'Queering Veganism'

‘Do Not Disturb’: Mundane Reconnaissance #CPAS2012

I think I nearly had a nervous breakdown this weekend. I didn’t, because my friend Jess Groling is one of the most organised and clever people I know, and also because Daniel Van Strien, Nikki Shaw, Lou Squire and Chris Calvert are all excellent to work alongside. But at one point it definitely nearly happened.

Yes, we were the organising committee of Critical Perspectives on Animals in Society, a conference held at Exeter University last Saturday. Click here to see the website.

[Here is Daniel, Nikki and Myself during the opening plenary. Photo taken by Tereza Vandrovcová]

Being an organiser was a tale of twists and turns. As I am based up in Durham, it was very difficult to really know precisely how stuff is working out when the thing you are helping organise is so far away, but I did my best to help as much as I could. In truth, this came mainly in the form of graphic design stuff, offering my thoughts on various decisions during our weekly online meetings, sending the odd email, and taking the lead when it came to organising the after-conference entertainment (a fundraiser for the local Hunt Saboteurs, with live music and poetry).

The conference itself went off without a hitch, thanks largely to Jess’s meticulous planning and problem solving skills. The 6am start wasn’t as awful as I feared it would be, but it did catch up with me eventually. Near to 150 people attended, including academics, activists, other interested parties, and combinations thereof. The keynote speaker was Richard Ryder (who famously invented the term ‘speciesism’). Other speakers included Kim Stallwood, my good friend Lee McConnell, and Nicole Schafer [via Skype from New Zealand]. 

The day consisted of a combination of conventional academic panel sessions, with 15 minute talks followed by questions, as well as hour-long group-discussion focussed workshop sessions, as well as rooms full of stalls from various animal related groups (including the League Against Cruel Sports, Viva! and Farplace Animal Santuary). We even had some poetry and art on display, and we showed some short films too. It was a lot to cram into one day and there were some terrible schedule clashes (which happens at any conference, but feels even worse, when it’s one you’ve helped timetable). As a result I missed some great stuff. But such was the breadth of great stuff happening. 

In addition I was tasked with chairing a panel for the first time, which was a daunting experience. It’s a lot of pressure, more than I would have guessed, especially when you have to cut someone off, or force them to wrap up.

I also gave a paper too, in a panel called ‘Theoretical Perspectives’. The two papers before mine were great, one by Hannah Strommen on applying Derrida to the representation of animals in the Bible, and one by Catherine Duxbury on ecofeminism and essentialism. It was a really good fit. My paper was called ‘Doing Critical Animal Studies Differently: Learning from Lorde’, and it was about how I’ve used Lorde’s insights to guide the epistemology of what I’m doing. I didn’t expect that it would be too contentious in the context of the conference, BUT I was met with my first really hostile response at a conference so far, during the questioning. 

[Audre Lorde]

After I’d finished. an individual raised their hand and said that they were “disturbed by my research” and also, bizarrely, that they imagined I’d be pleased about that (they never elaborated on why I’d be pleased that my work was ‘disturbing’). In the heat of the moment it struck me as pretty sensationalist to describe what I’m doing (i.e. using comics, as well as the written word, in a PhD thesis) as something ‘disturbing’, especially at a conference highlighting the unmitigated horrors of animal abuse and exploitation, and so I immediately felt myself becoming defensive. But aside from that it just felt like there was a genuine malice in the way the criticism was levelled (and a very distracting amount of blustering, sighing and eye rolling as I tried to give my talk). Maybe I was too sensitive after a difficult day, but I really did feel I was being personally attacked.

The source of this individual’s ire was that they felt that using comics as a mode of representation undermined a very serious issue (that is animal exploitation), and that in doing so I risk jeopardising the hard work done by those who have gone before me in getting the issue of animals on the agenda. The individual explained that they had tried for years, unsuccessfully, to get funding for their animal-positive research, and were only now seeing it happen, and they were concerned that I was going to come along and destroy the reputation of human-animal scholars everywhere. And I see the point.

But unfortunately animals aren’t really on the agenda.

And what I’m doing, isn’t likely to undermine anyone. I’m simply asking for a tiny bit of breathing space in the way we represent our work.

Crucially, I think the comments came from someone who sees the medium of comics as something childish and unsophisticated. There is a growing breadth of literature which strongly and fervently argues the exact opposite. But besides that. to write off an entire artistic, literary and journalistic medium as being ‘not serious enough’ seems problematic to me anyway.

