🌱📗🐀 i read half of this book that my friend lent me: "expanding the critical animal studies imagination essays in solidarity and total liberation."
this is my review of this book of essays by multiple authors: 8/10
i like how foreword is about intersectional revolutionary veganism, especially in these times of vegan-washing and queer-washing of the zionist nakba.
for the most part, the language is dense and academic. this is a university book. they write »I pursue this scrutiny by holding an anthropological lens to the quotidian components of metropolis life,« instead of »let's look at a day in the city«. that style of writing is hard for me to read.
the essay that confused me the most was "create meat though the world may perish: a vegan critique of in vitro meat and clean milk" by nathan poirier.
nathan argues strongly against cultured meat: »But for "the animal" [...] IVM represents the ultimate oppression: nonexistence.« in the book there are a few other essays critical of natalism and critical of breeding »monsters«, but here nathan is making a natalist argument that echoes a pig farmer saying that if he didn't breed the pigs into existence, then they wouldn't even be alive, and therefore he is liberating them from non-existence.
nathan also presents the argument of »cultured meat as violence« and that it ruins the »good relationships« that hunters have with the »moose, salmon, deer« who they kill. i would be extremely worried if such a person was seeking a »good relationship« with me!
then there is some talking bad about carol adams whose »uncritical support« of cultured meat is »an incompatability with veganism and total liberation.« nathan writes that carol »made [him] feel like it was inappropriate for [him] as a graduate student to question her,« and that she »brushed off critiques of her theory on the sexual politics of meat«.
the cover art on the book is very nice. it has a squirrel leaping up to smash a surveillance camera. there is a machine gun shooting flowers. syringes and lab mice. a fetus orbiting planet earth. it is by ren suchyta-korany.
there is also an essay about why you shouldn't fly. my friend wrote that. she is right: don't fly.
my review score: 10/10 for being intersectional vegan book with cool cover, -1 for natalism, -1 for being pro-hunting: 8/10
#bookreview #criticalanimalstudies #veganism #vegan #intersectionality #natalism #hunting #dontfly #universitybooks #intersectionalveganism