ISSN: 1948-352X Volume 10 Issue 3 2012 Journal for Critical Animal Studies Special issue Inquiries and Intersections: Queer Theory and Anti-Speciesist Praxis Guest Editor: Jennifer Grubbs 1 ISSN: 1948-352X Volume 10 Issue 3 2012 EDITORIAL BOARD GUEST EDITOR Jennifer Grubbs [email protected] ISSUE EDITOR Dr. Richard J White [email protected] EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE Dr. Matthew Cole [email protected] Vasile Stanescu [email protected] Dr. Susan Thomas [email protected] Dr. Richard Twine [email protected] Dr. Richard J White [email protected] ASSOCIATE EDITORS Dr. Lindgren Johnson [email protected] Laura Shields [email protected] FILM REVIEW EDITORS Dr. Carol Glasser [email protected] Adam Weitzenfeld [email protected] EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD For more information about the JCAS Editorial Board, and a list of the members of the Editorial Advisory Board, please visit the Journal for Critical Animal Studies website: http://journal.hamline.edu/index.php/jcas/index 2 Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012 (ISSN1948-352X) JCAS Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012 EDITORIAL BOARD ............................................................................................................. 2 GUEST EDITORIAL .............................................................................................................. 4 ESSAYS From Beastly Perversions to the Zoological Closet: Animals, Nature, and Homosex Jovian Parry .............................................................................................................................. 7 Toward a Dark Animal Studies: On Vegetarian Vampires, Beautiful Souls, and Becoming- Vegan James Stanescu ....................................................................................................................... 26 A Queer Vegan Manifesto Rasmus Rahbek Simonsen...................................................................................................... 51 Operation Splash Back!: Queering Animal Liberation Through the Contributions of Neo-Insurrectionist Queers Michael Loadenthal ................................................................................................................ 81 STRATEGY AND TACTIC ANALYSIS Strategies for Liberation Debra Erenberg ..................................................................................................................... 110 COMIC A Queer Approach to Speciesism Nathan Stephens Griffen ..................................................................................................... 119 FILM REVIEWS The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) Reviewed by Jennifer Grubbs ............................................................................................... 128 JCAS: AUTHOR GUIDELINES........................................................................................ 133 3 Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012 (ISSN1948-352X) GUEST EDITORIAL Queering the que(e)ry of Speciesism It is inherently queer to disrupt the normative tropes of hierarchy that naturalize speciesism. Or is it? How queer is critical animal studies? If speciesism is the normative ideology, then anti-speciesist thought functions as a queer act within academia. Although a great deal has been written on queer thought and critical animal studies, these discussions primarily exist in isolation from one another. Thus, we, as critical animal studies scholars, should ask ourselves how critical thought itself is intercepted, co-opted, re-appropriated, and constrained to fit within a single-politic agenda. Further, we must interrogate the ways in which we are alienated from our colleagues and insurrectionary comrades who contribute to queer thought. The ability to collaborate between critical discourses and movements are impeded by the capital control of the Academy itself. Through a process of intellectual commodification, the ability to produce and consume critical thought is marked by privilege. The attributes used to demarcate critical thought from academic critical thought are marked by the capital value of thought itself. In the competition-driven neoliberal Academy, intellectual thought is constrained by a market-driven individualism. The following issue advances the destabalization of species privilege within a discourse of queer thought. Each author interrupts hegemonic understandings of speciesism through a queer framework. This special issue of the journal provides a range of ways to think about the possibilities of a queer critical animal studies. The articles present intersectional praxis in a variety of ways; theoretical essays, a plenary address delivered at the Animal Rights 2011 National Conference in Los Angeles, a comic strip, and a film review. This issue attempts to queer academic understandings of praxis, and provide critical animal scholars the imaginary to envision an Academy not predicated on our commodified thought. The Issue begins with four Essays. The first, "From Beastly Perversions to the Zoological Closet: Animals, Nature, and Homosex" is written by Jovian Parry. Parry examines the ways in which queer other-than-human animals are erased from scientific understandings of sexuality. He further argues that the homogenization of other-than-human animal sexuality into heteronormative pathologies is appropriated to naturalize human sexuality. Parry moves 4 Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012 (ISSN1948-352X) the discussion of pathologized sexuality into a queer critique of anthropomorphic hetero- washing. The second essay, “Toward a Dark Animal Studies: On Vegetarian Vampires, Beautiful Souls, and Becoming- Vegan,” is written by James Stanescu. Stanescu integrates Dark Animal Studies into both queer thought and Critical Animal Studies (CAS). Stanescu utilizes Dark Animal Studies and the ways in which a queering of the human/vampire imaginary opens the possibilities of a CAS that challenges assumptions about rhetorical representations of ‘fringe’ cultures. There has been a surge in cinematic, literary, and television portrayals of vampiric and werewolf culture. Stanescu addresses the ways in which these representations challenge the discourse on vampnormativity in relation to the naturalization of speciesism. These challenges are evident in compulsory omnivorism and the rhetoric’s of mortality Rasmus Simonsen writes the third essay, A Queer Vegan Manifesto, and takes a closer look at the ways in which veganism is experienced. Simonsen examines the role of veganism in the process of identity (re)formation. Veganism, as a socio-cultural influence on identity, is influenced by intricacies of individual circumstance. Simonsen interrogates the ways in which veganism is constructed by subjectivities, and performed as an act of queer challenge to omnivore-normativity. In the fourth essay, Operation Splash Back!: Queering Animal Liberation Through the Contributions of Neo-Insurrectionist Queers, Michael Loadenthal expands on the notion of normativity in relation to exclusionary politics within the queer liberation movement. Loadenthal utilizes the framework of total liberation in relation to the anarchist queer insurrectionary network, Bash Back!. The rhetorical analysis of Bash Back! moves the discussion outside of the Academy. Loadenthal asserts that an anti-speciesist framework must be integrated into the political analyses widely advocated by queer anarchists Debra Erenberg’s "Strategies for Liberation" is published in the Strategy and Tactic section. In this section, Debra Erenberg offers a historical trajectory of LGBTQ liberation movements throughout U.S. history. In her plenary address delivered at the Animal Rights 2011 National Conference in Los Angeles, Erenberg provides strategic insight into successful movement organizing. The assessment and overview of social movement organizing is astutely applied to the animal rights movement. 5 Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012 (ISSN1948-352X) The solitary contribution in the Comic section comes from Nathan Stevens-Griffin. The comic titled, “A Queer Approach to Speciesism,” utilizes a comic frame to queer the assumed (and privileged) method of expressing theory in written text. Through both content and form, the comic provides an accessible overview of how queer thought and CAS complement each other within a total liberation discourse. In the Film Review section, I examine the film “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011) in relation to queering anthropocentric portrayals of liberation. The film, albeit a cinematized Hollywood rendering, captures the ideological tension within critical animal studies regarding anti-speciesist revolution. From the heroic Green Hill direct rescue in Italy to the cow named Cincinnati Freedom that hopped a slaughterhouse fence and resides at Farm Sanctuary, Watkins Glen, NY, animal liberations take many forms. Although the film portrays a primate-led uprising against systematized captivity, the anthropomorphized chimpanzee, Caesar, perpetuates speciesist logic. Caesar is only capable of leading the revolution in so far as he is manipulated through biotechnology and human enculturation. The revolution ultimately begins with Caesar’s defiant utterance, “NO.” Regardless of intention, the film manages to toggle multiple competing positions on what constitutes animal liberation. This issue demonstrates a multitude of theoretically significant intersections between critical animal studies and queer thought.