A book by SSPSSR Sociology Lecturer Dr Corey Wrenn has been shortlisted for an award by VegfestUK – with public voting deciding the winner.
VegfestUK organise vegan festivals across the UK and online. Their annual awards are a celebration of all things vegan – this year, 210 nominees are up for a range of awards across 21 different categories. Dr Wrenn’s book Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (SUNY Press, 2021) is one of ten nominated in the ‘Best Vegan Book’ category.
Animals in Irish Society is the first to offer an exploration of vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism. It contributes to the growing field of postcolonial Critical Animal Studies by applying theories of vegan feminism and vegan socialism to the Irish context.
Public voting opened on Wednesday 1 December and closes on Tuesday 14 December at midnight. The results will be announced on Saturday 18 December at 18.00 as part of Global Vegfest Online.
Book summary:
Irish vegan studies are poised for increasing relevance as climate change threatens the legitimacy and longevity of animal agriculture and widespread health problems related to animal product consumption disrupt long held nutritional ideologies. Already a top producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, Ireland has committed to expanding animal agriculture despite impending crisis. The nexus of climate change, public health, and animal welfare present a challenge to the hegemony of the Irish state and neoliberal European governance. Efforts to resist animal rights and environmentalism highlight the struggle to sustain economic structures of inequality in a society caught between a colonialist past and a globalized future. Animals in Irish Society explores the vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism. From its zoomorphic pagan roots to its legacy of vegetarianism, Ireland has been more receptive to the interests of other animals than is currently acknowledged. More than a land of “meat” and potatoes, Ireland is a relevant, if overlooked, contributor to Western vegan thought.
Dr Wrenn is Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements at Kent. Her research builds on social movement theory to explore relationships between humans and other animals and animal liberation efforts. Her work also explores the role of factionalism in social movements under the shadow of movement professionalisation. Frequently, she prioritises feminist theory to examine animal rights mobilisation efforts. She is the author of several books, including A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory and Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits.
At SSPSSR, Dr Wrenn teaches on undergraduate sociology programmes and the postgraduate Social and Political Movements module (SO822).