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Human-Animal Studies Newsletter
February 2020
Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the current issue of the Animals & Society Institute's Human-Animal Studies e-newsletter. 

This month, two stories about coyote-and-badger buddies swarmed the social media Interwebs, highlighting interspecies collaboration and friendship and triggering scholarly interest. The first set of photos, posted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, showed  a coyote and badger hunting together . The second was a video clip of a coyote waiting for a badger to join him and then the two  traveling together through a culvert under a highway . This prompted a  National Geographic piece  in which behavioral ecologist Jennifer Campbell-Smith noted that such clips help “people see that, oh wait, just like I can have a friendship with a dog, they can, too. It’s not just a human thing; all animals can collaborate.” (See also a  popular press article  by Campbell-Smith analyzing the encounter in more depth, and  another analysis .)

This chain of messages highlights the power of social media to educate and foster change. With this in mind, I’m pleased to announce that ASI is in the process of launching the Human-Animal Studies Facebook group. The group is being designed as a forum for sharing information—and promoting research, accomplishments and activities—about the multifaceted relationships between humans and other animals. Watch for details!

Also of note and in keeping with ASI’s goal of building a safe and compassionate world where both animals and people flourish, we are launching this month a new section,  HAS Law and Policy.  This intermittent section of the HAS e-Newsletter will include commentary and information on academic inquiry, legal developments, and proposed and enacted legislative actions related to animal policy, in the space where nonhuman animal interests meet politics and the law.

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

As always, I welcome your announcements, comments and suggestions!

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.


ASI NEWS
Better hurry up! With the  application deadline of February 28, 2020 , there is still a little time to apply to the Animals & Society Institute and the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fourth annual  HUMAN-ANIMAL STUDIES SUMMER INSTITUTE program for advanced graduate students and early career scholars pursuing research in Human-Animal Studies. The 2020 Institute will take place from July 12-19, 2020, inclusive.

The Animals & Society Institute’s  Sloth: A Journal of Emerging Voices in Human-Animal Studies is seeking submissions for its Summer 2020 issue from undergraduate students and recently-graduated students from all disciplines.  The   deadline is April 1, 2020.   Sloth  is an online bi-annual journal the showcases the important and innovative contributions of undergraduates, giving those who are interested in human/non-human animal relationships a way to contribute to and engage with the field, as well as an opportunity to build their skills, knowledge, and resumes in anticipation of their graduate school careers. Please help us promote this opportunity to undergraduate students with an interest in HAS issues by encouraging them to submit!  Submission guidelines are online , and questions can be directed to  Joel MacClellan.


HAS News and Opportunities
The  Biodiversity Heritage Library , the world’s largest open-access digital archive dedicated to the natural world, has made more than  150,000 high-resolution, copyright free, illustrations —including animal sketches, historical diagrams, botanical studies, and scientific research—available online and  downloadable through Flickr streams .

A new Google Email-list/mailing list network for Veterinary Humanities has launched. Due to the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of Human-Animal Studies as well as the growing discourse of veterinary ethics, more and more research is looking at veterinary issues from the perspective of the humanities /social sciences. To join the email-list please  subscribe here  (if you already have an google-account) email  veterinary.medicine.studies@gmail.com  with a request to be added. 

This month’s  LINK-Letter  from the National Link Coalition—the National Resource Center on The Link between Animal Abuse and Human Violence— has a new, free campaign to make your facility a “Hit Free Zone” where violence against people and animals won’t be tolerated, and an updates co-sheltering manual that is now available, among other items about the link between animal abuse and human violence.

Animals Across Discipline, Time & Space ,   an exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, continues through March 21, 2020. The exhibition uses are to explore the role of animals in the Anthropocene era by bringing together works by five North American artists who use animal imagery to critically address how animals — including humans — interact with the world around us

In conjunction with the above exhibition, poet Joanna Lilley will present poems from her recently published book,  Endlings: A Collection of Poems about Extinct Animals . The poems give voice to  the last individual of a species or sub-species. 

HAS Graduate Programs

The Defend Them All Foundation (DTA) is conducting a  two-week, graduate-level externship in Ecuador this Summer . The program affords students the opportunity to explore legal issues affecting animals in Ecuador. This opportunity is open to both law and non-law graduate students. Academic credit can be arranged pending the approval of accredited institutions. DTA is dedicated to improving the legal protection of animals and their habitats. DTA works directly with advocates in target localities striving to make a difference through community education, legislation, and effective enforcement.  The deadline is March 15, 2020.