The irony is that I usually devote some time to talking about how comics have had a bad reputation in the past, but that they are increasingly being embraced as a potentially very serious, nuanced and multi-faceted medium for communication and narrative, which have, in one form or another, been around for centuries. I assumed that a room full of folks cool enough to give a shit about animals would already be on board with comics as something viable and interesting in an academic context. That’s why you should never assume…

[A few panels from Scott McCloud’s (1993) ‘Understanding Comics’. A strong argument in defence of the medium.] 

As it became apparent that this individual was annoyed at me, I felt something click in my mind. The stress of the build up to the conference, of driving however many hours to get there, of making sure things were running smoothly, of worrying about things going wrong, of ensuring we had a back up plan if they did, etc had made me push my own paper to the back of my consciousness. I assumed it’d be okay.

Then this person had their say, and I thought “why always me?” I made a fight or flight decision and dealt with it quite combatively, but I think that’s what the situation called for. At the time it felt that the person had dispensed with any semblance of respect in the way they were addressing me, so I showed a similar level of concern for their feelings in my response. Which, in the heat of the moment, might have come across as a bit blunt. But whatever. I was ill, and tired, and stressed, and evidently on the verge of hysterics. Eventually a video of the exchange will emerge and I will have a nervous breakdown. I probably drank about 3 pints of water in the space of 3 minutes, just because I didn’t know what to do about my shaky hands. 

I think I defended myself robustly, and that most of the room was on my side (probably). I don’t like the idea of attendees having to pick sides, especially in a panel session, it’s just too simplistic and undermines the complexity of the issues surrounding my presentation. But I feel like the way the way the question was asked created a very antagonistic and adversarial atmosphere for me to respond in. I did my best.

Anyway, after all that, the prospect of a partly ad-libbed closing plenary seemed a breeze, and we managed it somehow. After the conference, I rushed off to pick up a PA system from my friend Rory, and then rushed off to get some (delicious) food at Herbies, then rushed off the the NBI pub, for the gig. This included poetry from Lorraine Parker, and music from Rory (Some Sort of Threat) and my band (ONSIND). I was way too frazzled, ill and tired to have any idea how I performed musically, but I think it was probably okay, and according to the hunt sabs present, the show raised about 3 weeks worth of petrol money (with weekly petrol being somewhere in the region of £70). Pretty good going really.

[Some Sort of Threat, performing live at the NBI Exeter. Photo taken by Tereza Vandrovcová]

Then after some late night shennanigans dropping off equipment etc, and some late night decaffinated cups of tea back at Jess’s house, we all finally got some sleep. The next day, we drove the 6 or so hours back to Durham, and spent the rest of the day in brain-resting mode, slumped in front of a monitor watching mindless, but amusing sitcoms. 

One thing I keep thinking about, is how lucky I am to have the friends I have. It’s a shame they tend to be dotted around the place, but it really was great having everyone together for that day, and in amongst the anxiety and stress, there was a lot of fun and laughter too. It was especially good to have a strong North East contingent there, as well as some of the wonderful Sheffield Animal Friends folks. Sheffield has become a bit of a second home for me lately, so it was amazing to have a few of them in attendance.

I guess by way of conclusion I should say that, now that the dust has settled a little, I feel really proud to have been involved in something that brought so many amazing people together; something that avoided the strong pressure to charge for attendance; something that worked against (and within) dehumanizing bureaucracy to produce something with a genuine humaneness at its core; something that sought to create a positive, productive dialogue between activists and academics, people who share the same goals, but haven’t always had the best relationship in the past; something that sought not just to talk about human-animal relations, but to dismantle cruelty and oppression full stop; I feel tired, and ill (still), but proud none-the-less.  

It’d be great to build on this momentum somehow, and make CPAS something more than just a one off. Who knows, maybe we’ll do it again next year! 

If I can stave off a breakdown, that is.

Breaking Edge for Thatcher

There’s this film coming out soon about Thatcher, called The Iron Lady or something, and people keep asking me if I’m going to see it.

I’m not going to see it.

It makes me sick thinking about it. That’s how much I hate her. And I do hate her. It’s irrational and weird but I do. When images of her come on the TV the hairs on the back of my neck prick up, and my heart beats faster. It’s as close to pure loathing as I ever really get. So when people ask me if I’m going to see a factually inaccurate, sympathetic Hollywood take on her life, I tell them “no, I’m not” and grind my teeth til they’re nubs.

