Corey Wrenn. 2016. A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Applying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.
ISBN: 978-1-137-43464-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-43465-4
DOI: 10.1057/9781137434654
Click here to purchase from Amazon.
Click here to view a sample chapter, purchase the book, or purchase individual chapters from the publisher’s page.
This title was reviewed by the Journal of Animal Ethics and Contemporary Sociology.
Corey Wrenn. 2019. Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits. The University of Michigan Press.
Given their tendency to splinter over tactics and goals, social movements are rarely unified. While most scholars agree factionalism can be a major hurdle for successful mobilization, existing research is limited. Following the modern Western animal rights movement over thirty years, Piecemeal Protest applies the sociological theory of Bourdieu, Goffman, Weber, and contemporary social movement researchers to examine structural conditions facilitating factionalism in today’s era of professionalized advocacy.
Modern social movements are dominated by bureaucratically-oriented nonprofits, a special arrangement which creates significant tension between activists and movement elites who compete for success in a corporate political arena. Piecemeal Protest examines the impact of nonprofitization on factionalism and a movement’s ability to mobilize, resonate, and succeed. Corey Lee Wrenn’s exhaustive content analysis of archival movement literature and exclusive interviews with movement leaders illustrate how entities with greater symbolic capital are positioned to monopolize claimsmaking, disempower competitors, and replicate hegemonic power, eroding democratic access to dialogue and decision-making essential for movement health.
Piecemeal Protest examines social movement behavior shaped by capitalist ideologies and state interests. Heavy factional boundary maintenance may prevent critical discourse within the movement, and may provoke the symbolic appropriation of radical claimsmaking for bureaucratic ends and radical suppression. As power concentrates to the disadvantage of marginalized factions in the modern social movement arena, Piecemeal Protest shines light on processes of factionalism and considers how, in the age of nonprofits, intra-movement inequality could stifle social progress.
ISBN: 978-0-472-13167-9
eBook ISBN: B0822JH4YR
DOI: 10.3998/mpub.11301441
Click here to purchase from Amazon.
Click here to view a sample chapter, purchase the book, or purchase individual chapters from the publisher’s page.
Cover art by Lynda Bell. Click here to purchase prints from the artist’s website.
Corey Wrenn. 2021. Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony. State University of New York Press.
The first exploration of vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism.
Irish vegan studies are poised for increasing relevance as climate change threatens the legitimacy and longevity of animal agriculture and widespread health problems related to animal product consumption disrupt long held nutritional ideologies. Already a top producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, Ireland has committed to expanding animal agriculture despite impending crisis. The nexus of climate change, public health, and animal welfare present a challenge to the hegemony of the Irish state and neoliberal European governance. Efforts to resist animal rights and environmentalism highlight the struggle to sustain economic structures of inequality in a society caught between a colonialist past and a globalized future. Animals in Irish Society explores the vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism. From its zoomorphic pagan roots to its legacy of vegetarianism, Ireland has been more receptive to the interests of other animals than is currently acknowledged. More than a land of “meat” and potatoes, Ireland is a relevant, if overlooked, contributor to Western vegan thought.
ISBN: 978-1-4384-8435-8
Click here to purchase from Amazon.
Click here to view a sample chapter, purchase the book, or purchase individual chapters from the publisher’s page.
Corey Wrenn. 2026. Vegan Witchcraft: Contemporary Magical Practice and Multispecies Social Change. Routledge.
Vegan Witchcraft is the first book to blend theories of animal rights, feminism, and modern witchcraft in pursuit of total liberation.
Perhaps the most foundational of all ethics in modern witchcraft is the creed: “Do no harm”. Despite this, multispecies suffering persists in nonvegan witchcraft. Vegan Witchcraft examines this intriguing conflict, unpacking the role of Nonhuman Animals in modern witchcraft from a vegan feminist perspective to illuminate inequalities that persist in alternative spiritual practices in the West. Recognizing Nonhuman Animals as comrades instead of consumables, vegan witchcraft confronts the harm imposed on nature, humans, and other animals and identifies witchery as a powerful conduit for social change that draws its energy from plant-based foods, multispecies solidarity, and feminine power. The book critically analyses popular witchcraft pathways in Britain and America to interrogate the many ways in which Nonhuman Animals are overlooked, objectified, or exploited, highlighting theological inconsistencies and missed opportunities that might be overcome to create a stronger practice for women and their communities. It reimagines witchcraft practice and lore to manifest justice and compassion for fellow humans, Nonhuman Animals, and nature. Veganism is advanced as a magical practice of self-care, community responsibility, conscious consumption, societal transformation, and environmental protection. The book calls for the redirection of the modern witch’s path toward a just world and away from the systematic symbolic and material exploitation of Nonhuman Animals that permeates witchcraft today.
This book will be essential reading for those interested in critical animal studies, animal rights, ecofeminism, vegan religious studies, environmental philosophy, and witchcraft.
ISBN: 9781032649719
Click here to purchase from Amazon.
Click here to view a sample chapter, purchase the book, or purchase individual chapters from the publisher’s page.