Dr Richard Twine has published a new blog post ‘Critical Animal Studies and the work of Decolonizing (Academic) Anthropocentrism‘. You can read it here
CfHAS Co-Director Richard Twine a co-author on major new article on moving beyond an animal-based food system
Published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (part of the Nature suite of journals) and led by Carol Morris (University of Nottingham) and Minna Kaljonen (Finnish Environmental Institute) the paper scopes international research in the social sciences and humanities related to the societal grand challenge of moving beyond animal-based food systems to address overlapping crises of climate change, health and biodiversity. Inspired by the ‘Sutherland Method’ the paper discusses the results of an iterative research prioritisation process carried out to enhance capacity, mutual understanding and impact amongst European social sciences and humanities researchers. The process produced 15 research questions from an initial list of 100 and classified under the following five themes: (1) debating and visioning food from animals; (2) transforming agricultural spaces; (3) framing animals as food; (4) eating practices and identities; and (5) governing transitions beyond animal-based food systems. These themes provide an important means of making connections between research questions that invite and steer research on key challenges in moving beyond animal-based food systems. The article is open access and can be downloaded here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00714-z.pdf
CfHAS to host EACAS 2021 Conference
The Centre for Human-Animal Studies will virtually host the biennial conference of the European Association for Critical Animal Studies (EACAS) on June 24-25th 2021. The Call for Papers is now live here: https://sites.edgehill.ac.uk/cfhas/eacas-2021/ .
New research for The Vegan Society
CfHAS members have completed new research for The Vegan Society. The research team – Professor Claire Parkinson, Dr Richard Twine, Dr Claire Blennerhassett and Lara Herring- looked at how women respond to vegan messages about animal ethics. The findings from the research will be published in the future.
UKRI AHRC Multispecies storytelling network
Professor Claire Parkinson is PI of a new UKRI AHRC funded network: Multispecies storytelling: more than human narratives about landscape. The network will run from December 2019 to November 2021. Co-I of the network is Professor Brett Mills (UEA). The network held its first event on 17th January 2020; a symposium with the title: ‘Who speaks on behalf of nature?’.
New book on animals and anthropomorphism
Professor Claire Parkinson’s new book Animals, Anthropomorphism and Mediated Encounters has been published by Routledge.
We need to talk about climate change
CfHAS co-directors talk about children and climate change https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/news/2019/03/we-need-to-talk-about-climate-change/
Pathways to Veganism
The CfHAS research team working on the Pathways to Veganism project, funded by The Vegan Society, have completed the first stage of the project. The team have reported on the initial findings of a questionnaire completed by over 1600 survey participants. The questionnaire asked participants about their understanding of veganism and gathered insights into how non-vegans view the health and environmental aspects of a vegan lifestyle.
Conference Registration and Provisional Programme
New Visiting PhD Student from Brazil – Karynn Capilé
In late March 2017 we welcomed our first international visiting PhD student Karynn Capilé. Arriving from the Fluminense Federal University by Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 
Karynn will be staying with CfHAS until July 2017. Her project is a media analysis of advertising in the Brazilian meat and dairy industry. She plans to add a comparative element with the UK during her time here. She also has interests in bioethics.
New CfHAS Visiting Professor
We are delighted to welcome Professor Jody Berland (York University, Canada) as a CfHAS 
Visiting Professor. Jody is Principal Investigator on the Digital Animalities project which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Jody will deliver a research seminar paper ‘The animal is the medium: media history, medium theory, and the ghost of the giraffe’ on 5th April 2017.