Essays – Page 12 – Corey Lee Wrenn, Ph.D.

Vegan Ethics and the Case for Black Widow Spiders

Dr. Corey WrennSeptember 17, 2017February 2, 2019

The ethical conundrum created by human interactions with poisonous species is one that tests the limits of vegan ethics. What is the correct path of action if one should come across a potentially deadly blackContinue reading

Essays

Peter Singer and the Charity of Western Imperialism

Dr. Corey WrennSeptember 11, 2017January 4, 2019

Covert Capitalism and Western Benevolence A current fad in social justice strategy is the concept of "effective altruism," made popular in vegan circles by wealthy Princeton University professor and "father" of the Nonhuman Animal rightsContinue reading

Essays

A Vegan Feminist Response to Nonhumans First

Dr. Corey WrennSeptember 4, 2017December 1, 2018

Content Warning: This post contains graphic descriptions of violent anti-speciesism protests which involve racism, sexual assault, violence against women, and child abuse. The Logic of Non-Humans First! As intersectionality discourse has gained resonance inContinue reading

Essays

Animal Abolitionism, a 19th Century Holdover

Dr. Corey WrennJuly 25, 2017December 1, 2018

The desire to totally liberate other animals from human oppression is generally thought a product of late 20th century imagining. In today's capitalistic movement, activists and organizations scramble to specialize and copyright their particular brandContinue reading

Essays

Colonizing England and the Naming of Animals

Dr. Corey WrennJuly 2, 2017December 16, 2018

While many recognize Great Britain as a great imperialist power responsible for untold suffering over the centuries, some might be surprised to learn that the island itself was the site of extensive colonization priorContinue reading

Essays

Are Teddy Bears Vegan? President Roosevelt and the SPCA

Dr. Corey WrennMay 15, 2017December 7, 2018

Speciesism, like any ideology of oppression, is effective in its banality. Consider the "teddy bear." Have you ever stopped to consider its origin? It is not so cuddly as you might imagine. Teddy bears traceContinue reading

Essays

The Thug Kitchen Cookbook and the Problem of Vegan Blackface

Dr. Corey WrennFebruary 27, 2017January 26, 2019

In 2014, it was revealed that the authors of the Thug Kitchen, a best selling cookbook utilizing basic ingredients, colloquial Black English, and gangster tropes, were white identified. To begin, I believe their intentions were good. Similar toContinue reading

Essays

On Moral Relativism and Animal Liberation

Dr. Corey WrennJanuary 14, 2017December 30, 2018

White Veganism Intersectionality is a concept that is often rejected in the Nonhuman Animal movement, a problem that is strategically calamitous. The movement is mostly white-identified, meaning that most leaders and rank-and-file activists fail toContinue reading

Essays

Are Animal Crackers Vegan?

Dr. Corey WrennDecember 3, 2016December 1, 2018

Note: Nabisco removed the cage imagery in 2018. See an updated essay on the continued problems with this design here. Dating back to 1902, Barnum's animal crackers have been an American classic for generations. TheContinue reading

Essays

Dr. Wrenn is Senior Lecturer of Sociology with the School of Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016), was elected Chair in 2018, and co-founded the International Association of Vegan Sociologists in 2020. She serves as Book Review Editor for Society & Animals, Consulting Editor for Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations, and past Editor for The Sociological Quarterly, is a member of The Vegan Society’s Research Advisory Committee, and hosts Sociology & Animals Podcast. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), Animals in Irish Society (SUNY Press 2021), Vegan Witchcraft: Contemporary Magical Practice and Multispecies Social Change (forthcoming, Routledge, and Vegan Feminism: History, Theory, Activism (forthcoming, Bloomsbury).