We frequently publish various animal-related calls for papers (CFP) here on Our Hen House. But one thing that we’ve mentioned in the past but bears repeating is that you don’t need to wait for a specifically animal-focused CFP before you write a paper centered on animal rights. On the contrary, one of the ways that we will effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals is to use any means necessary to speak up for them — even if that means stretching your mind a bit and finding a way to bring the “AR” dialogue into broader circles, academic and beyond.
The most recent thing to make me think of this was an email I received from Gretchen Primack, whose animal rights related poetry was featured in a video we made for our Art of the Animal series. Notably, Gretchen is also the co-author — with Jenny Brown — of The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals. Gretchen recently emailed me to tell me about a poetry contest she is organizing for Jewish Currents Magazine, with the theme of “The American Dream.” The prizes are plentiful, and include a grand prize of $1,000 (as well as publication). I certainly do not need to spell out for you aspiring poets the various connections you can draw between “The American Dream” and animal rights. This is a clear example of a way in…
After reading her email, I started googling “Calls for Papers” with various words after it, like “philosophy,” “feminism,” and so forth. Now, I am not a person who inhabits “academic circles,” so when I found the absolute plethora of currently available CFP, I pretty much plotzed. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but there are entire websites bursting at the seams with CFPs that can easily be related to animal rights. I mean really, what conversations can’t be applied to AR? I maintain that you can steer any conversation into AR talk. Why not penetrate the world of academia, and of poetry contests, with our message of compassion?
Here’s just a few ideas for you:
- The Bowling Green Workshop in Applied Ethics & Public Policy has a Call for Abstracts on The Ethics of Self-Defense.
- The University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles are asking grad students to submit papers in all areas of philosophy.
- The Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network “seeks to bring together scholars across a range of fields who are interested in feminist legal theory,” and “there is no pre-set theme to which papers must conform, other than that they relate to feminism in some way.”
- Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, has an upcoming deadline for a special issue on climate change.
- The University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center on Applied Feminism seeks submissions for its Sixth Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference. This year’s theme is “Applied Feminism and Families.”
The list seriously goes on and on and on… Just start googling, and start writing.