Anyone who knows me knows at least a bit about my politics. And anyone who knows me well, knows how I feel about Thatcher. I was once reprimanded at secondary school for repeatedly referring to her as ‘Thatcher’ in a discussion during a history lesson. I was about 12. The other kids were all saying Margaret Thatcher, or Mrs Thatcher as is customary; but the venom in my deliberate delivery of only her surname was apparent to the teacher. In my house growing up, Thatcher was about as bad a word as it gets. I hate her, and I always have. It’s been socialised in me. A lot of people in the North East, who lived through the 80s feel the same way, and that tribal hatred seeped into my blood through osmosis.

But it doesn’t really make sense.

Don’t get me wrong. Just about everything she thought, said or did was entirely antithetical to everything I stand for. So it stands to reason that I’d dislike her, but those were not my battles. Cameron should be my number one enemy right now. And I do hate Cameron. But what I feel for Thatcher is a special kind of hatred. It’s phsyiological. It goes beyond common sense. It’s unpleasant. It’s literally painful to carry with me. And why? There are so many people who were and still are so much worse than her, who I don’t have the same vitriol for. It’s entirely inconsistent.

The sad truth is that it’s probably rooted in learned sexism, or rather, Patriarchy.

I gave up drinking around the same time I started identifying firmly as a Feminist. I was in the car on the way to Lancaster University in October 2004. My mam and dad were in the front and my sister was in the back with me. I remember it pretty clearly. We’d just gotten onto the M6 after a short stop in Barnard Castle to buy a TV ariel, and we started talking about drinking. I’d openly toyed with the idea of giving up drink a little, and discussed it with my mam before that trip. She is teetotal too. In the car I just came out and said “I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna drink from now on”. My family didn’t seem too surprised. My mam even said, “if they give you any stick just tell them your mother is an alcoholic and that’ll shut them up”. She isn’t, and it was kind of her to potentially fracture her reputation to alleviate the stigma I might suffer. I didn’t ever say that (for fear of karmic reprisals). But I did suffer stigma. I don’t experience it so much now, because over the years I’ve built up a kind, critical-minded and supportive friendship group for whom my lifestyle is not something to relentlessly interrogate. But when I talk to ‘normals’ (or ‘muggles’ if you prefer), they can’t help but ask me the same boring questions about why I don’t drink. Ultimately, the choice is mine, and it’s none of their business. I don’t drink, and my reasons are many, varied and crucially, my own.

Nowadays I tend to refer to my lifestyle as straight edge more often than not. It’s a complex term that I’ve avoided at times, chiefly because of the hysteria it’s often greeted with, and also because I tend to refrain from absolutism. As I enter my late twenties and still feel no burgeoning desire to start engaging with drink culture I am more confident in ‘claiming’ edge. At this point, many of my closest friends have never really seen me drunk.

I used to get drunk quite a lot. Most weekends from the age of about 15 to 18. Those were crazy, idiotic days. I was depressed (although I didn’t know it back then), and being drunk every Friday and Saturday didn’t really help at all. I still suffer with it, and that is one of the main reasons I still avoid alcohol and other depressants. At the time I was also deeply love struck and quite often heart broken. I have many daft stories. I did all manner of stupid things. I fell asleep outdoors, I vomited on myself, I got in fights with my friends, I said things I didn’t mean, I said things I did mean, I cried, I screamed, I vomited on other people, in amongst it all, I occasionally had some fun.

It was all pretty stupid and self-destructive. Nowadays, I prefer to be self-destructive in different, mores subtle ways (like writing deeply personal, semi-confessional blog entries on an academic blog). Whilst it all seems a distant memory now, (last time I got properly drunk was 2004) the thing that really annoys me still is the way some people place drink in a hierarchy of ‘fun’ in relation to my life. That one can never really have proper, high-quality fun until one drinks, and furthermore that one day, I will drink and I’ll see how great it is. But that’s bullshit. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with people who choose to drink (generally). Afterall, my brother is a brewer, if everyone stopped drinking he’d be out of a job, and I’d be short of a gnarly birthday present come next November.

If anyone ever accuses me of being judgemental I say “but some of my best friends are drunk”.

I don’t hate the player, I hate the game. 

Back at Lancaster University, in the same week I made that relatively impulsive decision to stop drinking, I made an equally impulsive decision to sign up to a Women’s Studies course. Within a month I was a died-in-the-wool Feminist, and I have been ever since. That course was by far the best thing about a fairly miserable year I spent studying at that university (aside from a few very good friends I made when I was there). I was raised by lefty parents, a teacher and a social worker, peace activists, socialists, vegetarians. It was only through taking that women’s studies course that I started to move beyond a pavlovian loyalty to my parents politics, towards the truly personal critical outlook I hold today. To move beyond tribal loyalties into rational (and emotional) arguments bourn out of my own experiences and ideas. Not rooted in a past I was too young to remember, CND, the Miner’s Strike, Greenham Common, the longest suicide note in history…

Yet I still hate Thatcher more than anyone.