The Fauna Foundation is offering two rigorous internship programs that combine training in compassionate care for nonhuman primates with experience in non-invasive behavioral studies. The programs are suitable for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students in various academic backgrounds (e.g. Anthropology, Biology, Psychology, Linguistics, Philosophy, etc.). For more information about academic internships, please contact Dr. Mary Lee Jensvold at  jensvold@faunafoundation.org .

Funding and Job Opportunities
A three-year, post-doctoral  Research Officer in Animal Sentience   is being recruited for Dr Jonathan Birch’s Foundations of Animal Sentience (ASENT) project, through the   Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. The candidate should have expertise in comparative psychology or neuroscience, and will conduct innovative and significant research as part of the ASENT team, including lab work on bee cognition with scientific collaborators at Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London.  Deadline for applications is March 6, 2020.

The Tiny Bean Fund  Spring 2020 Research Planning Grants applications  for projects related to problems and negative impacts of industrial food animal production—terrestrial as well as aquatic (a.k.a. factory farming) especially in low- and middle-income countries.  Deadline is March 13, 2020.  Address questions to:  min@tinybeamfund.org .

The Society for Companion Animal Studies (SCAS) is releasing a three-year funding scheme  to support research, which furthers our understanding of the human-animal bond. For funding to be considered by SCAS, projects or research must be specifically related to the human-animal bond. Currently prioritized focuses are: animal assisted interventions, particularly with children; the human-companion animal relationship; and cross disciplinary working, among others.  Grant proposals are due    March 31, 2020.  Direct queries to  info@scas.org.uk .

Carroll College, a private, Catholic diocesan, Liberal Arts College (Helena, Montana) invites  applications for a full-time faculty member in the Anthrozoology department . In the context of Carroll’s mission-based focus on blending the liberal arts with strong pre-professional programs, a major component of the position is teaching, learning and assessment of undergraduate students in various areas of Anthrozoology. The program has strong equine and canine component.  Closing date is March 31st, 2020.  

The application process for the  Institute for Human-Animal Connection's two-year Post-MSW Research Fellowship  is now open. Master of Social Work (MSW) graduates who plan to pursue a career in social science research or program evaluation, specifically those interested in understanding the impacts of the intersections between people, other animals and the environment, are encouraged to apply. We are especially interested in considering applications from members of underrepresented groups, first generation college graduates or those who work on topics related to these issues.  Applications are due April 1, 2020. 

The Center for Biological Diversity is searching for  a Staff Scientist-Endangered Species  to advocate for the conservation of endangered species at its Portland, Oregon location. The position will involve working with a team of attorneys, communications specialists and advocates to protect endangered species across the United States. Contact Noah Greenwald , Endangered Species Director.

Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA is recruiting for  an Assistant Professor, Human-Animal Interactions  in the Animal Behavior program with a Ph.D. or equivalent in Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Behavior, Anthrozoology, or a related field, or D.V.M. with expertise in these areas. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Contact Susan Lewis .


New Books
Following are some of the books out this month that we are excited about!

Broom, D.M. and Johnson, K.G. (2019).  Stress and Animal Welfare: Key Issues in the Biology of Humans and Other Animals , 2nd ed. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.  doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32153-6


Guest, Kristen and Mattfield, Monica. (2019).  Horse Breeds and Human Society: Purity, Identity and the Making of the Modern Horse . Routledge.

Lilley, Joanna. (2020).   Endlings: A Collection of Poems about Extinct Animals . Winnipeg, Canada: Turnstone Press.


Meijer, Eva. (2020).  Animal Languages: The Secret Conversations of the Living World . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

Ravindr anathan, Thangam. (2020).  Behold an Animal: Four Exorbitant Readings . Evanston: Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.


New HAS Journal Articles and Chapters
Following are some of the research articles and book chapters published this month in the field of Human-Animal Studies.

Special Issue

A special Issue of the open access journal,  Animals , themed " Positive Aspects of Animal Welfare ," is now available.

New Articles

Kira Bernauer, Hanna Kollross, Aurelia Schuetz, Kate Farmer & Konstanze Krueger. (2020).  How do horses ( Equus caballus ) learn from observing human action?   Animal Cognition ,  23 , 1–9.

Cruzada, Santiago M., Ruiz-Ballesteros, Esteban and Del Campo Tejedor, Alberto. (2019).  Deception in practice: Hunting and bullfighting entanglements in southern Spain . HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory , 9(3): 514–528.

