminist Formations, Vol. 23 No. 2 (Summer) pp. 26–53:

While the critical tensions in this series of questions deserve to be addressed, for the moment a few certainties are clear. The history of ecofeminism merits recuperation, both for the intellectual lineage it provides and for the feminist force it gives to contemporary theory. Pragmatically, readers search- ing for linkages among ideas are better served by a consistency in keywords; social-change activists are more able to recognize the radically democratic chain of equivalencies across liberatory movements when participants identify themselves as acting from a specific constituency or analytical framework. Such efforts at making connections visible are most effective when they are multidi- rectional, coming from standpoints that are marginalized as well as those that are privileged. Breeze Harper’s anthology Sistah Vegan (2010) offers just such an example of intersectional analysis, responding to vegan ecofeminist arguments from two decades earlier, but from a base of eco-womanism (Phillips 2006, 2010), distinct from mainstream feminism. 43

Anyway, as I have said, her work is incredibly important, but I'm not sure she would call it vegan studies. Her work is feminist critical race studies work that engages with veganism -- and I think that distinction is important. Here's what she says about Sistah Vegan in her introduction to it: "Sistah Vegan is . . . about looking at how a specific group of Black-identified female vegans perceive nutrition, food, ecological sustainability, health and healing, animal rights, parenting, social justice, spirituality, hair care, race, sexuality, womanism, freedom, and identity that goes against the (refined and bleached) grain," and it is "the first book ever written by and about Black female vegans in North America" xix

hope this helps at bit. Pocoecofem (talk) 20:46, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Pocoecofem: Yes, that helps me, at least. That Harper doesn't apparently consider herself to be working in "vegan studies" based on the fact she doesn't list it in her bios is getting close to original research/synthesis for me, but it's good to know.

I'm actually reasonably happy with the article now; not wild about the section heading I inserted but it was the best I could come up with off the top of my head, maybe someone will come up with something better. My own remaining concern is the mention of Harper's blog, which feels like original research/synthesis. Reworking that means more research, which I'll get to but not sure when, and it's a pretty minor point, so for now I'm declaring myself satisfied. What does everyone else think? valereee (talk) 11:54, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Where did they get their analysis? Breezie Harper's intersectionalism may have been prefigured in an array of others who develop sensitivities to animal suffering because of their own suffering, such as Dr. Alex Hershaft of Far Animal Reform Movement (FARM), formerly VIS, the Vegetarian Information Service. MaynardClark (talk) 19:43, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Social sources

How about a critical study on the social sources of this and other 'movements'? Dr. Carl Phillips (University of Michigan, PhD; Harvard Kennedy School of Government, MPP) argues (as a vegan) that 'there is no vegan movement' - only arrays of persons who claim that there is a vegan movement. But I notice 'arrays' of persons who seem to come from identifiable social sources - some academic centers contribute 'more than their shares' of vegans, and some institutions (e.g. Harvard) have contributed quite a few of them. Talks at vegetarian conferences (e.g. North American Vegetarian Society's annual Vegan Summerfest) scheduled such presentations to incredulous audiences. But vegan studies would need to address such concerns with a broader 360 degree reflection upon the social sources of its own origins, not merely a string of minibios of its presumed 'first mothers'... MaynardClark (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Cross-cultural, pan-critical interdisciplinary collaboration

Should terms like 'cross-cultural', 'pan-critical', 'transhistorical', 'interdisciplinary', and 'collaboration' become part of the vision implied in this article? Worlds like 'multicultural' have been hijacked for the purpose of diversity studies, yet the truly multicultural implications of plant-based diets throughout multi-millennia of historical pluralism are not being explored critically,in the context of the sciences relevant to vegan practices 'advance (e.g. nutrition, medicine, financial planning, research and engineering business studies,etc.). MaynardClark (talk) 00:05, 19 June 2023 (UTC)