The typical argument is that Margaret Thatcher is hated more than others simply because she was worse than others. She was nastier, less compassionate. Her policies hurt more people. And I agree to an extent. But I think there’s more to it. I think regardless of what anyone says, her lack of compassion, her coldness and her strength, were deemed to be particularly jarring because she was also a woman. The tribal dislike that I inherited as a member of the North East community is rooted in a fundamentally sexist notion; that a powerful, evil woman is innately worse than a powerful evil man, because not only is she powerful and evil, but she’s also a woman. 

For years their has been an understanding between myself and my friends that the day Thatcher dies will be a day where we all come together and celebrate wildly. In the days when I was less confident in my lifestyle choices, less able to defend myself in the face of hostility, I’d offer Thatcher’s death as a time I’d be willing get drunk in celebration. This appeased the hostile ones as it brought me down to their level, they no longer saw me as being ‘on a high horse’, as I’d acknowledged an unspecified future date where I would ‘get drunk’ like them and thus ‘be normal’. But it was a palliative solution. And the further long I’ve got with not drinking, the more I’d see it as a waste to drink upon her death. There are many reasons why it would be shit of me to do it:

1) It reaffirms the idea that drinking is the ‘ultimate’ way to have fun. That it is hierarchically superior in relation to sober fun. It’s for the very special occasions.

2) It breaks a pattern I’ve worked long and hard to maintain. Sure I have had little sips of booze here and there, I’ve even had a shot and some other minor slip ups. But I’ve never been drunk. I’d like to keep it that way.

3) It ultimately flies in the face of the very positive life changes I made that week in Lancaster. It ignores my own political journey and current battles in favour of the ones had by my parents. It ignores my own life choices regarding drink, in favour of a cultural hegemony which I spend most of my days trying to resist.

But further to that, I think anyone who knows me, and loves me, would not want to see me drunk. I think they’d get some mild entertainment from it in a ‘oh that’s what he’s like when he slurs his words’ kind of way, but nothing more. A hollow, superficial bit of fun. I think the ones who really care would want me to celebrate with them the way I always have. No less fun to be around, no less willing to let go, and dancing my pants off, sober as a judge.

I haven’t read back over this entry before posting it. That’s very rare for me. But something tells me Thatcher isn’t long for this world (we’ve already seen Gaddafi, Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il kick the bucket this year, surely she’s near the top of any cosmic destiny list those fuckers might all be on together).

I want to publicly state beforehand that in the event that she does ever die, I will not be celebrating by getting drunk.

I’ll be celebrating, but for my own reasons, and in my own way.

The only way I know how.

80,000 Years

A long day is over and conference number four is now officially in the bag. I’m not sure which bag, or why it being in a bag is a good thing, but that’s where it is. So there.

Yesterday afternoon I presented at the BSA (British Sociological Association) Auto/Biography Study Group Annual Christmas Conference at the British Library in London. I enjoyed it, but it was only a one day conference so it felt like it was over really fast.

I should say that I arrived in London on Thursday night and attended a neat little art show featuring three talented friends (Megan Pickering, Joe Towns and AlexCF). Will and Lucy met me at King’s Cross to show me the way to the art space, otherwise I’d have been consumed by the London chaos. It was lovely to see their friendly faces greeting me to what can be a pretty hostile city, especially after enduring a train packed with Durham students heading south for winter (like birds- you know, because birds fly south for winter). After the show, we went for Thai food then we headed home, watched an episode of Jonathan Creek and headed to bed, ready for a 7am start.

So it turns out the British Library is a pretty big deal. Apparently, if you read 5 books a day, it would take you over 80,000 years to read everything in there. They get a copy of every new book published in the UK and Ireland (3 million new items are added every year). However, as good as it might look to have presented in ‘The Dickens Room’ at the British Library, it was in fact a pretty standard conference venue (albeit a little posher than usual), but in a building adjacent to the Library itself (I only actually went in the BL to get lunch from the cafe- overpriced lentil salad, an apple and a banana, if you must know). 

I was the first one to arrive, as it didn’t take me as long as I would have expected to get there from Will and Lucy’s (my ever so generous hosts). I sat by myself in the Eliot room, and waited for other folks to arrive. Eventually they did. In truth, I was quite surprised by how many of the presentations I saw were simply written papers, read aloud. It’s a style I’m not that familiar with. Without any disrespect to those presenters (who were all very interesting) it just seems to be a very static and formal way to present ones work. As much as my rambling incoherence may seem unprofessional in comparison, its really not something I feel like I need to worry about. I’d rather be less formal, and more dialogical about the way I present.

