Critical Perspectives on Veganism

Critical Perspectives on Veganism
Author: Jodey Castricano
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319334190

This book examines the ethics, politics and aesthetics of veganism in contemporary culture and thought. Traditionally a lifestyle located on the margins of western culture, veganism has now been propelled into the mainstream, and as agribusiness grows animal issues are inextricably linked to environmental impact as well as to existing ethical concerns. This collection connects veganism to a range of topics including gender, sexuality, race, the law and popular culture. It explores how something as basic as one’s food choices continue to impact on the cultural, political, and philosophical discourse of the modern day, and asks whether the normalization of veganism strengthens or detracts from the radical impetus of its politics. With a Foreword by Melanie Joy and Jens Tuidor, this book analyzes the mounting prevalence of veganism as it appears in different cultural shifts and asks how veganism might be rethought and re-practised in the twenty-first century.

Why Veganism Matters

Why Veganism Matters
Author: Gary L. Francione
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 023155320X

Most people care about animals, but only a tiny fraction are vegan. The rest often think of veganism as an extreme position. They certainly do not believe that they have a moral obligation to become vegan. Gary L. Francione—the leading and most provocative scholar of animal rights theory and law—demonstrates that veganism is a moral imperative and a matter of justice. He shows that there is a contradiction in thinking that animals matter morally if one is also not vegan, and he explains why this belief should logically lead all who hold it to veganism. Francione dismantles the conventional wisdom that it is acceptable to use and kill animals as long as we do so “humanely.” He argues that if animals matter morally, they must have the right not to be used as property. That means that we cannot eat them, wear them, use them, or otherwise treat them as resources or commodities. Why Veganism Matters presents the case for the personhood of nonhuman animals and for veganism in a clear and accessible way that does not require any philosophical or legal background. This book offers a persuasive and powerful argument for all readers who care about animals but are not sure whether they have a moral obligation to be vegan.

Law and Veganism

Law and Veganism
Author: Jeanette Rowley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2021-11-02
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1793622620

In our complex, consumerist societies, the intricacy of personal interactions and the number of goods and products available often prevents us from direct knowledge of what lies ‘behind’ food behaviors, ingredients, and the origins of the modern food and agriculture supply chain. Over the last decade or so, scholars, lawyers and engaged lay vegans have had many discussions about vegan rights and discrimination as issues intrinsic to animal rights, but the final frontier remains intact: the direct concerns of other animals. To give effect to the rights of animals, we must recognize and defend the human right—or duty, as many uphold-- to care about them. Including contributors from Australia, the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, this book explores the rights of vegans and how vegans can be protected from discrimination. Using an international socio-legal lens, the contributors discuss constitutional issues, vegan legal cases, the concept of protection for vegan ‘belief’ in human rights and equality law, the legal requirement to provide vegan food, animal agriculture and plant-based, vegan food in the context of the human right to food, and the rights of vegans in education and in health care. This book will be of interest to practicing lawyers, legal and critical legal scholars, scholars of vegan, and critical animal studies, and commentors on socio-political issues alike.

Understanding Veganism

Understanding Veganism
Author: Nathan Stephens Griffin
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319521020

This book focuses on the increasingly popular phenomenon of veganism, a way of living that attempts to exclude all animal products on ethical grounds. Using data from biographical interviews with vegans, the author untangles the complex topic of veganism to understand vegan identity from a critical and biographical perspective. Shaped by the participants’ biographical narratives, the study considers the diverse topics of family, faith, sexuality, gender, music, culture, embodiment and activism and how these influence the lives and identities of vegans. It also highlights the hostility vegans face, and how this hostility functions in the everyday, and intersects with other aspects of their identity and biography, exemplified through ‘coming out’ and ‘queer’ narratives of veganism. Understanding Veganism will be of particular interest to those engaged in the fields of biographical research, critical animal studies or more broadly with an interest in animal advocacy.

