collaboration proposal

Hello fellow students,

I am required to create a collaborative forum/dialogue for a current class. My capstone project will focus on empathy people experience for animals and in particular, the shift that some people experience in which they change their behavior and lifestyle in order to include or benefit animals and animal issues. So, I am thinking about having a blog/listserve in which anyone who wants to can write about the emotions behind their beliefs about animals and daily occurrences which might bring up things you want to talk about. For example, how do you cope with being in a class where you are the only one considering non-humans in the scope of the given situation? How do balance your time as an activist versus being an academic? Is buying 2nd hand leather more economical and logical than seeking vegan sources for shoes? I am imagining a spectrum where we could debate serious ethical dilemmas to just needing to relate to a small group who might have some wisdom to share. We would all be coming to the table so to speak, in the role of student - open minded and encouraging.

If you think you might be interested or are definitely interested, please email me at dianev2@u.washington.edu

Thanks!

NYT on Animal Personalities

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science/06angi.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Really interesting, not for the findings but for the general sense of surprise that animals aren't one big amorphous blob of sameness.

HumaneWatch campaigns against the Humane Society, gets nowhere

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0410/721967.html

Can Animals Be Gay?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html?src=me&ref=homepage

"Muzzling a Movement"

an interesting blog post about animal rights "terrorists"

http://supervegan.com/blog/entry.php?id=1455

Wild Animals Banned from Traveling Circuses (UK)

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/26/wild-animals-banned-traveling-circuses/

It specifies "traveling" circuses, though, so more permanent exhibits won't be affected.

The Femivore's Dilemma

An article on women returning to the earth in their own backyards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/magazine/14fob-wwln-t.html?scp=1&sq=femivore%27s%20dilemma&st=cse

Interesting, this "new" idea of family self-sufficiency through what, one hundred years ago, was simply homemaking, something every woman was expected to be able to do. But why does it have to be a gendered undertaking? And is this just a new way for working-class, stay-at-home mothers to categorize themselves?