Franks, Becca; Webb, Christine; Gagliano, Monica; and Smuts, Barbara (2020).  Conventional science will not do justice to nonhuman interests: A fresh approach is required Animal Sentience , 27(17).


Hoy-Gerlach, J. Vincent, A. and Hector, B.L. (2019)  Emotional Support Animals in the United States: Emergent Guidelines for Mental Health Clinicians.   Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health ,  6 , 199–208.


Rosenberg, S., Riggs, D.W., Taylor, N. and Fraser, H. (2020) 'Being together really helped': Australian transgender and non-binary people and their animal companions living through violence and marginalization. Journal of Sociology https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319896413

Schrimpf, Amy, Single, Marie-Sophie and Nawroth, Christian. (2020). Social Referencing in the Domestic Horse. Animals , 10(1), 164.  https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10010164

Serpell, J.A., Kruger, K.A., Freeman, L.M, Griffin, J.A., and Ng, Z.Y. (2020). Current Standards and Practices Within the Therapy Dog Industry: Results of a Representative Survey of United States Therapy Dog Organizations.  Frontiers in Veterinary Science.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.00035

Vincenti, A., McDonald, S., Poe, B. and Deisner, V. (2019).  The Link Between Interpersonal Violence and Animal Abuse.   Society Register,  3(3): 83-101.

Wright, Laura, Ed. (2020).  Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism. U of Nevada Press.  ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment , isaa007,  https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isaa007 .

Calls for Papers: Journals
The  Journal of Vertebrate Biology   is pleased to announce an upcoming Special Issue, “Dogs and conservation: current and emerging considerations,” with Guest Editors Dr. K. Whitehouse-Tedd (Nottingham Trent University, UK), Dr. N. Richards and Dr. M. Parker (both from Working Dogs for Conservation, USA).  The deadline is March 31, 2020. Contact:  katherine.whitehousetedd@ntu.ac.uk  and CC the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Carl Smith .

Human Animal Interaction (HAI) Section of the American Psychological Association has issued a Call for Papers for a special issue covering “Therapies Incorporating Horses to Benefit People: What are They and How are They Distinct?”  The deadline for manuscript submittal is November 30, 2020.  Please direct any inquiries (e.g., suitability, format, scope, etc.) about this special issue to the guest editor: Wendy Wood .

Calls for Papers: Conferences
and Workshops
A session on  Buddhism and Animal Ethics  is planned for the 2020 American Academy of Religion Conference.  No deadline given.  Contact Geoffrey Barstow for more information.

The  European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) conference  with the theme, "Farming for carbon neutral livestock systems," will take place in Porto, Portugal August 21-September 4, 2020.  Abstracts are welcome through March 1, 2020.

Coordinated by the University of Derby, the  Life Without Animals: The Second (Un)Common Worlds Conference  is slated for July 14-16, 2020 in Derby, UK. The conference invites proposals from all disciplines and fields in response to our title, Life With and Without Animals.  Deadline is March, 13 2020.  They are particularly interested in responses to the following themes, but will consider others that relate to the conference title:
·      Encounters and interventions
·      Spaces of empathy and loss
·      In and out of sight
·      Shared environments

A call is out for  presentations for a panel on “Pathogenic entanglements and multispecies encounters: what narratives for what responsibilities?” at the forthcoming  Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK & Commonwealth Annual Conference,  ASA 2020: RESPONSIBILITY, which will take place at the University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, 24-27 August 2020. Abstract: The One Health agenda seeks to redress excessive anthropocentrism in disease-management but creates new biopolitical hierarchies of pets and pests. What responsibilities—as causality and accountability—are framed and contested in narratives of pathogenic multispecies entanglements? Contact: Rosie Sims or Emmanuelle Roth.

The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) conference  is upcoming October 7-11, 2020 in Zagreb, Croatia. Panel organizers have issued a CfP for the session,  Anthropologists, Other Humans and Non-Humans in the Waters of Middle East , with a  deadline of March 23, 2020.

Students and young professionals in science, humanities and the arts working on marine mammal conservation, welfare and rights are invited to submit abstracts for the Student-Advocacy Session at the Superpod 7 conference, July 20-24, 2020, Friday Harbor, Washington, USA. Contact Dr. Lori Marino  or Mariah Kirby Deadline is May 15, 2020.

