The Animals & Society Research Initiative at the University of Victoria with support by the Brooks Animal Studies Academic Network and the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law & Policy will host an Emerging Scholars Workshop in Law, Animals, and Society for law students, graduate students, and early-career scholars focused on socio-legal analyses aimed at producing positive interventions for animals in law and society. The Workshop will be hold at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Kelowna, British Columbia on May 26-27, 2020.
The Workshop is intended to be a premier socio-legal and critical animal forum where emerging scholars can receive close attention to their animal-centered work and benefit from productive feedback in view of publication from experienced scholars in the field. The Workshop is also designed to be a forum to enable participants to engage closely with the work of their peers and interact with senior scholars in a smaller setting. It is an event aimed at nurturing the next generation of socio-legal scholars and scholarship in animal rights, law, and policy through inspiring conversations and connections and generating scholarly community.
Eligibility: We warmly invite applications from law students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other early-career scholars in the first three years of their first academic faculty appointment (not counting formal leaves) to submit written drafts of socio-legal works-in progress that apply an anti-anthropocentric or animal-centered lens to considerations of law, policy, and social problems implicating questions of interspecies relations. Participants from all disciplines and both traditional academic papers and creative research outputs are welcome. Submissions from scholars from socially marginalized backgrounds, those engaging a critical animal studies lens, and works focused on concrete legal and policy initiatives, are particularly welcome.
Format: The Workshop will take place at UBC-Okanagan immediately before the Inaugural Conference of the North American Association for Critical Animal Studies. Approximately 10 to 12 participants will be selected with 45 minutes dedicated to the discussion of each participant’s work-in-progress. Participants will have up to 5 minutes to situate their work-
in-progress within their larger areas of research and then the faculty discussant will provide constructive feedback over the next 10 minutes; the conversation will then be opened to the entire group to give comments to the author for the remaining half hour. Senior discussants, as well as all other participants at each session, will have read/reviewed the paper/creative research output in advance. At the closing lunch on the second day, career mentoring sessions will be held in small breakout groups with senior discussants to provide an opportunity to discuss research, publication, knowledge sharing, and career advice.
How to Apply: Please send: 1) a 2-page CV; 2) an abstract of or introduction to the paper or creative output (of 250 to 500 words) which should specify the research problem you are addressing, your thesis/argument, main theoretical frameworks, and methodology; and 3) a brief statement of intent as to why you wish to participate in the Workshop (of 200 to 350 words) by January 2, 2020, midnight, Pacific Standard Time to Holly Cecil at asri.uvic@gmail.com using the Subject Line “Emerging Scholars Workshop – Your Name”. Please send all three application elements in one PDF file labelled as follows: (Your first and last name Emerging Scholars Workshop Application). Applicants will be notified as to whether their application has been accepted by February 13, 2020.
Questions may be directed to Professor and Lansdowne Chair Maneesha Deckha, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria at mdeckha@uvic.ca or (250) 721-8175.
Read the full call here.
