Activism – Page 2 – Corey Lee Wrenn, Ph.D.

Plant-based Catering at the University of Kent

Dr. Corey WrennDecember 11, 2022April 25, 2025

As an institution where scientific research is conducted to influence policy, global relations, and public wellbeing, the University of Kent has a responsibility to lead by example. Sustainable campaigning taking place across campus demonstrates that many Kent students agree.

Essays

Appropriating Anti-Slavery Abolitionism in Anti-Speciesism Claimsmaking

Dr. Corey WrennMay 23, 2022

Human and nonhuman abolitionist movements, despite their similarities, remain two distinct movements, each with unique social, political, economic, and historical circumstances.

Essays

A Critique of Open Rescues

Dr. Corey WrennMay 8, 2022May 10, 2022

Open rescues, although exciting and heroic, unfortunately maintain the system as it is. This tactic therefore protects the interests of conservative foundations that maintain most grant monies. Open rescues also give non-profits something to write about and fund-raise behind.

Essays

Rape as an Anti-Speciesism Tactic and the Vegan Male Discourse

Dr. Corey WrennApril 22, 2022April 22, 2022

Can analogies be helpful for advancing anti-speciesism? Sometimes. Capitalizing on rape culture to scare women into compliance is cruel, however. I cannot imagine how that would be psychologically persuasive, only traumatizing.

Essays

Activism Amidst COVID-19

Dr. Corey WrennDecember 4, 2020December 4, 2020

On December 2nd, I moderated a panel on UK/US activism in the midst of COVID-19 as co-director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements.

Presentations

Gender and Victorian Animal Advocacy

Dr. Corey WrennJuly 3, 2020July 8, 2020

Although the nonhuman animal rights movement in the West is frequently framed by activists and remembered by historians as gender-neutral, Donald’s (2020) Women against Cruelty (which examines meeting notes and campaigning documents reaching back toContinue reading

Essays

Vegan Protest is Ritualized, but is it Religious?

Dr. Corey WrennJune 19, 2019June 19, 2019

In my review of For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism in the peer-reviewed journal Social Movement Studies, I consider the appropriateness of author Sarah Pike's argument that religiosity motivates radical anti-speciesism. AlthoughContinue reading

Publications

Atheists and Agnostics Largest ‘Religious’ Demographic in Animal Rights

Dr. Corey WrennJune 18, 2019June 18, 2019

In my publication with Environmental Values, I explore some interesting, if unintended findings from an earlier survey of nearly 300 American vegans I conducted in March of 2017. When asked to report their religious affiliation,Continue reading

Publications

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).