The  Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University  is again hosting two summer programs—a four-day “Foundation in Bioethics” will run from June 9-12 and a seven-week Summer Institute in Bioethics (June 8-July 25).  Admissions are rolling until the classes are full. Students have a wide range of choices for seminar topics including Medical Ethics, Ethics of Climate Change, Policy Analysis for Bioethicists, Medical Humanities (often offered in both Spanish and English), Bioethics and the Law, Public Health Ethics, Military Ethics, Animal Ethics, Moral Reasoning, Ethics of Information, Tech-Ethics, and many more. Contact us at  bioethics@Yale.edu  to discuss the program. 

Save the date

The Faculty of Kinesiology of the University of New Brunswick is hosting a two-day conference on Sport, Animals, Ethics, May 26-28, 2021. Paper proposals will be welcomed from all disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Watch for the Call for Abstracts in October 2020. For more information, contact Gabriela Tymowski-Gionet  tymowski@unb.ca  and Sam Morris  morrissp@miamioh.edu .

The Minding Animals— Animals and Climate Emergency Conference  (ACEC) conference and events will be held over 22 to 29 July, 2021, in Sydney, Australia, in a central Sydney city venue. A conference registration website and the call for abstracts will appear mid-year. In the meantime, please see  mindinganimals.com  for further information. For information, please contact Rod Bennison at  acec@mindinganimals.com  

Meetings, Conferences and Presentations
Below are upcoming meetings and conferences for which the submission deadlines have passed, or for which submissions were not requested.

Animal Therapies Ltd (ATL)—devoted to advancing the understanding, acceptance and accessibility of animal-assisted services for those in need—is holding a  two-day Animal-Assisted Services Sector Conference  at the Parkroyal Melbourne Airport, Australia, on February 20-21, 2020. 

The  Therapy Animal Expo: Animal-Assisted Therapy Symposium  will take place March 7, 2020 at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville.

Animals Across Discipline, Time & Space  is a day of readings, performances, video and discussion aimed toward ways of being animal together. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario Canada, March 21, 2020.

The International Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence  will take place April 1-3, 2020 at Oxford University, UK, with short courses March 30-31 leading up to the conference. 

Environmental Justice in Multispecies Worlds: Land, Water, Food.  March 6-8, 2020.  University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Winged Geographies: Birds in Space and Imagination . April 16-17, 2020, University of Cambridge. 

Vegetarian Epiphanies. From Realization to Changing Eating Habits. April 16-17, 2020,  Rennes , France, and May 28-29, 2020,  Santa Barbara , California, USA.

Animaterialities: The Material Culture of Animals (including Humans) .  Sixteenth Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars. April 24–25, 2020, University of Delaware.

Animals on the Mind 4.0:  Humane Communities: Diversity, inclusion and welfare in human-animal-environment interactions , May 14-15, 2020, University of Denver, Colorado. 

The Inaugural Conference of the North American Association for Critical Animal Studies (NAACAS) with the theme  Critical Animal Studies in an Age of Mass Extinction  will take place May 27-29, 2020, University of British Columbia Okanagan.

The 29th  International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) Annual Conference  will occur June 29th - July 3rd, 2020 at the University of Liverpool in Liverpool, UK. The conference theme is “One Health, One Welfare: Wellbeing for all human-animal interactions.”


HAS Law and Policy
This intermittent section of the HAS e-Newsletter includes selected commentary and information on academic inquiry, legal developments, and proposed and enacted legislative actions related to animal policy, in the space where nonhuman animal interests meet politics and the law.

The  College & Research Libraries News  has released an  Introduction to animal law: Resources for online research and study.  The open access publication includes animal law
LibGuides, programs of study, case law sources, open access animal law journals, state animal law rankings, and sources on Federal and State cruelty statutes.

Presentations and Commentary

The New York City Bar Association is hosting a panel discussion,  Animal Rights and Feminism: An Intersectional Approach , Thursday, April 16, 2020 from 6:30-8:30 PM. Panelists include: Mathilde Cohen, Professor, University of Connecticut Law School, Sherry F. Colb, Professor, Cornell Law School, Lori Gruen, Professor, Wesleyan University, and Robyn Hederman, Fellow, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics & Member, Animal Law Committee.

An insightful column by Sherry F. Colb,  “Should Animals Be Allowed to Sue?” , analyzes the concept of animals as legal “persons” using as a springboard a civil suit case brought by the  Animal Legal Defense  Fund for a terribly neglected Quarter Horse named Justice (Justice v. Gwendolyn Vercher). In related news,  an orangutan was granted legal personhood  by a judge in Argentina and later found a new home in Florida.