My presentation went well aside from having a noticeably small turnout. I’d say, roughly 75% of the people went to the other talk (there was only ever a maximum of two simultaneous sessions). The people who watched me talk all seemed to enjoy it, and I even had a couple of people tell me afterwards that they wished they’d come to see it because they heard it was good (mind you, it’s easy to seem fresh and interesting by rabbiting on about comics towards the end of a long day of serious discussions; I’m in danger of becoming the academic comic relief). It was a good experience. The comments were interesting and helpful (especially about the implicit moral absolutism of veganism, and about the epistemological implications of what I’m doing) so I left feeling pretty good. Afterwards I managed to do an interview for my PhD too! Bonus!

Then later, back at Will and Lucy’s, loads of (nice) people came over and we all ate a massive, amazing vegan dinner, and then watched a film called Cyrus, which I thought was actually pretty good. I guess my expectations of it were pretty low beforehand given that Jonah Hill was on the cover doing a wanker sign, so it’s safe to say I was pleasantly surprised. 

Anyway, apparently it’s been snowing in Durham, which is pretty exciting. I head back home today at 5:30. Before then I’m just gonna hang out with Will, and maybe, possibly, potentially see my dear friend Yanis Philippakis.

So, another largely unexciting update.

My sincerest apologies.

As a reward for getting through it, here’s a link to the High Dive album, which is class.

Killing Time…

December Update

So, I haven’t updated this in a shamefully long time, but I have been doing stuff. Lots of stuff. For example: I’ve been to Nottingham to host a workshop for the Nottingham University Institute for Science and Society about comics in social research; I’ve been helping with the organisation of a post-grad conference on Critical Animal Studies to be held in Exeter next March (more info and call for papers here); I’ve been continuing my role sitting on the board of two local charities DPET and NEPACS; I’ve been teaching on a third year Globalisation module at Durham University; I’ve been helping publicise a new Onsind 12” (split with Calvinball and Apologies, I Have None) and writing some new songs with Daniel; I’ve been conducting some interviews and enlisting new participants to my PhD research; I’ve been making a comic about Audre Lorde for ilivesweat; I’ve been taking part in the day of industrial action against the cuts to public sector pensions (and the rest); I’ve been preparing to present at a Biographies conference in London next week; I’ve been turning 26 years old and devouring this amazing vegan birthday cake that my sister made me:

In case you don’t already know, this is a reference to one of my all time favourite songs from one of my all time favourite movies ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’.

I think you can probably agree that this is the best cake ever!

I was spoiled rotten on my birthday, it was really cool. I feel like my mind is getting younger as my body ages. This is evidenced in my presents, which included a crate of Fiery Irn Bru and a Nerf Gun from Laura da Costa, A proper old fashioned wooden sledge from my parents, and some vegan jelly babies from my sister. And that isn’t even the tip of the ice berg of presents. I got loads!

Anyway, now I’m back to the reality of catching up on the work that I have to do soon but don’t want to do at all, just so I can get on with the work that I want to do now but have to do later.

Phew.

Regarding teaching, I have contemplated going into detail about my experiences with teaching, as it is something that many PhD students do, and thus fits with the premise of this ‘blog’, but alas, I feel it might eventually reach the attention of the technology savvy students, and that would probably not be a good thing. Not that I have anything bad to say about any of them really, just, it wouldn’t be very professional of me to comment in any detail I don’t think. What I will say is that, whilst Globalization is not a topic I have ever been particularly passionate about, I am enjoying my role and I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of many of the presentations students have given. Because of staff shortages in the department, I was charged with designing the seminars for the year. I was given a general plan, reading lists etc, but I had to come up with presentation topics and seminar questions, which is a lot of work, and responsibility for someone as new to teaching as I am. I think I’ve done a pretty good job though. Although the feedback forms may say otherwise. But yeah, that’s all I’m saying, for now at least.

I’ve had a couple of breakthroughs regarding my research. But I can’t really talk about either of those yet either. Eventually I will, but for now, I’ve got to keep it all under my ubiquitous hat. 

So, yeah. Sorry, this entry was nothing more than me treading water for a while. It didn’t really say much, or offer much analysis, except to perhaps defend my lack of updates. Full Disclosure though: I have been watching a LOT of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia too. So it’s not all been work.

In fact, I’d say it’s been about 5% work.