In 2001, responding to the intertwined epistemic and material violence against creaturely life, scholars Anthony J. Nocella II and Steve Best delineated the burgeoning field of Critical Animal Studies (CAS)-proposing a discipline to interrogate the hegemony of anthropocentric thought. Aligned with these principles, the Critical Animal Studies Working Group proposes a method of inquiry that remains attentive to the presence of nonhuman animals within dominant critical and philosophical traditions. Through an engagement with prescient debates that weave around questions of animality, entanglement, and sovereignty, we aim to read both influential and recent academic works in CAS to address the following question(s): What new modes of reading and relational thinking emerge when nonhuman life is taken seriously as a site of knowledge rather than merely an object of analysis? How do Black, Indigenous, and ecofeminist thought complicate, reshape, or even resist the epistemological assumptions that undergird CAS? And most importantly, how can theory-in its own modest forms-help us think through responses to the polycrises of the present (including ecological collapse and mass extinction)?
Leads
- James Cahill, Associate Professor, Cinema Studies/French
- Naisargi N. Davé, Professor, Anthropology
- Parth Pant, PhD Student, Cinema Studies
Faculty Members, University of Toronto
- Nadine Chan, Assistant Professor, Cinema Studies
- Christoph Emmrich, Associate Professor, Historical Studies/Study of Religion
- Angelica Fenner, Professor, Cinema Studies/German
- Kajri Jain, Professor, Art History/Visual Studies
- Ina Karkani, Postdoctoral Fellow/Sessional Lecturer, German
- Rory Lindsay, Associate Professor, Study of Religion
- Brian Price, Professor and Chair, Cinema Studies/ Visual Studies
- Roshaya Rodness, Sessional Instructor, Cinema Studies
- Matthew Walton, Associate Professor, Political Science
- Elizabeth Wijaya, Assistant Professor, Visual Studies/Cinema Studies
Faculty Members, Outside University of Toronto
- Cáel M. Keegan, Associate Professor, Film and Moving Image Studies/Fine Arts, Concordia University
- Kelly Struthers Montford, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University
Graduate Students, University of Toronto
- Hayden Bytheway, PhD Candidate, Cinema Studies
- Winter Faddick, Master’s Student, Cinema Studies
- Brandon Fawkes, PhD Student, Cinema Studies
- Tamar Hanstke (PhD Candidate, Cinema Studies
- Jixin Jia, PhD Candidate, Cinema Studies
- Bill Kroeger, PhD Candidate, English
- Nicole Liao, PhD Candidate, Art History
- Yanqiu Lin, PhD Student, Cinema Studies
- Alexandra Meghji, JD student, Jackman Faculty of Law
- Orrin Pavone, PhD Student, Cinema Studies
- Suntisuk Prabunya, PhD Student, Comparative Literature
- Evelia Raphael, Master’s Student, French
- Janelle Rowsell, PhD Student, Cinema Studies
- Avneet Sharma, PhD Student, Cinema Studies/Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies
- Colin Spencer, Master’s Student, English
- Taki Duo Wang, PhD Candidate, Cinema Studies
- Fan Xu, PhD Student, French
Graduate Students, Outside University of Toronto
- Vanessa Bateman, Postdoctoral Fellow, Trent University
- Luka Kuplowsky, PhD Candidate, Cinema and Media Studies, York University
- Sam Thompson, PhD Candidate, Film and Moving Image Studies, Concordia University
Undergraduate Students, University of Toronto
- Benjamin Fitzgerald, Mathematics and Computer Science
- Faith McDonald, Environmental Geography and Religion