S2E6: Interspecies Subjectivity with Lauren Corman
Claudia speaks to Lauren Corman about interspecies subjectivity unpacking what subjectivity itself could mean and why it is so important to consider how it is shaped by species. They reflect on threads scholars need to hold in tension when trying to understand experience and using such theoretically dense concepts.
Dr. Lauren Corman is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Brock University. Hired as the first professor to specialize in critical animal studies, Lauren teaches about animals and contemporary social theory. Lauren previously hosted the Animal Voices radio show, an animal advocacy program dedicated to social justice – which continued to be hosted by collective of scholars when she departed in 2010. Inspired by her mentors in Environmental Studies (Drs. Leesa Fawcett, Connie Russell, and Cate Sandilands), Lauren continues to interrogate “the question of the animal(s)” from intersectional, decolonial, and anti-capitalist perspectives. Her current foci include trauma, sociality, and interspecies subjectivity. Lauren is the co-editor of Animal Subjects 2.0., as well as a popular piece titled From Wet Markets to Meatpacking: Why Animal Advocacy Fails without Anti-Racism. She wrote a chapter in Colonialism and Animality: Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies, edited by Kelly Struthers Montford, Chloë Taylor, and is working on a book about the complex histories of vilified animals (Twitter @Lauren Corman; Instagram @fugazitarian).
Mentioned:
The Companion Species Manifesto by Donna Haraway;
Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses by Chandra Mohanty;
Encounters with Animal Minds by Barbara Smuts;
Dangerous Crossings by Claire Jean Kim;
Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor;
Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animals by Barbara Noske.
"Satisfied as they have been with the gulf between human subjects and animal objects, most social scientists have done nothing to fill the gap between humans and animals -- instead they have remained essentially passive, never bothering to ask what human-animal continuity means in their own sphere. What is more, they have been bending over backwards in what they thought would be the best defence of humanity's uniqueness, meanwhile surrendering the whole tricky terrain of continuity to the devices of the reductionistic and objectifying biological sciences" (Barbara Noske, Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animals)
Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast, Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, and Jeremy John for the logo.