The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies

The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies
Author: Laura Wright
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 548
Release: 2021-03-31
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000364607

This wide-ranging volume explores the tension between the dietary practice of veganism and the manifestation, construction, and representation of a vegan identity in today’s society. Emerging in the early 21st century, vegan studies is distinct from more familiar conceptions of "animal studies," an umbrella term for a three-pronged field that gained prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s, consisting of critical animal studies, human animal studies, and posthumanism. While veganism is a consideration of these modes of inquiry, it is a decidedly different entity, an ethical delineator that for many scholars marks a complicated boundary between theoretical pursuit and lived experience. The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies is the must-have reference for the important topics, problems, and key debates in the subject area and is the first of its kind. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, this handbook is divided into five parts: History of vegan studies Vegan studies in the disciplines Theoretical intersections Contemporary media entanglements Veganism around the world These sections contextualize veganism beyond its status as a dietary choice, situating veganism within broader social, ethical, legal, theoretical, and artistic discourses. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers of vegan studies, animal studies, and environmental ethics.

The Vegan Studies Project

The Vegan Studies Project
Author: Laura Wright
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2015
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0820348554

Ranging widely across contemporary American society and culture, Wright unpacks the loaded category of vegan identity. Her specific focus is on the construction and depiction of the vegan body--both male and female--as a contested site manifest in contemporaryworks of literature, popular cultural representations, advertising, and new media.

Ethical Vegan

Ethical Vegan
Author: Jordi Casamitjana
Publisher: September Publishing
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2020-12-03
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1912836874

'Powerful and poignant.' Virginia McKenna OBE, Born Free Ethical veganism is not just a diet. Not just an opinion; nor a trend. This is a 21st-century revolution which began more than twenty centuries ago. Ethical veganism is not only about the food you choose to consume, it is a coherent philosophical belief that affects most areas of your life, and which could be the answer to today's global crises. Jordi Casamitjana is the vegan zoologist and animal protection campaigner whose landmark Employment Tribunal in 2020 made ethical veganism a protected belief in Great Britain. Ethical Vegan describes Jordi's extraordinary life and the animal encounters which led him to veganism and legal victory. It debunks myths and dispels preconceptions, offering a comprehensive analysis of veganism as a philosophy and as a socio-political transformative movement. Taking in history, science and everyday living, it explores how it is possible to dress ethically, travel, consume and work responsibly and, of course, eat well without compromising vegan ethics. Ethical Vegan is a riveting read - Jordi Casamitjana argues passionately for humans to interact with the world in a positive and compassionate way. This thought-provoking manifesto for doing no harm has the power to open people's minds and help to achieve a better future for all living things and the planet. As informative as it is incisive, as inspiring as it is inviting, this book will become one of the stand-out pieces of literature in the animal liberation movement. A must read whether you are vegan, vegetarian or otherwise!' Jay Brave

Beating Hearts

Beating Hearts
Author: Sherry F. Colb
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-03-08
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0231540957

How can someone who condemns hunting, animal farming, and animal experimentation also favor legal abortion, which is the deliberate destruction of a human fetus? The authors of Beating Hearts aim to reconcile this apparent conflict and examine the surprisingly similar strategic and tactical questions faced by activists in the pro-life and animal rights movements. Beating Hearts maintains that sentience, or the ability to have subjective experiences, grounds a being's entitlement to moral concern. The authors argue that nearly all human exploitation of animals is unjustified. Early abortions do not contradict the sentience principle because they precede fetal sentience, and Beating Hearts explains why the mere potential for sentience does not create moral entitlements. Late abortions do raise serious moral questions, but forcing a woman to carry a child to term is problematic as a form of gender-based exploitation. These ethical explorations lead to a wider discussion of the strategies deployed by the pro-life and animal rights movements. Should legal reforms precede or follow attitudinal changes? Do gory images win over or alienate supporters? Is violence ever principled? By probing the connections between debates about abortion and animal rights, Beating Hearts uses each highly contested set of questions to shed light on the other.

Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture

Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture
Author: Emelia Quinn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2018-05-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 331973380X

This collection explores what the social and philosophical aspects of veganism offer to critical theory. Bringing together leading and emerging scholars working in animal studies and critical animal studies, Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture shows how the experience of being vegan, and the conditions of thought fostered by veganism, pose new questions for work across multiple disciplines. Offering accounts of veganism which move beyond contemporary conceptualizations of it as a faddish dietary preference or set of proscriptions, it explores the messiness and necessary contradictions involved in thinking about or practicing a vegan way of life. By thinking through as well as about veganism, the project establishes the value of a vegan mode of reading, writing, looking, and thinking.