Books, Chapters and Articles

Abbate, C.E. (2020).  Animal Rights and the Duty to Harm: When to be a Harm Causing Deontologist . Zeitschrift für Ethik und Moralphilosophie: Journal for Ethics and Moral Philosophy.

Cao, D. (2020). Is the Concept of Animal Welfare Incompatible with Chinese Culture?  Society & Animals.   DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-12341587 /

Ditrich, Han. (2020).  Illegal Trading in Endangered Animal and Plant Species from an Austrian Perspective . European Law Enforcement Research Bulletin.

Madzwamuse, M., Rihoy, E. and Louis, M. (2020). Contested Conservation: Implications for Rights, Democratization, and Citizenship in Southern Africa.  Society for International Development https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-020-00237-1

Simnett, Dorothy Jean. (2019).  The Political Animal: The Animal Rights Movement and Public Policy . [PhD Diss. NSU Florida]. 

D Waltz, D. (2020).  The “Embarrassing” Endangered Species Act: Beyond Collective Rights for Species . Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2020.

Zier, Emily R. (2020).  Which one to follow? Service animal policy in the United States Disability and Health Journal . (In press). [A review of current federal and state policies regarding service animals.]

International Law and Policy

Australia:  Legislation is being introduced  by the Western Australia government that ban puppy farms and sale of puppies from pet shops, and track dogs throughout their lives using a central registration system.

Australia: Queensland, Australia Parliament has passed  the Agriculture and Other Legislation Amendment Bill , increasing fines and jail time for activists seeking to expose animal cruelty. The new laws come into effect soon and include fines of up to $60,000 and one year in jail for breaching biosecurity, expanding unlawful assembly offences, and new offences for unlawful entry to just about any land where animals are abused.

Canada:  Canada has officially banned the keeping and breeding of whales and dolphins . (However, the ban does not apply retroactively. The amusement park Marineland in the city of Niagara Falls and the aquarium in Vancouver, which are the only marine mammals in Canada, may, therefore, keep their animals.) 

China: On 4 February, China announced plans to permanently ban wildlife trade and to increase supervision around wet markets as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

France: In a move cautiously welcomed by animal welfare activists,  France has banned mass live-shredding of male chicks  and says it will the castration of piglets without anaesthesia.

Israel: In first pilot of its kind,  Israeli dairy won’t separate calves from mothers . (The project will allow female calves to stay with mothers until weaning, but male calves will still be separated, sent off for fattening and slaughter.)

Tanzania:  The Rhino population has surged 1,000% in Tanzania  following a crackdown on poaching. 

United States Law and Policy
Federal:

On January 29, 2020,  the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee voted to reverse Trump Administration harmful changes to Endangered Species Act  by approving the Protect America’s Wildlife and Fish in Need of Conservation Act (the PAW and FIN Conservation Act), H.R. 4348. 

 

Also in early February,  animal protection groups sued  the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, and the United States Department of Agriculture in federal court for failing to protect pigs who are too sick or injured to walk at slaughterhouses,

In February,  a lawsuit prompted the shutdown of a panel of trophy hunters appointed by the Trump administration  to advise the federal government on international wildlife trade policy.

State:

Following a surge of 37 horse deaths in 2019, and three more since the beginning of this year at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia,  a bill (AB 2177 ) has been introduced  in the California Assembly that, if passed, would enact comprehensive reforms and improvements to racing and eliminate serious contributing factors to equine deaths   on racetracks.

Delaware Lawmakers  has passed a groundbreaking bill  to allow titer testing in lieu of rabies vaccine, which is risky for animals who are sick, disabled, injured, or have other medical considerations that make vaccination a risk to the animal’s health and life.

The Idaho Senate Resources and Environment Committee Jan. 22  voted to introduce legislation  that would designate “wolf-free” and “chronic depredation” zones, creating more opportunities to hunt wolves year-round.

Proposed legislation in Illinois  aims to give dogs, cats legal representation in abuse cases, and create a county-by-county database of legal professionals, from lawyers to paralegals to experts on animal abuse, willing to step in on a dog or cat’s behalf when a person is facing punishment for neglecting or abusing them. 

A proposed New York law  would give a $125 tax credit to people who adopt rescue pets

As you can see, there is a tremendous amount of activity and progress going on today in the field of Human-Animal Studies, and 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 our Human-Animal Studies efforts!








Gala Argent, PhD
Program Director

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