School starts on Monday and I’m excited to say that I’m going to be teaching the course, ‘Animals, Ethics, and Food: Deconstructing Dominant Discourses’ again. I’ve tweaked the syllabus from last time and I hope it’s an improvement. Last winter’s teaching adventure was one of the best experiences I’ve had at the University of Washington and […]
Category Archives: Academia
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Dissertation Update & Working Through Emotional Roadblocks
I’ve had some requests from a number of readers now to talk a bit more about my dissertation research. So I thought I’d give you an update on where I am in the process. I spent the late-spring/early summer trying to gain access to small-scale dairy farms in the area. I focused on mostly the […]
Reflections on Religion and Activism
I had the opportunity about a month ago to read and review an amazing book for Our Hen House—Animals and World Religionsby Lisa Kemmerer (review was posted today). This book in many ways restored my faith in the potential of religion to make social change. When I was growing up, my relationship with religion involved a […]
Sharing Testimony: An Activist Project for Animals
I hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July. Here, we had fairly minimal animal freak outage, which was good. Maizy had a few moments where she hid under the table, and a few more where she took refuge hiding completely under a blanket on the couch. But otherwise, everyone seemed to survive […]
Thinking Carefully About Language
The language we use in our everyday speech can be a powerful form of activism and mechanism of social change. Whether we use the term ‘farm animal’ or ‘farmed animal’ to designate animals who are living and dying on farms, for example, makes a difference. This is one linguistic change about which I have been hyper conscious, particularly […]
Consumer Politics and What is Veganism?
One of the reasons Michael Pollan (Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Food Rules) has been so successful is that he doesn’t hesitate to tell people what to eat. In fact, his philosophy of eating has become so popular that he published a book consisting entirely of his ‘food rules,’ a simplistic […]
Timothy Pachirat Reading on KUOW
Just a quick post to let you know that Timothy Pachirat, author of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, will be on KUOW radio, which you can listen to right here online. The date and time is this Thursday 8pm PST. If you missed his reading at Elliot Bay Books here […]
Keeping a Sunny Disposition
I haven’t talked about it much here on the blog, but starting in March I began researching for my dissertation on dairy farming. Most of my time for the past few months has been spent trying to make contacts for fieldwork, doing online research, reading, making to-do lists, trying to organize my thoughts on post-its and a […]
Book Review at Our Hen House: “Every Twelve Seconds”
For this bright and early Monday morning I want to nudge you over to Our Hen House to read another book review by yours truly. This one is a review of Timothy Pachirat’s recent book, Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. If you haven’t read it already, I would highly recommend the […]
Book Review at Our Hen House
Good morning, Monday! Just wanted to write a quick note to nudge you all over to Our Hen House this morning. When I was in NYC, I met with the lovely ladies of Our Hen House and we chatted over some delicious Korean food about animal rights, activism, and academics. They kindly invited me to do […]
